Demonstrates that recognisable, politicised, and self-aware disabled identities were possible one hundred years before the modern Disability Rights movement Argues that emerging biomedical model of tuberculosis began to undermine the dominance of sentimental, Romantic, and religious models of consumptive identity Argues that when the right social and cultural conditions aligned, these remarkable disabled identities could even be found in bestselling or canonical Victorian novels

Autorentext

Alex Tankard lectures in English Literature at the University of Chester, UK. She has published essays on Aubrey Beardsley and Doc Holliday and tuberculosis; this is her first book.

Inhalt

1. Introduction.- 2. Medical and Social Influences on Consumptive Identity.- 3. Victimhood and Death: Consumptive Stereotypes in Fiction and Nonfiction.- 4. 'I hate everybody!': The Unnatural Consumptive in Wuthering Heights .- 5. 'Too much misery in the world': Protest in Jude the Obscure (1895) and Ippolit's 'Necessary Explanation' in The Idiot (1869).- 6. Progress: Valid Invalid Identity in Ships that Pass in the Night (1893).- 7. Conclusion.