MARY TOFT OR THE RABBIT QUEEN

In 1726 in the town of Godalming, a young woman confounds the medical community by giving birth to 17 rabbits. This astonishing true story is the basis for this powerfully evocative novel. Surgeon's apprentice Zachary Walsh knows that his master John Howard prides himself on his rationality, but John cannot explain why or how Mary Toft, the wife of a local journeyman, has managed to give birth to a dead rabbit. When this singular event becomes a regular occurrence, John and Zachary realise that nothing in their experience as rural physicians has prepared him to deal with a situation like this - strange, troubling, and possibly miraculous. John contacts several of London's finest surgeons, three of whom soon arrive in Godalming to observe, argue and perhaps use the case to cultivate their own fame. When King George I learns of Mary's plight, Mary and her doctors are summoned to London where Zachary experiences a world far removed from his small-town existence, and is exposed to some of the darkest corners of the human soul, the human appetite for witnessing the grotesque - diseases, injuries, deformities and idle perversions of the bored and wealthy contrasted with religious, scientific, spiritual and philosophical beliefs of the educated and mostly moral main characters. While Mary lies in bed, doubts begin to blossom among her caretakers and a growing group of onlookers waits with impatience for another birth, another miracle. Canadian first edition, 2019 with roughcut pages which are highly desirable in North America. 320pp.