Dr James Barry: A Woman Ahead of Her Time

(Paperback)

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A Sunday Times Book of the Year As featured on the BBC Radio 2 Book Club Dr James Barry was many things in his life: Inspector General of Hospitals, army surgeon, duellist, reformer, lady killer, eccentric. He performed the first successful Caesarean in the British Empire, outraged the military establishment, and gave Florence Nightingale a dressing down at Scutari. At home he was surrounded by a menagerie of animals, including a cat, a goat, a parrot and a terrier. But most astonishingly, long ago in Cork, Ireland, he had been a young girl and a mother. Drawing on a decade of research in archives all over the world, including the unearthing of previously unknown material, Michael du Preez and Jeremy Dronfield tell the amazing true story of Margaret Anne Bulkley, the young woman who broke the rules of Georgian society to become one of the most respected and controversial army surgeons of the century. In an extraordinary life, she crossed paths with the British Empires great and good, royalty and rebels, soldiers and slaves. A medical pioneer, she rose to a position that no woman before her had been allowed to occupy. However, for all her successes, her long, audacious deception also left her isolated, even costing her the chance to be with the man she loved.

Reviews

A scintillating portrait of Barrys lifethat feels almost Dickensian in style.

* Guardian *

An astounding story of obstinacy, ambition, genius, fearlessness and pioneering feminism.

* Daily Mail *

Thoroughly engaging.

* Sunday Times, Books of the Year *

Gripping, unusual, moving.

* Times, Books of the Year *

A comprehensive account.

* London Review of Books *

'Fascinating.

* History Today *

Thoroughly researched, stimulatingHighly recommended.

* The Lady *

Fascinating

* Irish Independent *

An irresistible little byway in 18^th-century medical and social history.

* Oldie *

An elegant and sensitive biographydu Preez and Dronfield have done Margaret Buckley and her alter ego proud in this absorbing book.

* The Times *

At each turn of this quite gripping biography I found myself gasping in disbeliefthe excavations of Michael du Preezand Jeremy Dronfieldhave yielded startling new evidence about the periodTheir research is authoritative and prodigious.

* Literary Review *

This fantastic book is so much more than a biography of a very remarkable woman. The thread of her personal story weaves its way through a meticulously researched record of a fascinating period in world historycompulsive reading.

-- Dame Margaret Turner-Warwick, first female President, Royal College of Physicians

A cracking story.

-- Maggie Fergusson * Spectator *

This is a fascinating account of the life and career of Dr James Barry as a doctor working in the early nineteenth century. Although Dr Barry obtained a Diploma from this College in 1813 it is only now through this book we are able to fully understand and recognise her achievements.

-- Clare Marx, President, the Royal College of Surgeons of England

I found the book immensely enjoyable. Its a fascinating story, told with verve, sensitivity and skill the result of an awe-inspiring amount of research and detective work, managed with delicacy and flair. I felt the book had a real feel for the times and I appreciated its firm historical grounding, and the way in which imagination and a rigorous approach to fact played so well together. A marvellous read, and a story worth telling.

-- Rodney Bolt, author of The Impossible Life of Mary Benson

This is the extraordinary and remarkable story of the transformation of Margaret Bulkley, a red-haired Irish girl from Cork, into Dr James Barry, physician, medical reformer, friend of the rich, friend of the poor and fearless and irascible scourge of the stupidity, complacency, ineptitude and greed of Britains Colonial establishment. Dr James Barry kept his great secret for overfifty years and the truth that he was, in fact, a woman was only revealed to an incredulous public after his death. Meticulously researched and written with great verve, this biography is about as good as it gets.

-- Neil McKenna, author of Fanny & Stella: The Young Men Who Shocked Victorian England
'Extensively researched, a fascinating story of a woman taking extreme measures to work in a mans world. -- Richard Hollingham, author of Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery

Author Bio

Michael du Preez graduated from medical school in 1958 and went on to become a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. Since retiring in 2001, hes spent over a decade researching the life of Dr James Barry. He lives in Cape Town, South Africa. Jeremy Dronfield is a writer, biographer and novelist. He lives in Ely, Cambridgeshire.