Sensation Novels and Domestic Minds - Mental Health in Victorian Literature

Sensation Novels and Domestic Minds investigates how the Victorians dealt with questions of mental health by examining literary works in the genre of sensation fiction.

List of contents

Introduction: Sensation, Home, and Health
1. 'And we will pass hours and hours every day with these four friendly walls round us': Domesticated Idleness in Sensation Novels
2. 'I am nothing but a bundle of nerves dressed up to look like a man': Nervous Disorders and Domestic Life
3. 'Our quiet life here maddens me; I can bear it no longer; I must go': Public Industriousness and Obsession
4. 'Mad to-day and sane to-morrow, mad yesterday and sane to-day': Partial Insanity or Deviant Behaviours
5. 'If this state of depression continues, very distressing mental consequences may follow': Melancholy Extremes in Sensation Novels
Conclusion: Sensational Excesses

About the author

Mathilde Vialard is a Medical English teacher at the Université de Dijon in France where she teaches various language courses as well as 'Health in Literature' modules. She was awarded a PhD in health sciences at the University of Nottingham, England, in 2023 and her research now focuses on broadening the health humanities community in French universities by using literature to help healthcare professionals in training to engage with their patients.

Product details

• Authors: Mathilde Vialard
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 27.06.2025
• EAN: 9781032058641
• ISBN: 978-1-032-05864-1
• No. of pages: 230
• Series: Routledge Studies in Literature and Health Humanities
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; LITERARY CRITICISM / General, Psychotherapy, Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900, Literary theory, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Victorian Literature