Bedside seductions : nursing and the Victorian imagination, 1830-1880 / Catherine Judd.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Judd, Catherine, 1957-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English fiction--19th century--History and criticism.

English fiction.

Nurses in literature.

Literature and medicine--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Literature and medicine.

Nurses.

History.

Great Britain.

Women and literature--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Women and literature.

Nurses--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Great Britain--History--Victoria, 1837-1901.

Social conflict in literature.

Social classes in literature.

Seduction in literature.

Sex role in literature.

Physical Description:

xii, 211 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : St. Martin's Press, 1998.

Summary:

During the Victorian era, the status and the meaning of the nurse experienced remarkable and telling shifts. "Bedside Seductions" is the first book-length exploration into the significance of the nurse in mid-Victorian literary and social history.

Contents:

Introduction: Sick-Nursing and the Victorian Imagination 1

1. "Infinite Nastiness": Social Healing and the Pathology of the Victorian Novel (1830-1880) 17

2. "Thy Magic Touch": Nursing, Sexuality, and the "Dangerous Classes" (1829-1880) 33

3. A "Scrutinising and Conscious Eye": Nursing and the Carceral in Jane Eyre (1847) 55

4. Scars, Stitches, and Healing: Metaphors of Female Artistry in Gaskell's Ruth (1853) 81

5. "A Female Ulysses": Mary Seacole, Homeric Epic, and the Trope of Heroic Nursing (1854-1857) 101

6. Nursing and Female Heroics: George Eliot and Florence Nightingale (1835-1873) 123.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [189]-204) and index.

ISBN:

0312177054

OCLC:

37806009