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Book Projects |
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The Neurological Romance: Popular Fiction and Brain Science, 1865-1905 |
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The late-Victorian and Edwardian periods witnessed watershed developments in neurological science, particularly the cerebral localization experiments of scientists like David Ferrier and John Hughlings Jackson in England, Paul Broca in France, and Gustav Fritsch and Eduard Hitzig in Germany. These experiments established that discrete sections of the brain regulate specific mental and physical functions, findings that stirred controversy because they apparently challenged the possibility of free will or an extra-corporeal soul. The psychological impact of these controversial experiments resonated far beyond the professional scientific community, infiltrating the popular press and popular literature. This volume addresses the seemingly paradoxical fact that British popular novelists – those associated with commercially successful genres such as the romance, the neo-Gothic novel and the “shilling shocker” – were often extremely well informed about neurological theories and their philosophical ramifications, more so than many respected practitioners of realism. Here I examine the works of scientifically savvy popular novelists including Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, H.G. Wells, Grant Allen, and Marie Corelli, some of the most financially successful and culturally influential authors of their time. Their fictions collectively demonstrate how popular developments like the late-Victorian revival of the Gothic served as an ideal medium for depicting the existential malaise spawned by cerebral localization experiments. In turn, their fictions profoundly shaped scientific thought and influenced public opinion toward neurological innovations. |
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Neurology and Literature, 1860-1920
Edited and introduced by Anne Stiles. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, September 2007.
The essays in this collection demonstrate how late-Victorian and Edwardian neurology and fiction shared common philosophical concerns and rhetorical strategies. Between 1860 and 1920, neurologists like Silas Weir Mitchell and Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote moving literature, while novelists like H.G. Wells and Wilkie Collins used fiction to dramatize neurological discoveries and their consequences. These six decades witnessed unprecedented interdisciplinary collaboration between scientists and artists, who found common ground in their shared ambivalence towards the prevailing intellectual climate of biological determinism. |
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