THE SECRET LIFE OF DR JAMES BARRY, Victorian England's most eminent surgeon

506pp., illus., paperback, Reprint, London (2002) 2020

First published in 2002 as Scanty Particulars.

Dr James Barry (c. 1789-1799 – 25 July 1865, born Margaret Ann Bulkley), was an Irish military surgeon in the British Army. Although Barry lived his adult life as a man, he was assigned female at birth. His sex was only discovered by the public and his colleagues after his death. James Barry arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1816. He became Medical Inspector for the Colony and Lord Charles Somerset’s personal physician and close friend. He left the Cape in 1828.

Rachel Holmes is the author of Eleanor Marx: a life, The Hottentot Venus, the life and death of Sarah Baartman and Sylvia Pankhurst: natural born rebel.