[TOFT, Mary (c.1703-1763)] - photo 1
[TOFT, Mary (c.1703-1763)] - photo 2
[TOFT, Mary (c.1703-1763)] - photo 3
[TOFT, Mary (c.1703-1763)] - photo 4
[TOFT, Mary (c.1703-1763)] - photo 5

[TOFT, Mary (c.1703-1763)]

Lot 186
10.12.2025 12:00UTC +00:00
Classic
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CHRISTIE'S
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Lieu de l'événementRoyaume-Uni, London
Commissionsee on Website%
ID 1514355
Lot 186 | [TOFT, Mary (c.1703-1763)]
Valeur estimée
£ 4 000 – 6 000
[TOFT, Mary (c.1703-1763)]
[The ‘Rabbit-Breeder’: a volume of tracts, transcriptions, a portrait and satirical engravings relating to the hoax of Mary Toft. c.1726-1753, and later transcriptions]
Rare sammelband documenting the extraordinary hoax of Mary Toft, the so-called 'Rabbit-Breeder' of Godalming (Godliman) near Guildford, Surrey. Toft claimed to have given birth to rabbits after having had a dream about them while pregnant. A number of eminent physicians, including Nathaniel St André (surgeon to the Royal Household), Sir Richard Manningham, and Dr James Douglas, were initially deceived by Toft’s extraordinary claims. Toft later confessed that the births of rabbits were a hoax, and the idea had been suggested to her by another woman as a way to make a fortune.

The story captivated and scandalised eighteenth-century Britain, inspiring a torrent of satire from leading writers and artists. Members of the Scriblerus Club, including Alexander Pope and Dr John Arbuthnot, mocked the credulity of the physicians involved, while Jonathan Swift’s contemporaries noted striking parallels with his recently published Gulliver’s Travels (1726). The affair was also taken up by William Whiston, who interpreted it as a prophetic sign. Artists including William Hogarth, in his celebrated print Cunicularii, and George Vertue, in The Surrey Wonder (both prints present in this volume) turned the episode into enduring visual satires on scientific folly and fashionable belief.

Examples of volumes containing so many of the key pamphlets, alongside manuscript material and contemporary prints by Hogarth and Vertue, are rare. The present example, with distinguished medical provenance from Dr Charles Combe and Dr Samuel Merriman, represents a remarkable survival and an invaluable witness to the intersection of medicine, credulity, and satire in Georgian England. Comparable volumes of Mary Toft tracts and transcriptions are held by the Wellcome Institute in London, and another compiled by George Steevens (1736-1800) and later owned by the Duke of Roxburghe, other distinguished bibliophiles, and latterly Sir William Osler (1849-1919) is now held at McGill University. Literature: Lieske, Pam. Eighteenth-century British Midwifery, Volume 2. The Mary Toft Affair. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2017

PORTRAIT
1. HARDING, [George Perfect (1781-1853)]. ‘Portrait of Miss Mary Toft, from an original painting of [John] Laguerre, 1726’, inscribed ‘Harding del.’, pen and grey ink and grey wash (image area 138 x 107mm), bound as a frontispiece portrait to this volume

