"Plays" by Susan Glaspell Susan Keating Glaspell was an American playwright, novelist, journalist and actress. This book collects her four completed plays: Trifles, The Outside, The Verge, and Inheritors. Trifles is loosely based on the murder of John Hossack. The Outside centers on two women, Mrs. Patrick and Allie Mayo, who have exiled themselves from the world because of emotional pain caused by their husbands. Inheritors concerns the legacy of an idealistic farmer who wills his highly coveted midwest farmland to the establishment of a college. The Verge follows botanist Claire Archer as she experiments with strange plants in pursuit of creating a new form of life.