Princess Caraboo: Her True Story

On Good Friday 1817, a girl was found wandering in a lane near Almonsbury, outside Bristol. She appeared to speak no known language and was tried as a vagrant in Bristol magistrates court. A fellow-prisoner, a sailor, recognized her strange language, and questioned her in court to discover that she was an oriental princess, Caraboo. Princess Caraboo became a remarkable attraction, dancing naked in the garden, climbing on the roof to say her prayers and showing great prowess with a bow and arrow and she was presented to the Prince Regent. But at the height of her popularity a landlady from Bristol revealed that she was, in fact, Mary Baker from Taunton. Disgraced, Princess Caraboo left the country only to return and end her days as a leech-woman. John Wells has traced the path of Caraboo in this book which tells the life story of this fairy-tale figure.