Living Dolls: A magical history of the quest for mechanical life by
Gaby Wood, Faber & Faber, £12.99, ISBN 0571178790
AS SHE approaches the late 19th century, and the end of her history of
mechanical dolls, Gaby Wood observes with regret: “It seemed the worlds of
science and amusement had taken resolutely forking paths.”
A mechanical puppet models human behaviour, parodies it, calls its
specialness into question. Sometime in the 1830s Johann Maelzel, maestro of a
1769-vintage chess-playing automaton known as The Turk (surely that puppet,
dressed like a pasha before an outsize board, cannot really play chess—can
it?) meets…
