Caraboo: A Narrative Of A Singular Imposition, Practiced Upon The Benevolence Of A Lady Residing In The Vicinity Of The City Of Bristol By A Young Woman Of The Name Of Mary Willcocks, Alias Baker

by John Mathew Gutch

Caraboo is a book that tells the story of a young woman named Mary Willcocks, who goes by the alias of Baker, and her elaborate deception of a lady living near the city of Bristol. Mary poses as a foreign princess named Caraboo, claiming to be from a distant island in the Indian Ocean. She manages to convince the lady and her family of her royal status and charms them with her exotic tales and customs. However, her lies are eventually uncovered, and she is exposed as a fraud. The book is a narrative account of this singular imposition and the events that led up to it. It is written by John Mathew Gutch and provides a fascinating insight into the world of deception and the power of persuasion.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

74 pages, Paperback

First published June 25, 2007

About the author

1776-1861

Reviews

[Shannen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the movie and didn't realize it was based on an actual person (even knowing that Caraboo was a real person I would not suspect that Gutch was also a real person, I would expect he was made up for the exposition of the story). Judging by this narrative it doesn't seem like he ever personally interacted with her, just recorded the stories of others. It seems like Mrs. Worrall did most of the digging here, not Gutch. They did her a huge disservice in the movie by twisting it into his story (and perhaps by not crediting her as the author of this book - it is unclear how much of the interviews are with him and not her).

This was a fascinating (if brief) read chronicling not only the history of Caraboo's deception (not much of a spoiler as he starts referring to her as "the impostor" pretty early on in the text, long before he gets to her discovery), but also follows her throughout most of her life before that (particularly the 8 years between her running away from home and styling herself as Caraboo, which seems to have occurred just before turning up at Mrs. Worralls and was not a long running con).

It was a fascinating story particularly considering that allegedly she had very little education and was apparently illiterate (she does pick up some reading/writing skills at one point in her endless wandering but her early letters are hard to read) and yet she picked up - and consistently held and used - a variety of ideas about customs, objects, and language from various cultures. It is assumed that she gleaned most of her knowledge from the experts trying to categorize her into a known culture. And not only did she pick up all these tidbits and weave them into a narrative she didn't deviate from, she had enough charisma to consistently sell it to people who were skeptical of her before they met her. (Would Mr. Gutch's language have changed if he had interviewed her directly?)

Perhaps even more interesting, she didn't overplay the part to exploit people. She didn't rob anyone or make any haughty demands (despite being a "princess"), she just took the roof over her head that was offered; drinking water or tea and not eating (most - save some poultry and fish) meats. She even made her own food and clothes. She also kept trying to bolt (allegedly for fear of discovery; but given the previous history we're given of her she never seems to stay in one place long no matter how stable the environment). It is an absolutely crazy story.

My only criticisms are that sometimes they read into Caraboo's intentions and motivations a bit.
There is a lack of objectivity in referring to her as an impostor so early on as well; it would have been more narratively fulfilling to keep it vague until she was actually, chronologically discovered. Also it smacks of a retroactive edit to assert her fakeness so early in the narrative, tainting the facts of the story with the assertion (and bias) that it was known that she was a fake when the fact that she was so convincing is part of what makes the story so compelling.

Another thing that bothers me is that despite tracking down some of the people that knew her to corroborate parts of her story (or things other people said she told them), there's so much that's speculative in this account of her life. It's kind of fun and mysterious (I couldn't help but smile at her giving so many nosy people the slip) but at the same time it's a detailed chronicle of hearsay that doesn't lead to any concrete conclusions.

Some examples of this include how it seems no one actually met her husband (if they were married; there were multiple accounts of who he was or might have been, also she seems to have an aversion to men that is frequently witnessed as Caraboo) or saw where she went to give birth (though she was seen just before and after...was it even her baby?). Her family provides a few letters which are reproduced; the author casts suspicion on the authenticity of them with his handwriting analysis (assuming he did it himself and didn't copy it from someone else - citation on how many people exactly we're getting each chunk of story through is vague - it sounds like Mrs. Worrall hired a guy to go talk to Mary's family so whether he brought the letters directly to her, or copied them for her, or she copied them, or Mr. Gutch ever saw the originals, or even if this is his personal opinion of them is not clear); "The two first are written by herself; those which follow, are alike in the hand-writing, but have more the appearance of a male than a female character." The third letter provided (dated 1816) is a far cry in language and spelling from the second (dated 1812), and combined with her father's (2nd, 3rd, 4th person?) account of her coming back very "learned" and talking in French (others told him it was French) during her last visit paints a very different picture than that of the illiterate, uneducated girl the text otherwise asserts her to be. It more suggests that the stupid servant girl who bafflingly fooled aristocracy and experts alike was actually a very clever girl and adept learner (she's able to copy letters from other languages fairly well after seeing them briefly - could she not have done the same learning to write better from someone with a "male" character?) and not just a charismatic fluke. The narrative repeatedly references her changing tactics to keep up her game - switching languages, cultures, refining her story - but not changing her story or the words of her made up language (some from other languages, some "gibberish" apparently of her own invention). The bias of the author severely undercuts her ingenuity. With as fast as they assume she learned things to supplement her ruse they don't credit her with a basic understanding of reading and writing the English (her native) language (i.e. she was illiterate, here are some letters she wrote, also she was able to reproduce Arabic characters after someone showed them to her or left a book out for her fairly accurately; but she was illiterate, mind you, illiterate). I'd love an unbiased account of her from people who actually met and knew her or a direct account from her herself.

It makes me wonder both about the strange true stories of people that we'll never know and about people who excite so much public interest that their lives are picked apart and analyzed.

[Forked Radish]

Originally published in 1817.