Reading the Bronte Body: Disease, Desire, and the Constraints of Culture

Anne, Emily, and Charlotte Brontë's literary representations of illness and disease reflect the major role they played in the lives of the Victorians and their frequent reoccurrence within the Brontës' personal lives. Blending medical anthropology and the history of medicine, this book offers modern readers a sense of how health, illness, and the body were understood in Victorian England. Reading the Brontë Body is the first scholarly attempt to provide both the theoretical framework and historical background to make such a literary analysis of the Brontë novels possible.