PRINTED TRACTS
2. ST ANDRÉ, Nathaniel. A short Narrative of an extraordinary Delivery of Rabbets, perform’d by Mr John Howard, surgeon at Guilford. London: for John Clarke, 1727. First edition, [ESTC T55617]
3. BRAITHWAITE, Thomas. Remarks on A short narrative of an extraordinary delivery of rabbets, perform'd by Mr. John Howard, surgeon at Guilford, as publish'd by Mr. St. Andre, anatomist to His Majesty. With a proper regard to his intended recantation. London: for N. Blandford, 1726. First edition, [ESTC T56205]
4. AHLERS, Cyriacus. Some observations concerning the woman of Godlyman in Surrey. Made at Guilford on Sunday, Nov. 20. 1726. Tending to prove her extraordinary deliveries to be a cheat and imposture. London: for J. Roberts, 1726. First edition (one of two imprint variants of this edition), [ESTC T56024]
5. MANNINGHAM, Richard. An exact diary of what was observ'd during a close attendance upon Mary Toft, the pretended Rabbet-Breeder of Godalming in Surrey, from Monday Nov. 28, to Wednesday Dec. 7 following. Together with an account of her confession of the fraud. London: for Fletcher Gyles, 1726. Second edition. Half-title. (without final blank). [ESTC T56209]
6. DOUGLAS, James. An advertisement occasion'd by some passages in Sir R. Manningham's diary lately publish'd. London: for J. Roberts and J. Pemberton, 1727. First edition. [ESTC T56026]
7. [Anonymous] – The several depositions of Edward Costen, Richard Stedman, John Sweetapple, Mary Peytoe, Elizabeth Mason, and Mary Costen; relating to the affair of Mary Toft, of Godalming in the county of Surrey, being deliver'd of several rabbits: as they were taken before the Right Honourable the Lord Onslow, at Guildford and Clandon in the said county, on the third and fourth days of this instant December 1726. London: for J. Pemberton, 1727. First edition. [ESTC T56204, noting ‘The final unnumbered leaf contains a statement by N. St. André admitting his credulity in the fraud’]
8. GULLIVER, Lemuel [pseud.] The Anatomist dissected: or the man-midwife finely brought to bed. Being an examination of the conduct of Mr. St. Andre. Touching the late pretended rabbit-bearer; as it appears from his own narrative. Westminster: by and for A. Campbell, 1727. Third edition, (without final blank). [ESTC N1277]
9. TUFT, Merry [pseud.] Much ado about nothing: or, a plain refutation of all that has been written or said concerning the rabbit-woman of Godalming. Being a full and impartial confession from her own mouth, and under her own hand, of the whole affair, from the beginning to the end. Now made publick for the general satisfaction. London: for A. Moore, 1727. First edition. Half-title, [ESTC T55626]
10. ST ANDRÉ, Nathaniel. à propos. Mr. St. Andre's case and depositions as publish'd in the London Gazette of February 23, 1724. and the Daily Post of March 4, 1725. London: for A. Moore, [1727?]. First edition. (without half-title or final blank). [ESTC T56025]

TRANSCRIPTIONS
11. ONSLOW, Richard 3rd Baron Onslow. Letter to Sir Hans Sloane (Dec. 4th, 1726, ‘MS Sloan. 3312. XXVI G.’), later manuscript transcription in ink, one page
12. ST ANDRÉ, Nathaniel. Letter to Sir Hans Sloane (‘Sloan MSS. 3316. XXVI G’), later manuscript transcription in ink, one page
13. WHISTON, William. The Opinion of the Revd. Mr William Whiston concerning the affair of Mary Toft, ascribing it to be the Completion of a Prophecy of Esdras. London, for J. Whiston, 1753 [but a later manuscript transcription in ink], title and 14 pages, with an eighteenth-century engraved portrait of William Whiston mounted as a frontispiece
14. [ARBUTHNOT, Dr John, attributed to] The Rabbit-Man-Midwife. 1730, [but a later manuscript transcription in ink from ‘A New miscellany’], one page, with the attribution ‘by John Arbuthnot’ added in pencil in another hand at the head of the page
15. 'The Following Extracts from various Newspapers’, 12 pages of later manuscript transcriptions in ink from various newspaper reports published between November and December 1726 relating to Mary Toft
16. “Flamingo”. A shorter and truer advertisement by way of supplement, to what was published the 7th instant: or, Dr. D--g--l--s in an extasy, at Lacey's Bagnio, December the 4th, 1726. London, 1727 [but a later manuscript transcription in ink], title and 3 pages
17. [POPE, Alexander with William Pulteney]. The discovery: or, The squire turn'd ferret. An excellent new ballad. To the tune of high boys up go we; chevy chase; or what you please. Westminster: A. Campbell, 1727 [but a later manuscript transcription in ink], title and 5 pages
18. [Anonymous] St. A-D-E’s [St André’s] Miscarriage or a full and true account of the Rabbit-Woman. The Second edition. London: for E. Nult and M. Smith, [et al], 1727 [but a later manuscript transcription in pen and ink], title and 5 pages
19. [Anonymous] A Song on the Rabbit Breeder. By XXXX - XXXXXX. London: Printed in the Year 1727 [but a later manuscript transcription in ink], title and 4 pages

