Engines of Truth: Producing Veracity in the Victorian Courtroom - Hardcover

Schneider, Wendie Ellen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300125666 ISBN 13: 9780300125665

Publisher: YALE UNIV PR, 2016

Synopsis

During the Victorian era, new laws allowed more witnesses to testify in court cases. At the same time, an emerging cultural emphasis on truth-telling drove the development of new ways of inhibiting perjury. Strikingly original and drawing on a broad array of archival research, Wendie Schneider's examination of the Victorian courtroom charts this period of experimentation and how its innovations shaped contemporary trial procedure. Blending legal, social, and colonial history, she shines new light on cross-examination, the most enduring product of this time and the "greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth."

About this title

Review:

"This is one of the most important contributions to the study of the Victorian legal system in a very long time, but its significance goes far wider than that. The author has fashioned a rich cultural history that is authoritative and transnational."--Rohan McWilliam, author of The Tichborne Claimant: A Victorian Sensation--Rohan McWilliam

"No other work has looked at nineteenth-century perjury in Britain in such a sustained way."--Ray Cocks, University of Keele--Ray Cocks

About the Author:

Wendie Schneider teaches history at Iowa State University and is a member of the bar in Massachusetts. She lives in Nevada, IA.

About this edition

• Publisher: YALE UNIV PR
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0300125666
• ISBN 13: 9780300125665
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 280