Exploring the economic status of women in the 19th century, author Lilliam Faderman details the true-life case of two young Scottish schoolmistresses who were deprived of their livelihoods after being falsely accused of carrying on an affair in front of their students. Faderman examines the customs and attitudes of the era in relation to women today.

The year: 1811. The place: Edinburgh, Scotland. A student accuses her school mistresses of having sex together. This leads to the immediate withdrawal of all their students and the collapse of their school. To clear their names - which are all they have left - they sue for libel. Drawing on original sources and her own informed imagination, noted feminist scholar Lillian Faderman reconstructs this real-life drama, which inspired Lillian Hellman's Broadway hit The Children's Hour. In court transcripts we follow the witnesses' contradictory testimony. In the judges' notes we see how men interpreted women's behavior in light of their prejudices. Through the testimony of the students of the school we learn about the social and sexual pressures that shaped the lives of nineteenth-century women. And in her personal reflections the author explains the meaning of these events for all women today. The result is a remarkable and gripping work of scholarship, a moving human drama that reveals life as it was truly lived in the nineteenth-century. For this challenge to the honor of two teachers raised troubling issues of class and justice, of social order, of whether or not women were sexual beings, capable of feeling the same desires and needs as men. Provocative and innovative, Scotch Verdict is a brilliant illumination of a crucial moment in women's history. -- from back cover.

The Serapis Classics edition of "The Wilkie Collins Omnibus" contains 13 FULL-LENGTH NOVELS from the master of literature himself! Masterpieces included in our Omnibus: The Woman in White, The Moonstone, After Dark, The Haunted Hotel, The Law and the Lady, Poor Miss Finch, The Queen of Hearts, The Black Robe, The Frozen Deep, My Lady's Money, Hide and Seek, The New Magdalen, & Basil.