The Imposteress Rabbit Breeder: Mary Toft and Eighteenth-Century England
Karen Harvey (Author)
FORMAT <div class="flex flex-wrap space-x-1"><span>Hardcover</span><b>$21.95</b><span>(English)</span></div>
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.
Modern - 18th Century
Karen Harvey is Professor of Cultural History at the University of Birmingham. She studied at the University of Manchester and Royal Holloway, University of London and is the author of several works on eighteenth-century Britain. Her books include The Little Republic Masculinity and Domestic Authority in Eighteenth-Century Britain (OUP, 2012), and Reading Sex in the Eighteenth Century Bodies and Gender in English Erotic Culture (CUP, 2008).
"[Harvey's] book provides fascinating insights into the social context surrounding the "Rabbit Woman" case while never losing sight of what remains a rattling good story - a potboiler indeed." -- Wendy Moore, The Guardian
"The cultural historian Karen Harvey returns [Mary Toft] to the centre of her own story - and, through her, examines the place of poor women in the 18th century ... Harvey deserves credit for the immense amount of research that has produced what feels like a definitive account ... there is much to be said for the timeliness of this story about credulity and hysteria in the age of science." -- Robert Leigh-Pemberton, The Daily Telegraph
"[An] amply detailed study ... Harvey fills out the case fascinatingly, to create a view of the country and city in a shifting era ... her extraordinary narrative will surely be savoured by a wide audience." -- Christopher Hawtree, The Spectator
"Harvey's clear-eyed authority and strenuous examination of Toft's story lays bare a fascinating moment in English society." -- Tanya Sweeney, The Irish Independent
"The book's neat and rigorous analysis provides a thought-provoking glimpse into the England of 1726. It is also, rightly, an effort to restore some dignity to the woman at the centre of the story." -- Louise Perry, Standpoint
"Powerful and detailed ... The Imposteress Rabbit Breeder is an engaging and emotive volume, capturing an extraordinary event from the early Georgian era. It should appeal to anyone with an interest in this period, but its broad scope and thorough analysis suggest it will find a much wider readership." -- All About History
[The Imposteress Rabbit Breeder] is absolutely superb. It's one of the best microhistories that I've read." -- James Daybell, Histories of the Unexpected
"Harvey's remarkable achievement is to have gripped our attention with this extraordinary but true story." -- Anthony Fletcher, History
"Harvey offers [...] a new and valuable perspective from which scholars with interests in histories of midwifery, medicine, and gender will gain a great deal ... Harvey's deliberate and well-calculated focus on questions of town and country, man and woman, practitioner and patient is a key strength of this book, and one which changes our perspective on a story we thought we knew well. Accessible and enjoyable for scholars, students, and the public, this book is a valuable and insightful addition to any bookshelf. -- Dr Ashleigh Blackwood, De Partu (History of Midwifery and Childbirth Research Group)
"A fantastically rich and beautifully executed book." -- Helen Berry, author of Orphans of Empire: The Fate of London's Foundlings
"Harvey uses the famous rabbit birth fraud to train a light on country, town and city, social divisions, female touch and patriarchal power, medicine, the law and politics - and at the heart of it all a piteous woman testifying to her bodily sufferings and visceral losses. A detective story in the noble tradition of Natalie Zemon Davis' The Return of Martin Guerre." -- Amanda Vickery, author of Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England
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