The Wasting Heroine in German Fiction by Women 1770-1914

• Introduction ; 1. 'On peut le comparer [...] a une sorte de maladie': Women and Medicine ; 2. 'Die zarte Pflanze welkte hin': Wasting Women in German Fiction by Men ; 3. 'Ich sterbe, weil ich dich liebte': Conventional Wasting in Fiction by Women ; 4. 'Man stirbt wirklich nicht aus Liebesgram, obschon Ihr Manner dieses gerne glauben mochtet': Alternative Wasting Heroines ; 5. 'Die bleichen, vom Nichtsthun, von Sehnsucht und Enttauschung verzehrten Madchen': Repression and Apathy in Gabriele Reuter ; 6. 'Freiheit will ich! korperlose, schrankenlose!': Helene Bohlau, Hedwig Dohm, and the Emancipatory Value of Illness, Food Refusal, and Vegetarianism ; Conclusion ; Bibliography

The study is impressive in its breadth and depth. Richard elucidates a topic of concern to women today, as the gendered aetiology of depression, for example, indicates.... It systematically traces the trope of illness and health over a century and digests the existing secondary literature in elegant prose. Wasting Heroine contributes much needed literary and historical research on the gendered nature of health.