Via our friends at the
Canadian Legal History Blog, we have word of the latest release from the Osgoode Society:
The Massey Murder: A Maid, Her Master and the Trial that Shocked a Country, by Charlotte Gray. Here's a
description from the press:
In 1915 Carrie Davies, an 18-year old servant girl in the home of
Charles (Bert) Massey, scion of the famous Massey family, shot and
killed her employer as he entered his house after work. Remarkably,
she was acquitted, and award winning popular historian Charlotte Gray
explains how this happened. Vividly recreating the war time
atmosphere, a press war, and conflicts over crime and gender, she
highlights the role played by the defence lawyer who exploited the
"unwritten law" of an honour killing in a rare Canadian case of jury
nullification.
Blogger
Mary Stokes (Osgoode Hall Law School) offers this additional information:
Those familiar with the Osgoode Society's publications will see
immediately that this is not our usual style. It's more 'popular' than
academic history. This is not to say that it is not the result of
excellent research. Merely that while there is a note on sources and an
index, there are no footnotes, even for dialogue which the author has
reproduced from newspapers and other sources, and there is some creative
licence taken. Says the author, "I imagine, but I do not invent....I
speculate and I interpret...I do so cautiously, and only when I am
confident that I am more likely to be right than wrong..." (xv-xvi).
Less value for professional historians than a more conventional
treatment would have afforded, but a darn good read for everyone.
