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Emma Donoghue
Slammerkin
Published June 2000 by Virago at £15.99
ISBN: 1860498280
Set in London and Monmouth in the late 1700s and based on the true story of a young
girl who was hung for murder, this is the gripping story of Mary Saunders, a girl born
to coarse cloth who dreams of lace.
Mary hungers greedily for fine clothes and ribbons, as people of her class do for food
and warmth and it's this uncontrollable hunger that lures her into prostitution at the
age of thirteen. She is cast out by her distraught mother when she gets pregnant and
almost dies on the dangerous freezing streets of London. Her saviour is Doll - a
prostitute. Mary roams London freely with Doll, dressed in gaudy dresses and a
painted red smile, selling her body to all manner of 'cullies'.
Faced with bad debts and threats upon her life she flees to Monmouth, her mother's
hometown, where she attempts to start a new life as a maid in Mrs Jones's house. But
Mary soon discovers that she can't escape her past and just how dearly people like her
pay for yearnings not fitting to their class in society ... Caught up in new loyalties and
old lies, Mary sets off a chain of events that can only lead to tragedy.
