{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,30]],"date-time":"2026-07-30T12:27:40Z","timestamp":1785414460872,"version":"3.56.0"},"reference-count":47,"publisher":"Cambridge University Press (CUP)","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,14]],"date-time":"2025-09-14T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1757808000000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":75,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100000275","name":"Leverhulme Trust","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["MRF-2020-037"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["MRF-2020-037"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100000275","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["cambridge.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Med. Hist."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,7]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>\n                    Ghostwriting autobiographies has gained so high a profile that novels and films focus on the ghost. To deepen understanding of such collaborations in science and medicine, this article reconstructs the making of\n                    <jats:italic>A Matter of Life<\/jats:italic>\n                    (1980), \u2018the sensational story of the world\u2019s first test-tube baby\u2019. Although critiqued by feminist scholars, revised through research and embellished in fiction, this double autobiography of Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe is still the standard history of the British team\u2019s work to achieve in vitro fertilisation (IVF). It is thus high time to investigate the debt acknowledged only by \u2018gratitude for his invaluable help\u2019 to the physician and poet Dannie Abse. I use previously unexploited manuscripts to illuminate relationships among authors, rewriter, and editor, and among those they cast as involved in the research. The records show that Abse rewrote underwhelming drafts for a publisher that had bought and sold the doctors\u2019 story of the \u2018baby of the century\u2019 and needed a bestseller. To engage readers, he reworked the text so that alleviating infertility appeared as a career-long quest. As a result of adding vivid scenes with characters and expository dialogue, Abse began to give women\u2014wives, assistants and patients\u2014larger roles in the drama. The objections of Edwards and his circle to various literary references and factual claims were overruled. Yet the authors came across more sympathetically, and IVF was promoted more effectively, than in their own drafts. The process puts recent retellings of the story into perspective and exemplifies how collaboration can shape scientific and medical autobiographies.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1017\/mdh.2025.10025","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,14]],"date-time":"2025-09-14T07:00:57Z","timestamp":1757833257000},"page":"528-551","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/policypage","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["The ghostwriter and the test-tube baby: a medical breakthrough story"],"prefix":"10.1017","volume":"69","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7069-7497","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Nick","family":"Hopwood","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/013meh722","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"University of Cambridge"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"56","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,14]]},"reference":[{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref12","volume-title":"Let There Be Life: An Intimate Portrait of Robert Edwards and His IVF Revolution","author":"Gosden","year":"2019"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref46","first-page":"228","volume-title":"Embodied Progress: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception","volume":"226","author":"Franklin","year":"1997"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref2","first-page":"108","volume-title":"Narrative and the Cultural Construction of Illness and Healing","author":"Pollock","year":"2000"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref20","volume-title":"Trust","author":"Diaz","year":"2022"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref39","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1086\/355756"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref33","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1057\/9780230234703"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref14","first-page":"435","article-title":"Patrick Christopher Steptoe, CBE, 9 June 1913 \u2013 22 March 1988","volume":"42","author":"Edwards","journal-title":"Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref17","volume-title":"Ghostwriting","author":"Crofts","year":"2004"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref44","first-page":"105","volume-title":"The Mother Machine: Reproductive Technologies from Artificial Insemination to Artificial Wombs","author":"Corea","year":"1985"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref6","first-page":"158","volume-title":"Babies in Bottles: Twentieth-Century Visions of Reproductive Technology","author":"Squier","year":"1994"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref18","volume-title":"Ghosting: A Memoir","author":"Erdal","year":"2004"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/14647273.2017.1351042"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref24","volume-title":"Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention","author":"Marable","year":"2011"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref35","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/9781107705647.048"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref36","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/9781009210997"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref15","first-page":"188","volume-title":"On Autobiography","author":"Lejeune","year":"1988"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rbmo.2011.04.010"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref31","volume-title":"The Dance of Life: The New Science of How a Single Cell Becomes a Human Being","author":"Zernicka-Goetz","year":"2020"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref19","volume-title":"The Ghost","author":"Harris","year":"2007"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref25","first-page":"408","volume-title":"Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman","author":"Gleick","year":"1992"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref29","volume-title":"The Second Creation: Dolly and the Age of Biological Control","author":"Wilmut","year":"2000"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref27","volume-title":"The Annotated and Illustrated Double Helix","author":"Watson","year":"2012"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref41","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rbmo.2013.10.005"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref43","volume-title":"Women in Magazines: Research, Representation, Production and Consumption","author":"Loughran","year":"2016"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref34","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rbms.2017.07.002"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref37","first-page":"239","volume-title":"Goodbye, Twentieth Century: An Autobiography","author":"Abse","year":"2001"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rbms.2015.04.005"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref47","volume-title":"The Reproduction Revolution: New Ways of Making Babies","author":"Singer","year":"1984"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref11","first-page":"3","article-title":"Symposium: The History of the First IVF Births","volume":"1","author":"Johnson","year":"2015","journal-title":"Reproductive Biomedicine and Society Online"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref16","volume-title":"Ghostwriting: How to Get into the Business","author":"Shaw","year":"1991"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref21","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/S036154130000317X"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref7","first-page":"32","volume-title":"Pandora\u2019s Baby: How the First Test Tube Babies Sparked the Reproductive Revolution","author":"Henig","year":"2004"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref8","first-page":"196","volume-title":"Unnatural: The Heretical Idea of Making People","author":"Ball","year":"2012"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref42","first-page":"124","volume-title":"Pretend I\u2019m Not Here: How I Worked with Three Newspaper Icons, One Powerful First Lady, and Still Managed to Dig Myself out of the Washington Swamp","author":"Todd","year":"2017"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref9","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1093\/humrep\/deq155"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref13","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rbmo.2020.02.010"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref22","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1163\/ej.9789004195004.i-541.70"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref23","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/07075332.2024.2316738"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref45","first-page":"91","volume-title":"Beyond Conception: The New Politics of Reproduction","author":"Spallone","year":"1989"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref28","volume-title":"Dancing Naked in the Mind Field","author":"Mullis","year":"1998"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref38","first-page":"198","volume-title":"A Strong Dose of Myself","author":"Abse","year":"1983"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/CBO9780511525292"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.4000\/asp.1039"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref32","volume-title":"Breaking Through: My Life in Science","author":"Karik\u00f3","year":"2023"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref30","volume-title":"Memoirs: A Twentieth-Century Journey in Science and Politics","author":"Teller","year":"2001"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref40","volume-title":"Collected Poems, 1948\u20131976","author":"Abse","year":"1977"},{"key":"S0025727325100252_ref26","volume-title":"Vulnerable Subjects: Ethics and Life Writing","author":"Thomas Couser","year":"2004"}],"container-title":["Medical History"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/services\/aop-cambridge-core\/content\/view\/S0025727325100252","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,1]],"date-time":"2025-12-01T01:19:30Z","timestamp":1764551970000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/product\/identifier\/S0025727325100252\/type\/journal_article"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2025,7]]},"references-count":47,"journal-issue":{"issue":"3","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,7]]}},"alternative-id":["S0025727325100252"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/mdh.2025.10025","relation":{},"ISSN":["0025-7273","2048-8343"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0025-7273","type":"print"},{"value":"2048-8343","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2025,7]]},"assertion":[{"value":"\u00a9 The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press","name":"copyright","label":"Copyright","group":{"name":"copyright_and_licensing","label":"Copyright and Licensing"}},{"value":"This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.","name":"license","label":"License","group":{"name":"copyright_and_licensing","label":"Copyright and Licensing"}},{"value":"This content has been made available to all.","name":"free","label":"Free to read"}]}}