Mary Hamilton was perhaps the most notorious cross-dresser or ‘female-husband’ of her day. She lived in Somerset, among other places, and was the subject of scandal across the country for her habitual crime of marrying other women. Her story was preserved in the pages of an anonymous pamphlet by a famous contemporary novelist and dramatist. Through the story of Mary Hamilton, Sheila Hannon considers the rights and responsibilities of modern-day novelists and dramatists in their use of historical evidence. To what extent can writers take liberties with historical record in the name of ‘dramatic license’, when much of the ‘historical evidence’ that remains is itself fiction?
Tag: literature
In search of the real Ann Green
Associated with Clifton, and in particular with Clifton Court (now The Chesterfield Nuffield Hospital) is a character called Ann Green. Her simple gravestone is in Clifton churchyard: died 1864, aged 55. Upon those two facts, a Clifton woman wrote a romantic historical novel, Ann Green of Clifton, published in 1936. Scores of details of the topography, the history and even the botany of Clifton and Bristol are worked into the story: the gallows in Pembroke Road, horseracing on The Downs, the chemist's shop in Clifton village, Rolinda Sharples the painter, and the visit of Princess Victoria to Clifton at the age of 10. In this article, William Evans goes in search of the real Ann Green.