Nineteenth-Century Narratives of Contagion: 'Our Feverish Contact'

Always a scourge of the human condition, epidemics of contagious disease, including venereal infections, were a devastating phenomenon that fascinated the imagination of the nineteenth century. While scientists like Pasteur were beginning to understand how microbes operated and the British parliament was enacting the Contagious Diseases Acts, epidemics spread into works of fiction, not only driving plot lines but also providing a key metaphor for the transmission of ideological and ethical notions throughout society. The present study examines how the way contagion and disease informed and shaped a wide variety of nineteenth century texts and contexts. Christensen dissects the cultural assumptions concerning disease, health and impurity before exploring different perspectives on key themes such as plague, nursing and the hospital environment. Key texts discussed include Dickens'Bleak House, Gaskell's RuthandZola's Le Docteur Pascal. Of interest to open-minded medical professionalsand literature scholars, this book breaks new ground in the study of the intersection between disease and literature.