Spriggs, Matthew, and Richard Gendall, “The three epitaphs of Dolly Pentreath”, in: Philip Payton (ed.), Cornish studies 18, 18, Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2010. 203–224.
- article in collection
Dolly (or Dorothy) Pentreath's iconic status in Cornish Studies is scarcely in doubt today, portrayed on postcards and tea-towels in her home village of Mousehole, subject of fine china reproductions, and painted by famous Cornish artists such as John Opie and Richard Thomas Pentreath. She was the subject of scholarly disquisitions in early volumes of the Society of Antiquaries of London's journal Archaeologia in 1776 and 1779 by the antiquary Daines Barrington (1727/28-1800). He 'discovered' her in 1768. Dolly was later memorialised in a stone monument in the wall of Paul Churchyard erected by a nephew of the Emperor Napoleon. Her fame is sometimes misunderstood. It is not that - as often claimed - she was the last speaker of Cornish, but that she was the last recorded fluent native speaker of it, brought up in the language since birth. Claims that she was a fraud, or was not really a fluent speaker seem based more on the class prejudice of the writers of the time rather than any actual evidence. In this article, the authors revisit the elusive evidence of the existence of native Cornish speakers in the period after Dolly's death in December 1777, and consider the fluency and accuracy of those who later penned her epitaphs.
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