This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/25/2023
SKINKER, Tannakin. A Certaine Relation of the Hog-Faced Gentlewoman Called Mistress Tannakin. London: Printed by J.O. … [ca. 1816?]. Wood engraved portrait of the pig-faced lady to title page, headpiece. Eight unnumbered leaves, A-B4; 4to. Armorial bookplate. Text block generally clean with scattered wear, faint foxing and short tears. Contemporary boards, disbound. Scarce. A nineteenth century edition by John Sturt, the “facsimilist” who produced at least 17 similar volumes, this being a handsome recreation of a rare tract first published in 1640. The slim work describes the life of a woman “bewitched in her mothers wombe in the yeare 1618…” having been born with a pig-like snout after her mother turned away a beggar woman who was also a witch. Miss Tannakin wore fancy clothes and ate from a sliver trough, but could only communicate in grunts, though she was apparently able to write with some facility. A watermark to the final leaf reveals the year of manufacture of the paper of this tract as 1804.