The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Emma Donoghue
- First Published: 2002
- Type of Work: Short fiction
- Time of Work: 1300 to the present
- Setting: The British Isles
- Principal Characters: Mary Toft, John Ruskin, Euphemia Gray, Margaret Kingsborough, Mary Wollstonecraft
- Genres: Short fiction
- Subjects: Mothers, Feminism, Pain, Women, Folklore, Sick persons, Witches or witchcraft, Middle Ages, Great Britain, Rabbits, Fourteenth century
- Locales: Great Britain
It has become rather commonplace to tie historical novels to authentic historical documents. The novel Enemy Women (2002), by Paulette Jiles, a chronicle about the imprisonment of often innocent women in Missouri during the Civil War, provides a good example of the genre. The basic story is fiction, drawn from the life of a strong Missouri woman whose dubious connection to treasonous acts lands her in prison, but there is underlying historical evidence—quoted in the body of the novel at the beginning of each chapter—which verifies that the fabricated details are based in...
[The entire page is 1732 words long]
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