Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: A Jury of Her Peers

Author: Susan Glaspell

Narrator: Sara Morsey

Format: Unabridged

Length: 54 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-09-17

Publisher: Spoken Realms

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Susan Glaspell, one of the founders of the Provincetown Players, first published this short story adaptation of her popular one-act play Trifles in 1917. Both story and play have appeared in numerous anthologies.

Inspired by events witnessed during her years as a court reporter in Iowa, Glaspell crafted a story in which two rural women deduce the details of a murder in which a housewife is accused of killing her husband. This nuanced tale revolves around the women's understanding the clues left amidst the "trifles" of the housewife's kitchen.

Performed by professional regional actor Sara Morsey.

Members Reviews:

Five Stars

Great short story!

One of The Best Short Stories I Have Ever Read

I read the short story, "A Jury of Her Peers". I did not read the play. The short story is one of the best short stories I have ever read. I am a retired police officer, 39 years, 31 as a detective. I will not risk spoiling this story. It is the story of a death. But to me, this story is so relevant on so many levels, I am extremely impressed. The men, the officials, seem smug and condescending. In the meantime the women, the "amateurs" figure everything out. What I can not figure out myself is, whether or not what they found would have hurt or helped the female under investigation; either then or now.... And I wonder how Susan Glaspell felt about it. I do not believe I have previously read anything by Susan Glaspell. But I assure you I intend to study her work further. This was excellent.

As I previously stated I do not want to say or do anything to spoil the reading of this story for anyone. If, after reading this story, the reader has a further interest in the emergence of the issue of domestic violence, in literature, from the perspective of a FEMALE author, I respectfully recommend another short story, "Janet's Repentence" by George Eliot, birth name Mary Ann Evans.

Very thought provoking a must read for history enthusiasts

This is a short read but very thought provoking. The two women are truly a jury of peers of the acused in this story. It is a fictional account of a woman arrested for the murder of her husband in the early 1900's. The setting is a rural farm which gives the reader the sense of the isolation that farm women faced each day. The understanding of this isolation enhances the feelings & actions of the women & the desparation the acused must have felt that led her to murder her husband. The book started out as a play based on a real crime of similar nature that Susan Glaspell covered as a journalist for a Des Moines, Iowa newspaper. The crime is the subject of another book that I highly recommend as well. The book is Midnight Assassin: A Murder in America's Heartland by Patricia L. Bryan.

The Jury of Her Peers

Upon reading Susan Glaspell: a Critical Biography in high school, I learned that within the era of Glaspell's most important stories and plays, it was mainly unacceptable to talk outwardly about the issue faced by woman within their homes and marriages. For any writer who chose to raise awareness of these issues, it was necessary to sneak into hard questions and uncomfortable truths through innuendo and suggestion. Jury of Her Peers deals with the investigation of a man's "mysterious" murder.