ENGRAVINGS
20. [HOGARTH, William] ‘Cunicularii, or the Wise Men of Godliman in consultation’. [1726]. Folding engraved print (187 x 257mm), laid down on thick paper (engraved text shaved at foot with some loss, slight wear along folds), [British Museum, Catalogue of political and personal satires. vol. II. London 1873, no. 1779; R. Paulson, Hogarth's graphic works, 3 ed., London 1989, no. 106 [107]. pp. 69-70; cf. Dennis Todd, 'Three characters in Hogarth's Cunicularii – and some implications', Eighteenth-century studies, 1982, 16: 26-46]; followed by an autograph letter signed by John Bowyer Nichols (‘J. Nichols’) to Dr Merriman, 7 July [18]41 about the characters represented in the print ‘Cunicularii’ extracted from a manuscript in the King’s Library, with one page of manuscript notes about this print referring to Nicholls’ Biographical Anecdotes of William Hogarth (1781), and another page of manuscript notes (in a different hand) referring to the Hogarth and Vertue prints, being a later transcription from a newspaper of 1763
21. [VERTUE, George] The Surrey-Wonder. An anatomical farce, as it was dissected at the Theatre Royal Lincolns Inn Fields. [London: by James Vertue, for:] John Clark, [1726] Folding engraved plate (181 x 200mm), state before key letters and violin added, cropped to image, laid down on linen-backed thick paper (slight wear along folds), [cf. BM object 1868,0808.3518]
22. [Anonymous] ‘The Doctors in Labour; or a New Whim [Wham from Guildford.] Being a representation of the frauds by which the Godliman woman, carried on her pretended [rabbit-breeding]’. [1726]. Engraved broadsheet with 12 scenes, dissected and mounted onto 6 pages (recto only), with an incomplete portion of the title mounted on a page preceding the images, [British Museum, Catalogue of political and personal satires, vol. II London 1873, no. 1781; Wellcome Collection 17343i; cf. Lisa Cody, '"The doctor's in labour; or a new whim wham from Guildford"', Gender & history, 1992, 4: 175-196]

Pen and wash portrait of Mary Toft by G.P. Harding, 9 printed tracts, and various manuscript transcriptions, notes and engravings, bound in one volume, octavo (195 x 117mm), some wear and dust-staining. Nineteenth-century dark red half morocco by W. Easy, red cloth boards, spine in compartments with raised bands gilt (binding rubbed), gilt crest of the Royal Society of Medicine at foot of spine, engraving of ‘Market House, Godelming’ pasted to recto of preliminary free endpaper and newspaper cutting (dated December 1726) of the retraction of Nathaniel St André pasted to lower pastedown. Provenance: Dr Charles Combe FRS (1743-1817) – Dr Samuel Merriman (1771-1852; inscribed ‘Sam. Merriman M.D., Half Moon Street, purchased this volume at the sale of Dr Coombe’s books for £3.10.0. [1808]) – Samuel William John Merriman (1814-1873; armorial bookplate, 'I succeeded to [this book] at a cost of £2.5.0, S. Wm. J. Merriman M.D., Charles Street, Westbourne Terrace’ who also notes ‘I believe that this volume contains all the Tracts which were written on this subject. SWJM.’) – John Jones Merriman (armorial bookplate, with date added in ink beneath ‘5th November 1873’) – Royal Society of Medicine (ink stamp to titles of most printed tracts, preliminary leaves and crest to foot of spine).
Lieu d'origine:Europe du Nord, Europe, Royaume-Uni
Catégorie maison de vente aux enchères:Médecine et sciences, Livres et manuscrits, Livres imprimés
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