Popular Fiction and Brain Science in the Late Nineteenth Century

Auteur

Anne Stiles is Assistant Professor of English at St Louis University, Missouri.

Texte du rabat

Examines how Gothic romances like Dracula and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde expressed fears and visionary possibilities suggested by neurological research.

Résumé
Explores how Gothic romances engaged with late Victorian cognitive science. The book explains why popular novels like Dracula and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde expressed fears and visionary possibilities suggested by contemporary neurological research. This topic will interest literary scholars, historians of science and fans of Gothic literature more generally.

Contenu

Introduction: cerebral localization and the late Victorian Gothic romance; Part I. Reactionaries: 1. Robert Louis Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde and the double brain; 2. Bram Stoker's Dracula and cerebral automatism; Part II. Materialists: 3. Photographic memory in the works of Grant Allen; Part III. Visionaries: 4. H. G. Wells and the evolution of the mad scientist; 5. Marie Corelli and the neuron; Epilogue; Looking forward.