Cholera and Nation

Pamela K. Gilbert is Professor of English at the University of Florida. Her books include Mapping the Victorian Social Body; Imagined Londons; and Beyond Sensation: Mary Elizabeth Braddon in Context (coedited with Marlene Tromp and Aeron Haynie), all published by SUNY Press.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction I.  A Sinful and Suffering Nation 1. A Sinful Nation: 1832 2. After 1832: Medical Authority and the Clergy 3. A Suffering Nation: Responses of the Poor and Radicals to the Cholera II.  Medics and Discourses of Cholera 4. Medics and the Public Sphere 5. The Body in Question 6. Race, Gender, and Cholera III.  Writing Nation’s Body 7. Narrating Cholera and Nation 8. Kingsley: Nation, Gender, and the Body ConclusionNotesWorks CitedIndex

"…richly diverse: the book extends well beyond the often limited reach of medical histories into popular and social response and into Church and doctrinal writings." — Victorian Studies"…Gilbert's commentary on the four cholera epidemics that besieged Britain between 1832 and 1866 registers the important exchanges occurring between Victorian religious, political, and medical discourses … her discussion is remarkable for its astute attention to important schools of criticism and their critics (from postcolonialism and Homi Bhabha to psychoanalysis and Julia Kristeva) … the book brings together crucial sources that will be starting points for anyone interested in studying the rhetorical interdependence of Victorian health and various social factions." — CHOICE"This is a very skillful example of historically sound literary criticism; it combines attention to narrative with relevant historical contextualization, and offers a detailed account of the literary history of a subject not commonly treated through literature. This is innovative and complements more conventional historical work on the subject of public health and medicine in the Victorian period." — Antoinette Burton, editor of Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions, and the Writing of History