Medicine and Mobility in Nineteenth-Century British Literature, History, and Culture

“Medicine and Mobility in Nineteenth-Century British Literature, History, and

Culture is a welcome and timely addition to the debates touching on the theme of

mobility as it was developed through literature, medicine, and history of the

nineteenth century. Truly interdisciplinary in their approaches, these dynamic

essays encourage us to think afresh about mobility as a central feature of the

modern condition.”

—Professor Andrew Mangham, Department of English Literature,

University of Reading

“This volume gathers major international names in nineteenth-century


scholarship to address full-frontally the relation of transport and medical cultures


in a period when both were evolving symbiotically. In a series of engaging

historicising chapters, the book amply demonstrates the necessity of its

interdisciplinary logic, opening up possibilities for further Victorian, medical

humanities and mobilities research bridges.”

—Dr Matthew Ingleby, Department of English, Queen Mary University of London



Medicine and Mobility in Nineteenth-Century British Literature, History, and

Culture analyses the cultural and literary histories of medicine and mobility as


entangled processes whose discourses and practices constituted, influenced,


and transformed each other. Presenting case studies of novels, poetry, travel

narratives, diaries, ship magazines, skin care manuals, asylum records, press

reports, and various other sources, its chapters identify and discuss diverse

literary, historical, and cultural texts, contexts, and modes in which medicine

and mobility intersected in nineteenth-century Britain, its empire, and beyond,

whereby they illustrate how the paradigms of mobility studies and the medical

humanities can complement each other.



SandraDinter  is Junior Professor of British Literature and Culture at the

University of Hamburg, Germany. Her research focuses on representations of

mobility, gender, and space in the long nineteenth century.

Sarah Schäfer-Althaus is Lecturer of Anglophone Literature and Culture at the

University of Koblenz, Germany. Her research focuses on women, gender, and

sexuality studies, body theory, and the history of medicine.