The imposteress rabbit-breeder : Mary Toft and eighteenth-century England / Karen Harvey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Harvey, Karen, 1971- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Toft, Mary, 1703-1763.

Toft, Mary.

Impostors and imposture--England--History--18th century.

Impostors and imposture.

History.

Great Britain--History--George I, 1714-1727.

Great Britain.

England.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

x, 211 pages : illustrations, map ; 23 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2020.

Summary:

In October 1726, newspapers began reporting a remarkable event. In the town of Godalming in Surrey, a woman called Mary Toft had started to give birth to rabbits. Several leading doctors - some sent directly by King George I - travelled to examine the woman and she was moved to London to be closer to them. By December, she had been accused of fraud and taken into custody. Mary Toft's unusual deliveries caused a media sensation. Her rabbit births were a test case for doctors trying to further their knowledge about the processes of reproduction and pregnancy. The rabbit births prompted not just public curiosity and scientific investigation, but also a vicious backlash. Based on extensive new archival research, this book is the first in-depth re-telling of this extraordinary story. Karen Harvey situates the rabbit-births within the troubled community of Godalming and the women who remained close to Mary Toft as the case unfolded, exploring the motivations of the medics who examined her, considering why the case attracted the attention of the King and powerful men in government, and following the case through the criminal justice system. The case of Mary Toft exposes huge social and cultural changes in English history. Against the backdrop of an incendiary political culture, it was a time when traditional social hierarchies were shaken, relationships between men and women were redrawn, print culture acquired a new vibrancy and irreverence, and knowledge of the body was remade. But Mary Toft's story is not just a story about the past. In reconstructing Mary's physical, social and mental world, The Imposteress Rabbit Breeder allows us to reflect critically on our own ideas about pregnancy, reproduction, and the body through the lens of the past.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: pt. I Surrey

1. The Town: `peaceable neighbours who are willing to live quietly'

The `chief inhabitants'

Order and disorder in the town

Social relations in the region

Fish, rabbits, and protests

2. The Women: `they workt for me'

Labouring women's lives

The women close at hand

Formidable women

3. The Births: `a Fact of which there was no Instance in Nature'

What the men saw

Ambiguous knowledge

Observation and enquiry

pt. II London

4. The Bagnio: `several persons of distinction

Leicester-Fields and London

The doctors

Intimate power

Officers of Justice

5. Confession: `I was loath She should touch me'

Interrogation

Toft's story

The real deliveries

Sinister women

6. Punishment: `an Abominable Cheat & Imposture

Fear and loathing

The Westminster Bridewell

The face of a criminal

Thwarted desires

pt. III The Public

7. The Press: a `filthy story at best'

Transforming news

`In justice to the Publick'

Roast beef, rabbits, and rabbets

The bawdy Enlightenment

8. Body Politics: `the beautiful uniform Order'

The rabbit woman and the King

Allegorical politics

Rustic beliefs, Palladian villas, and body politics

Disenchantment

9. Afterlife: `The Imposteress Rabbett Breeder'

Imagining Mary Toft

Medical knowledge past and present

Contemporary responses to the case

Notes

Picture Acknowledgements.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780198734888

0198734883

OCLC:

1107818157