Christopher Hawtree

How could enlightened 18th-century Britain have believed that a woman could give birth to rabbits?

When Mary Toft allegedly bore 17 of them she became a national celebrity — even arousing the curiosity of George I

issue 08 February 2020
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  • The Imposteress Rabbit Breeder

    Karen Harvey

    OUP, pp. 224, £16

Does a practical joke differ from a hoax? It could be a matter of scale. Anyone can deploy a whoopee cushion, but it takes rather more — as Virginia Woolf and others did, long before Ali G — to kit oneself out as Abyssinian royalty for a 1910 state visit by train to the deck of a dreadnought in Weymouth harbour.

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