Dennis Todd – författare

In 1726, an illiterate woman from Surrey named Mary Toft announced that she had given birth to 17 rabbits. Deceiving respected physicians and citizens alike, she created a hoax that held England spellbound for months. This study recreates the story of this incident and shows how it illuminates 18th-century beliefs about the power of imagination and the problems of personal identity. Mary Toft's outrageous claim was accepted because of a common belief that the imagination of a pregnant woman could deform her foetus, creating a monster within her. Drawing on material from medicine, embryology, philosophy and popular "monster" exhibitions, Todd shows that such ideas about monstrous births expressed a fear central to scientific, literary and philosophical thinking: that the imagination could transgress the barrier between mind and body. In his analysis of the Toft case, Todd exposes deep anxieties about the threat this transgressive imagination posed to the idea of the self as stable, coherent and autonomous.Major works of Pope and Swift reveal that they, too, were concerned with these issues, and this study provides discussions of "Gulliver's Travels" and "The Dunciad" illustrating how these writers used images of monstrosity to explore the problematic nature of human identity. It also includes a provocative analysis of Pope's later work that takes into account his physical deformity and his need to defend himself in a society that linked a deformed body with a deformed character.

In 1726, an illiterate woman from Surrey named Mary Toft announced that she had given birth to 17 rabbits. Deceiving respected physicians and citizens alike, she created a hoax that held England spellbound for months. This study recreates the story of this incident and shows how it illuminates 18th-century beliefs about the power of imagination and the problems of personal identity. Mary Toft's outrageous claim was accepted because of a common belief that the imagination of a pregnant woman could deform her foetus, creating a monster within her. Drawing on material from medicine, embryology, philosophy and popular "monster" exhibitions, Todd shows that such ideas about monstrous births expressed a fear central to scientific, literary and philosophical thinking: that the imagination could transgress the barrier between mind and body. In his analysis of the Toft case, Todd exposes deep anxieties about the threat this transgressive imagination posed to the idea of the self as stable, coherent and autonomous.Major works of Pope and Swift reveal that they, too, were concerned with these issues, and this study provides discussions of "Gulliver's Travels" and "The Dunciad" illustrating how these writers used images of monstrosity to explore the problematic nature of human identity. It also includes a provocative analysis of Pope's later work that takes into account his physical deformity and his need to defend himself in a society that linked a deformed body with a deformed character.

The Americas appear as an evocative setting in more than half of Daniel Defoe's novels, and often offer a new beginning for his characters. In the first full-length study of Defoe and colonialism, Dennis Todd explores why the New World loomed so large in Defoe's imagination. By focusing on the historical contexts that informed Defoe's depiction of American Indians, African slaves, and white indentured servants, Dennis Todd investigates the colonial assumptions that shaped his novels and, at the same time, uncovers how Defoe used details of the American experience in complex, often figurative ways to explore the psychological bases of the profound conversions and transformations that his heroes and heroines undergo. And by examining what Defoe knew and did not know about America, what he falsely believed and what he knowingly falsified, Defoe's America probes the doubts, hesitancies, and contradictions he had about the colonial project he so fervently promoted.

The Americas appear as an evocative setting in more than half of Daniel Defoe's novels, and often offer a new beginning for his characters. In the first full-length study of Defoe and colonialism, Dennis Todd explores why the New World loomed so large in Defoe's imagination. By focusing on the historical contexts that informed Defoe's depiction of American Indians, African slaves, and white indentured servants, Dennis Todd investigates the colonial assumptions that shaped his novels and, at the same time, uncovers how Defoe used details of the American experience in complex, often figurative ways to explore the psychological bases of the profound conversions and transformations that his heroes and heroines undergo. And by examining what Defoe knew and did not know about America, what he falsely believed and what he knowingly falsified, Defoe's America probes the doubts, hesitancies, and contradictions he had about the colonial project he so fervently promoted.