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[ii], 76pp., 8vo. Extra-illustrated with an engraved portrait published at the time of her execution in 1673 (the portrait neatly trimmed and mounted). A fine copy in morocco-backed patterned boards, gilt spine label, by Philip Dusel. Second edition, so stated, adding an essential "Appendix" that exposes Mary Carleton s own narrative (the 70-page "Historical Relation") as largely a fraud, and also recounts her exploits after her first release from prison, where she was jailed on a charge of bigamy by one of her husbands, John Carleton. A similar text was published by Mary Carleton herself in 1663, in 23pp., 4to: An Historical Narrative of the German Princess. . . . Written by Her Self. Mary Carleton, as she is usually called, was extraordinarily attractive and talented and used both to the fullest. At a young age, as Janet Todd in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography puts it, "with her vitality and quick-wittedness Mary charmed the well-to-do, mixing with high-ranking children and learning genteel accomplishments and speech." She spent time on the Continent somehow and (to quote Todd again) "decking herself in jewels and finery and passing as Maria de Wolway, she came to London as a noble German lady forced to flee an unwanted marriage." A young lawyer s clerk, John Carleton, pretended to be her equal in wealth, begged for her hand in marriage and, as Mary s account in the present volume puts it, if I did not presently grant the Suit. . . Mr. Carleton was so far in love with me, that he would make away with himself, or presently travel beyond Sea, and see England no more. Needless to say, the marriage foundered. Carleton s lawsuit for bigamy failed; she was acquitted after defending herself. Samuel Pepys exulted at her acquittal, his diary mentioning an argument "where my Lady Batten enveighd mightily against the German princesse and I as high in the defence of her wit and spirit, and glad she is cleared at the Sessions." (7 June 1663, IV, 177). Such was her fame that a play was soon staged called, A Witty Combat, or, The Female Victor, which presented Mary as a calculating heroine. Mary was not slow to see a further opportunity: in 1664 she played herself at the Duke s Theatre, where she was seen by Samuel Pepys. Pepys was unimpressed: "saw The German Princess acted - by the woman herself. But never was anything, so well done in earnest, worse performed in Jest upon the stage. And endeed the whole play. . . is very simple, unless here and there a witty sprankle or two." (15 April 1664, V, 124). The Appendix in the present book confirms Pepys s opinion: "there was a great Confluence of People to behold her, yet she did not perform so well as was expected. . . it was just nine Years from her thus first acting on the Stage, to her last acting at the Gallows." The Appendix continues on her life after her acquittal, describing "a large Parcel of Cullies [who] were very desirous of a nearer Acquaintance; and she, who mightily lov d Company and Gallantry, was free enough of Access." There follows a catalogue of the gallants from whom she stole, and the tricks she played on merchants and others, culminating in her trial for stealing a piece of silver from a tavern in Chancery Lane, for which she was sentenced to death. Mary Carleton s narrative has been dismissed as ghost-written, but her spirited defence of herself in court as well as her successful impersonations suggest otherwise. As Todd notes, "she was a good linguist and skilled forger of letters and there seems no reason to dismiss her as the composer of the pamphlets." Francis Kirkman, the author and bookseller who wrote a contemporary account of Mary, did not doubt her authorship, and Todd quotes him as having summed up the problem of her life and the various accounts of her: "How can Truth be discovered of her who was wholly composed of Falsehood?" For a discussion of early editions of Mary Carleton s life, see, Bernbaum, The Mary Carleton Narratives 1663-1673 (1914).
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