This intriguing book examines the ways 'contagion' or disease inform and shape a wide variety of nineteenth century texts and contexts.

This intriguing book examines the ways contagion - or disease - inform and shape a wide variety of nineteenth century texts and contexts.

Christensen dissects the cultural assumptions concerning disease, health, impurity and so on before exploring different perspectives on key themes such as plague, nursing and the hospital environment and focusing on certain key texts including Dickens's Bleak House, Gaskell's Ruth, and Zola's Le Docteur Pascal.