I have loved in my life both women and men, and I have known the Goodwoman Bethany. Nicholas in the house of Captain John Clayborne, lay with his maid, a woman named Bethany. I do not contest the charge that I, on the Feast of St. As I, before and during this unfortunate lay, was attired as a man, the court proposes to charge me, as a man, with lewd misconduct before the jury, an unmarried servant being unfit to lie with any woman. Nicholas in the house of Captain John Clayborne, did lie with the maid of John Clayborne, the woman known as Great Bessie. The court charges that I, on the Feast of St. I am both a man and a woman, as I said already to the Captain Clayborne when he did ask, and as the three ladies sitting among you in the court might also attest, having after some bickering and contention amongst themselves come to a consensus of my sex based on three independent inspections. I am Philippa Cook, and yes, I know something of devils. Wherein is treated how they came to be a Rogue, and by being so what happened to them.ĭeposition taken before John Pott, Esquire, Governor, James Town, on this 2nd day of April, 1629 “The Daring Life of Philippa Cook the Rogue” by Morgan Thomas The story thus becomes a tale of what it means to desire the ineffable, and to journey toward a state of being as undefined as a gender one wants but can’t quite name. The story of their life catches the interest of a modern-day actor named Mo Silver, who takes their own parallel trip across the Atlantic to procure Cook’s letters, probably counterfeit, while leaving a life and a partner of their own. The story’s title character attests, “I am a man and a woman,” while living in early 17th-century Jamestown, Virginia, before fleeing north after being charged with lewd misconduct for lying with a maid.

“The Daring Life of Philippa Cook the Rogue” exemplifies the most innovative qualities of Thomas’s art-its transparent shifts from back then to now, its moorings and unmoorings, its passing of gender wishes like a runner’s baton across time. Their forthcoming collection, Manywhere, is a landmark not just due to its daring travels across space and time but because the tracks Thomas’s stories leave in their wake refuse to fade, made as they are of subterranean desire.

Morgan Thomas’s stories often start with a historical premise but are not historical per se, as they tackle not just the souls of the dead but of wildly beating hearts across generations. The Daring Life of Philippa Cook the Rogue

The rogue not taken