Why do so many of the most memorable fictional characters in nineteenth-century British literature have disabilities? What did physical disability really mean in Victorian Britain -- and what can that meaning teach us about Victorian culture? Fictions of Affliction seeks to answer these questions by investigating works of drama and fiction, writing of the period, and personal testimony of Victorians with disabilities. Holmes finds that melodramatic representations of disability pervaded not only novels by Dickens, but also doctors' treatises on blindness, educator's arguments for "special" education, and even the writing of disabled people themselves.
The first book of its kind to contribute a new emphasis to Victorian literary and cultural studies, Fictions brings the most current critical concerns to bear on questions of the representation of disability.
Martha Stoddard Holmes is Assistant Professor of Literature and Writing Studies at California State University, San Marcos.
