In this book, there is a reference to a woman named Princess Caraboo who was one of the most notable shysters throughout history. In 1817, she managed to convince many people—some of them quite high in society—that she was a lost princess from an exotic land who’d been kidnapped by pirates. According to “Princess Caraboo,” a title given to her by her avid supporters and an even more eager press, after weeks of imprisonment, she’d escaped the pirates’ evil clutches by jumping overboard and swimming to shore, where she was found wandering through the parish of Almondsbury, near Bristol.
There’s not enough room on this page to give the details of her entire deceit, but suffice it to say that she was not a princess, nor had she ever been kidnapped from an exotic land by pirates. The impostor’s real name was Mary Willcocks Baker, and she was the daughter of a very poor family and had spent most of her life wandering from job to job and practicing the art of deception.
If you want to read more about the outrageous Princess Caraboo (and I encourage you to do so), look online for Caraboo: A Narrative of a Singular Imposition by John Matthew Gutch. Written in 1817, it gives a detailed account of how she came to be the darling of society, and how her deceit was unmasked.
I hope you enjoy learning about Princess Caraboo as much as I did. She’s a fascinating creature in the footnotes of history.
All best,
Karen