Hoax

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Truth and Lies in the Age of Enlightenment

Here lies Fanny Lynes, whose whispers from beyond the grave set London alight with scandal.

Here swings Mary Bateman, who lived a life of solace and lies - and died a prophetess and murderer.

Here stands Mary Willcocks. Or is it Anne Burgess? Or perhaps Princess Caraboo, from the distant island of Javasu?

A ghost. A witch. A princess. Three transgressive women, fighting for their lives in the shadows of the Enlightenment.

The discoveries emerging from the laboratories and libraries of 18th century Britain unsettled as much as they excited. Rationalism jarred with superstition. Who was - and was not - to be believed in this ferocious battle for certainty? From the chaos, these women and their hoaxes rose as symbols of terror and fascination. But were their lies entirely their own? And at what cost did they come to the those around them?

Questioning culpability and complicity, Madeleine Pelling's engrossing history of this great age of the hoax reveals a veiled world of moral panic, tale tales and true crime, and holds a mirror to our own turbulent relationship with the truth.