The Canning Wonder

I have read several books on the case of Elizabeth Canning, an eighteenth century serving girl who disappeared for 28 days in January 1753. Two women were brought to trial and found guilty of holding her prisoner and stealing her stays; the latter was the capital offense. Further investigation

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caused the women to be released; Elizabeth Canning was convicted of perjury and transported to the United States. She never explained where she had been. The case caused an enormous fervor at the time, and at least four books were written on the case in the twentieth century debating the truth of the matter.

Machen makes no bones about his opinion: "Elizabeth Canning was an infernal liar." Of the books that I have read, Machen does the best job of carefully examining the evidence and testimony offered at various times. He throws out possibilities of what EC might actually have been up to, but emphasizes that we will never really know. Machen's habit of interlacing quotations from testimony, Britishism, and allusions that may have been more obvious in the 1920s occasionally makes the book a little difficult to read, at least for this American reader, but I would consider it essential for anyone pondering the case.

Treherne reaches similar conclusions, although he is not as methodical in his analysis. His book, The Canning Enigma, does offer a better narrative of surrounding events, and he reviews the conclusions of other authors, so it is a good additional source. Lillian de la Torre's Elizabeth is Missing indulges in rather wild speculation, but offers the interesting alternative explanation that EC was suffering from hysterical amnesia, and her misstatements were caused by confusion, rather than deliberate lies.

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