My personal heroine is someone I’ve never met, but I sure wish I’d had the chance: Mary Baker, a/k/a Mary Willcocks, a/k/a “Princess Caraboo.” Mary was born in the late eighteenth century to an impoverished family in Somerset. In 1817 she was reborn as “Caraboo,” the shipwrecked princess of an undiscovered Asian island. I have been writing about Mary/Caraboo for almost as long as I’ve been a professor, and she never ceases to fascinate. These days, I’m trying to learn more about her later life. Here is a link to a podcast interview (an episode in the series “Criminal”), in which I talk about Mary, her motives, and what she might mean for modern women.

https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-185-the-princess-3-25-22/