The surprising adventures of a female husband!

Collection History

The selection of images was prepared for the companion volume and website accompanying an exhibition, "Before Victoria: Extraordinary Women of the British Romantic Era," held April 8 - July 30, 2005 in the Library's D. Samuel and Jeane H. Gottesman Exhibition Hall.

Related Resources

Denlinger, Elizabeth Campbell. Before Victoria: Extraordinary Women of the British Romantic Era (2005)

NYPL. "Before Victoria: Extraordinary Women of the British Romantic Era."(2005) <http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/victoria/>

Collection Data

Names
Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754 (Author)
Cruikshank, George, 1792-1878 (Engraver)
Bailey, J. (John), fl. 1808-1824 (Printer)
Dates / Origin
Date Issued: 1810 - 1815
Place: London
Publisher: J. Bailey
Library locations
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
Shelf locator: Pforz (Fielding, H./Surprising) 1813
Topics
Hamilton, Mary, active 1746
Lesbians -- Great Britain
Gender identity -- Great Britain
Female-to-male transsexuals -- Great Britain
Homophobia -- Great Britain
Cross-dressers -- Great Britain
Genres
Books
Notes
Statement of responsibility: Containing, the whimsical amours, curious incidents, and diabolical tricks of Miss M. Hamilton, alias Mr. G. Hamilton, alias Minister Bently, alias Doctor O'Keefe, alias Mrs. Knight, the midwife, &c. who married three wives! And lived with each sometime undiscovered, for which acts, she was tried at the summer sessions, in the county of Somerset in the year 1752, found guilty, and whipped four several times, in four market towns, and afterwards imprisoned six months : notwithstanding which, on the evening of the first day of her exposure she attempted to bribe the goaler to procure her a fine young girl to gratify her most monstrous and unnatural propensity.
Biographical/historical: "In all of Fielding's history of Mary Hamilton before the arrest, the only statements squaring with the court records are these: Mary Hamilton, masquerading as a doctor, married Mary Price at Wells and deceived her with some strange device; Mary Hamilton came to Somersetshire from Devonshire; she once took lodgings in a house owned by a 'Mrs.'; one of the girls she married had an aunt." -- (cf. Baker, Sheridan. "Henry Fielding's the Female Husband: Fact and Fiction." PMLA, Vol. 74, No. 3. (Jun., 1959), pp. 213-224).
Physical Description
Extent: 23, 1 p., [1] fold. leaf of plates : ill. (fold., col.) ; 18 cm.
Type of Resource
Text
Identifiers
NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b15394554
Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 2871ab20-c603-012f-fdaa-58d385a7bc34
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