The Woman Who Gave Birth To Rabbits

The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits, a wonderful book of fictions that are also true, is named for Mary Toft, a real woman, who, in 1726, managed to convince half England that she'd laboured and done just that.

Resurrecting buried scandals, audacious hoaxes and private tragedies, Emma Donaghue has written a sequence of short stories about peculiar moments in the history of the British Isles. Here artists misx with poisoners and countesses rub shoulders with cross-dressers, vicors and revolutionaries. Fiery Irish poteen seduces a young English captain into a hasty marriage; the Second Coming is proclaimed in Scotland; and a miniature girl becomes a tiny skeleton in a London museum. This is a book of real treasures.