The Littlehampton Libels Quotes

“Each woman's story, Edith's especially but Rose's too, is a kind of English story told over and over in fiction and film but rarely in works of history; the tragicomedy of someone who could not perform the ordinariness expected of them.”
― Christopher Hilliard, The Littlehampton Libels: A Miscarriage of Justice and a Mystery about Words in 1920s England

“In retrospect it is scarcely believable that insulting letters passing between obscure people in a small town should result in four assize trials and two Court of Criminal Appeal hearings, and claim the time of a distinguished Scotland Yard officer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, and the senior Treasury Counsel.”
― Christopher Hilliard, The Littlehampton Libels: A Miscarriage of Justice and a Mystery about Words in 1920s England

“...it is remarkable that Caroline Johnson was fined a pound for entering Rose Gooding's house, hitting her, and throwing her out into the street, while writing abusive letters warranted imprisonment.”
― Christopher Hilliard, The Littlehampton Libels: A Miscarriage of Justice and a Mystery about Words in 1920s England

“The libels mixed conventional curses—you want boiling in tar, living next to you is like being in hell—with decidedly strange ones. Just what is a 'foxy ass piss country whore'?”
― Christopher Hilliard, The Littlehampton Libels: A Miscarriage of Justice and a Mystery about Words in 1920s England

“But the Littlehampton libels taught him that a miscarriage of justice could occur easily if one condition was satisfied: if a respectable-looking woman was willing to perjure herself. No jury would doubt her.”
― Christopher Hilliard, The Littlehampton Libels: A Miscarriage of Justice and a Mystery about Words in 1920s England