Susan Glaspell’s "A Jury of Her Peers" is the short-story version of her play Trifles, which was staged a year before she published "Jury." Essentially the exact same story in two different literary forms, both tell a fictionalized but accurate version of a real-life murder.
As a young reporter in Iowa, Glaspell covered the case of Margaret Hossack, accused of murdering her husband John Hossack, for the Des Moines Daily News in 1901 (see the “Other” section in this ClassicNote for an overview of the actual case).
Over the next decade or so, Glaspell became more personally radicalized as she worked with feminists in Chicago and Boston, married a radical playwright, and spent summers writing in progressive enclaves like Provincetown and Greenwich Village. She was connected with several feminist organizations, including one advocating that women use their birth names. Thus, her interest in depicting women’s marginalization in society, politics, and the legal system was well-established by the time she began writing Trifles.
Trifles was first produced in 1916 and then published in 1920 in Glaspell’s Plays I. "Jury" first appeared in Every Week on March 5, 1917. In 1950, the story was adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, a television show.
In 1980, Sally Heckel made the story into a short film, which won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.
