The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits

Publisher and industry reviews

UK Kirkus review

Inspired by the myriad little snippets of history that she came across in the last decade or so, Emma Donoghue felt compelled to pen these tales about the 'flotsam and jetsam of the last seven hundred years'. Tantalizingly described as a 'book of fictions that are also true', this collection stops off frequently at unexpected junctures to consider peculiar past moments in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The title comes from the extraordinary story of Mary Toft, a woman from Godalming, who, with the conspiratorial help of a self-publicising ?man-midwife', succeeded in convincing 18th-century England that she could actually give birth to rabbits. Told in the first person, this evocative tale convincingly conveys the grave effects of a pregnant woman's practical joke. Next stop is County Mayo in the west of Ireland just after the introduction of the Act of Union, where a young English captain's embarrassing health problem leads to an encounter with an apothecary. A meal in a smoky parlour results in too much poteen being downed, and a drunken vow that causes him to rue the consequences of his rash behaviour. Other stories revolve around the horrendous experiments carried out on live animals that resulted in the passing of the Cruelty to Animals Act of 1876, the effects of religious fervour and divine visitations on the Buchanite Community in Scotland, and the Peasants' Revolt in 14th-century Cambridge. The one thing these short stories have in common is the beauty of the writing, and they're all capable of easily transporting the reader to their source. Each carefully crafted tale can be read independently, allowing for repeated visits to a vanished world to discover the fate of a woman accused of witchcraft or the sadness at the heart of the short and painful life of a tiny child. (Kirkus UK)

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