Reading for Health. Erika Wright

      READING FOR HEALTH

      Series in Victorian Studies

      Joseph McLaughlin, series editor

      Katherine D. Harris, Forget Me Not: The Rise of the British Literary Annual, 1823–1835

      Rebecca Rainof, The Victorian Novel of Adulthood: Plot and Purgatory in Fictions of Maturity

      Erika Wright, Reading for Health: Medical Narratives and the Nineteenth-Century Novel

      Daniel Bivona and Marlene Tromp, editors, Culture and Money in the Nineteenth Century: Abstracting Economics

       Reading for Health

       Medical Narratives and the Nineteenth-Century Novel

       Erika Wright

      OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS

      ATHENS, OHIO

      Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701

       ohioswallow.com

      © 2016 by Ohio University Press

      All rights reserved

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      Printed in the United States of America

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       Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Wright, Erika, 1970– author.

      Title: Reading for health : medical narratives and the nineteenth-century novel / Erika Wright.

      Description: Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, [2016] | Series: Series in Victorian studies | Includes bibliographical references and index.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2015041247| ISBN 9780821422243 (hc : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780821445631 (pdf)

      Subjects: LCSH: English fiction—19th century—History and criticism. | Literature and medicine—Great Britain—History—19th century. | Medicine in literature.

      Classification: LCC PR878.M42 W75 2016 | DDC 823/.8093561—dc23

      LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015041247

       For Ted and Devin

       Contents

       Acknowledgments

       Introduction: Becoming Patient Readers

       Part One: Domestication

       Chapter One: Jane Austen’s Plots of Prevention

       Chapter Two: Health, Identity, and Narrative Authority in Jane Eyre

       Part Two: Isolation

       Chapter Three: Quarantine, Social Theory, and Little Dorrit

       Chapter Four: The Omniscience of Invalidism: The Case of Harriet Martineau

       Part Three: Professionalization

       Chapter Five: Narrative Competence and the Family Doctor in Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters

       Afterword: Health in Narrative Medicine

       Notes

       Bibliography

       Index

       Acknowledgments

      Like staying healthy, writing a book takes sustained effort and tremendous discipline. And when that fails, it takes a little luck and a lot of outside support. I am grateful for the opportunity to thank the many people whose advice, encouragement, and humor appear in the pages of this book. My first debt of gratitude goes to Hilary Schor, who devoted countless hours and attention to my work, challenging me to read and think more deeply and inspiring me to write with passion and conviction. Her words and influence are present throughout this book. I want to thank Jim Kincaid for guiding me with his wit and unconventional wisdom, both of which broadened my understanding of Victorian culture and altered my conception of our own. For her insight and encouragement, I offer my sincerest gratitude to Emily Anderson. Our numerous conversations allowed me to see more clearly my vision for this project. Meg Russett read (and reread) the manuscript, offering guidance that helped me clarify my aims and assert my authority. I am grateful to Jonathan Grossman, who, at a crucial moment, transformed my thinking about the book, allowing me to understand the larger stakes of the story I was trying to tell. My heartfelt thanks must go to Joe Boone. His brilliance, friendship, and, above all, unwavering confidence in this project sustained me throughout this process.

      I am fortunate to have a strong and extended network of friends, family, and colleagues who have supported me (personally and professionally) along the way. John Jordan, Philippa Levine, Theresa Mangum, Tania Modleski, Susan Zeiger, and the whole cast of The Dickens Universe provided valuable advice early on when I was still figuring out what to make of illness and health in the Victorian novel. For their thoughtful comments on dissertation chapters, conference papers, book proposals, and manuscript drafts, and for making me laugh, I want to thank Michael Blackie, Leslie Bruce, David Namie, Pamela Schaff, Jeff Solomon, Kathryn Strong Hansen, Alice Villaseñor, and Annalisa Zox-Weaver. I am especially grateful to Beth Callaghan for always being a thoughtful reader and listener, and to Becky Woomer for knowing just what to say and how best to say it. Their scholarly advice and parenting wisdom have served me well. To my mother, Kristin Wright, I owe perhaps the most for always seeing the best in what I do.

      The funding I received from the University of Southern California’s English Department and Gender Studies Department, the Marta Feuchtwanger Foundation, the Philadelphia College of Physicians, and the Huntington Library provided me with the time and resources to research and complete this project. It has been a great pleasure to work with Joseph McLaughlin, Rick Huard, Nancy Basmajian, and Sally Bennett Boyington at Ohio University Press. I am also indebted to Pamela Gilbert for her support of this book and for her scholarship, which has greatly influenced my thinking about Victorian health. I truly appreciate the careful consideration of the anonymous reader of the manuscript and the reader for Studies in the Novel, where a portion of chapter 1 first appeared as pages 377–94 in volume 42, no. 4 (2010) and is reprinted with permission by Johns Hopkins University Press.

      Finally, the book would not be half as meaningful to me without the love and companionship of Ted Johnson, who has been part of this project from the