Sensation Novels and Domestic Minds

Mental Health in Victorian Literature

Mathilde Vialard

$90.99

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Routledge
26 June 2025

Series: Routledge Studies in Literature and Health Humanities

Drawing on the recent academic interest in approaching health and wellbeing from a humanities perspective, 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. The novels of Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Wilkie Collins, two prominent writers of the genre, often portray characters suffering from mental illnesses commonly diagnosed at the time, among which are monomania, moral insanity, melancholia, and hypochondria. By studying the fictional works of Braddon and Collins alongside medical texts from the nineteenth century, it sets out to investigate how these novels fictionally represented real mental sufferings. This book considers the different mental illnesses the characters of sensation novels develop inside and outside the home as they struggle to define their own identity against Victorian social expectations. It demonstrates how these novels fictionalised the crisis of the leisured upper classes, who spent most of their time at home, and found themselves at odds with a society that increasingly separated the domestic and working environments, while also considering the impact that a lack of a sense of domestic belonging could have on their mental health. Sensation Novels and Domestic Minds further analyses the extent to which domesticity—in its excess or lack—could afflict the mental health of Victorian men and women through the fictional representation of suicidal thoughts and acts in the novels of Braddon and Collins.

By: Mathilde Vialard
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 440g
ISBN: 9781032058641
ISBN 10: 1032058641
Series: Routledge Studies in Literature and Health Humanities
Pages: 230
Publication Date: 26 June 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

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.