Wilkie Collins, Medicine and the Gothic

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Gothic & Romantic
Cover of the book Wilkie Collins, Medicine and the Gothic by Laurence Talairach-Vielmas, University of Wales Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Laurence Talairach-Vielmas ISBN: 9781783163731
Publisher: University of Wales Press Publication: September 1, 2009
Imprint: University of Wales Press Language: English
Author: Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
ISBN: 9781783163731
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Publication: September 1, 2009
Imprint: University of Wales Press
Language: English

This book examines how Wilkie Collins’s interest in medical matters developed in his writing through exploration of his revisions of the late eighteenth-century Gothic novel from his first sensation novels to his last novels of the 1880s. Throughout his career, Collins made changes in the prototypical Gothic scenario. The aristocratic villains, victimized maidens and medieval castles of classic Gothic tales were reworked and adapted to thrill his Victorian readership. With the advances of neuroscience and the development of criminology as a significant backdrop to most of his novels, Collins drew upon contemporary anxieties and increasingly used the medical to propel his criminal plots. While the prototypical castles were turned into modern medical institutions, his heroines no longer feared ghosts but the scientist’s knife. This study hence underlines the way in which Collins’s Gothic revisions increasingly tackled medical questions, using the medical terrain to capitalize on the readers’ fears. It also demonstrates how Wilkie Collins’s fiction reworks Gothic themes and presents them through the prism of contemporary scientific, medical and psychological discourses, from debates revolving around mental physiology to those dealing with heredity and transmission. The book’s structure is chronological covering a selection of texts in each chapter, with a balance between discussion of the more canonical of Collins’s texts such as The Woman in White, The Moonstone and Armadale and some of his more neglected writings.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

This book examines how Wilkie Collins’s interest in medical matters developed in his writing through exploration of his revisions of the late eighteenth-century Gothic novel from his first sensation novels to his last novels of the 1880s. Throughout his career, Collins made changes in the prototypical Gothic scenario. The aristocratic villains, victimized maidens and medieval castles of classic Gothic tales were reworked and adapted to thrill his Victorian readership. With the advances of neuroscience and the development of criminology as a significant backdrop to most of his novels, Collins drew upon contemporary anxieties and increasingly used the medical to propel his criminal plots. While the prototypical castles were turned into modern medical institutions, his heroines no longer feared ghosts but the scientist’s knife. This study hence underlines the way in which Collins’s Gothic revisions increasingly tackled medical questions, using the medical terrain to capitalize on the readers’ fears. It also demonstrates how Wilkie Collins’s fiction reworks Gothic themes and presents them through the prism of contemporary scientific, medical and psychological discourses, from debates revolving around mental physiology to those dealing with heredity and transmission. The book’s structure is chronological covering a selection of texts in each chapter, with a balance between discussion of the more canonical of Collins’s texts such as The Woman in White, The Moonstone and Armadale and some of his more neglected writings.

More books from University of Wales Press

Cover of the book History of Money by Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Cover of the book The Entrepreneurial Society of the Rhondda Valleys, 1840-1920 by Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Cover of the book How to Be a Writer by Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Cover of the book Gothic Machine by Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Cover of the book Mapping the Medieval City by Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Cover of the book Republicanism and the American Gothic by Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Cover of the book Americanism, Media and the Politics of Culture in 1930s France by Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Cover of the book Los Invisibles by Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Cover of the book All That Is Wales by Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Cover of the book Rediscovering Margiad Evans by Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Cover of the book ANZAC's Dirty Dozen by Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Cover of the book Slave Wales by Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Cover of the book Fifty Years in Politics and the Law by Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Cover of the book Celtic Wales by Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Cover of the book Street Urchins, Sociopaths and Degenerates by Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy