A Parody on "Mary's Ghost;" or, The Doctors and Body-snatchers. A Pathetic Tale, With Numerous Additions.

A restless ghost returns to the bedside of her grieving William with an alarming complaint: burial has offered her no peace. In this lively comic parody, Mary’s corpse has been seized by body-snatchers and divided among surgeons, anatomy lecturers, students, and other eager custodians of medical knowledge. Her catalog of missing limbs, organs, bones, and even hair turns a familiar sentimental ballad into a gleefully macabre tour of the trade.

Set against the bustling medical world of Norwich, the poem pokes fun at graveyards, patent burial grounds, anatomical collections, professional rivalries, and the commerce surrounding the dead. Its rhyming verses combine mock pathos with sharp local satire, disguising social criticism beneath outrageous images and cheeky wordplay. Listeners with a taste for historical humor, theatrical storytelling, and darkly comic poetry will find a compact, irreverent portrait of an age when the needs of medical education collided uneasily with the sanctity of the grave.