Mary Carleton

Mary Jo Kietzman (University of Michigan, Flint)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

Mary Carleton was a low-born but exceptionally literate woman who initiated a public career when she impersonated a fictional German gentlewoman, Maria von Wolway, in London in 1663. Her performance won her a husband, the upwardly mobile law student John Carleton, who prosecuted her for bigamy when the fortune she implied failed to materialize. Her acquittal at the Old Bailey was cheered by the crowds, and she became a heroine of Restoration popular culture because her successful performance of a fictional identity democratized self-fashioning. She would continue to serialize herself in a sequence of personages that enabled her to claim economic independence through work as an author, actress, self-sufficient trader on the market for second-hand goods, and finally professional shoplifter.…

2128 words

Citation: Kietzman, Mary Jo. "Mary Carleton". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 September 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=742, accessed 19 March 2024.]

742 Mary Carleton 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.