- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
Invalidism and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Britain
About This Book
Nineteenth-century Britain did not invent chronic illness, but its social climate allowed hundreds of men and women, from intellectuals to factory workers, to assume the identity of "invalid." Whether they suffered from a temporary condition or an incurable disease, many wrote about their experiences, leaving behind an astonishingly rich and varied record of disability in Victorian Britain.Using an array of primary sources, Maria Frawley here constructs a cultural history of invalidism. She describes the ways that Evangelicalism, industrialization, and changing patterns of doctor/patient relationships all converged to allow a culture of invalidism to flourish, and explores what it meant for a person to be designatedâor to deem oneselfâan invalid. Highlighting how different types of invalids developed distinct rhetorical strategies, her absorbing account reveals that, contrary to popular belief, many of the period's most prominent and prolific invalids were men, while many women found invalidism an unexpected opportunity for authority.In uncovering the wide range of cultural and social responses to notions of incapacity, Frawley sheds light on our own historical moment, similarly fraught with equally complicated attitudes toward mental and physical disorder.
Frequently asked questions
Information
Table of contents
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. "All My Affliction": Invalids and Authority in Nineteenth-Century Britain
- 2. "Beyond Hope, Help, or Remedy": Confession, Cure, and the Hypochondriacâs Narrative
- 3. "In Search of Health": Invalids Abroad
- 4. "Sin-Sick Souls": Christian Invalids and the Literature of Consolation
- 5. "The Range of Our Vision": Self, Surveillance, and Life in the Sickroom
- Afterword: Centers, Margins, and Vanishing Points: Locating Invalidism in the Nineteenth Century
- Works Cited
- Index