The world of shadows and superstition that was Victorian England, so well depicted in this 1871 tale, was unique. While the foundations of so much of our present knowledge of subjects like medicine, public health, electricity, chemistry and agriculture, were being, if not laid, at least mapped out, people could still believe in the existence of devils and demons. And why not? A good ghost story is pure entertainment. It was not until well into the twentieth century that ghost stories began to have a deeper significance and to become allegorical; in fact, to lose their charm. No mental effort is required to read 'The Weird Woman', no seeking for hidden meanings; there are no complexities of plot, no allegory on the state of the world. And so it should be. At what other point in literary history could a man, standing over the body of his fiancee, say such a line as this:
'Speak, hound! Or, by heaven, this night shall witness two murders instead of one!'
Those were the days.
(introduction to "The Weird Woman")
Mots clés horror victorian ghost-story victorian-era ghost-stories victorian-london victorian-age victorian-literature
Poor thing, consigned to a life of frivolousness and wretched things for breakfast. Not allowed to go to school or do anything worthwhile, and eel pie besides.
Connie WillisAn unhappy woman with access to weed killer had to be watched carefully.
James RuddickMots clés murder poison victorian true-crime poison-study victorian-era poisoning
It's elementary, my dear Winifred.
Miss MaeMots clés sherlock-holmes mystery games castle london victorian spiders
the whole of Victorian literature done up in grey paper
Virginia WoolfMots clés literature satire victorian commentary
The physical shape of Mollies paralyses and contortions fit the pattern of late-nineteenth-century hysteria as well — in particular the phases of "grand hysteria" described by Jean-Martin Charcot, a French physician who became world-famous in the 1870s and 1880s for his studies of hysterics..."
"The hooplike spasm Mollie experienced sounds uncannily like what Charcot considered the ultimate grand movement, the arc de de cercle (also called arc-en-ciel), in which the patient arched her back, balancing on her heels and the top of her head..."
"One of his star patients, known to her audiences only as Louise, was a specialist in the arc de cercle — and had a background and hysterical manifestations quite similar to Mollie's. A small-town girl who made her way to Paris in her teens, Louise had had a disrupted childhood, replete with abandonment and sexual abuse.
She entered Salpetriere in 1875, where while under Charcot's care she experienced partial paralysis and complete loss of sensation over the right side of her body, as well as a decrease in hearing, smell, taste, and vision. She had frequent violent, dramatic hysterical fits, alternating with hallucinations and trancelike phases during which she would "see" her mother and other people she knew standing before her (this symptom would manifest itself in Mollie). Although critics, at the time and since, have decried the sometime circus atmosphere of Charcot's lectures, and claimed that he, inadvertently or not, trained his patients how to be hysterical, he remains a key figure in understanding nineteenth-century hysteria.
Mots clés science history psychology french medicine eating-disorder amnesia mental-health victorian hysteria mental-illness psychological paralysis abuse dissociative-identity-disorder multiple-personality-disorder trance psychosomatic-illness mpd conversion-disorder fancher mollie-fancher pierre-janet charcot convulsions involuntary-movements jean-marie-charcot spasms victorian-medicine
The great city seemed to weigh upon me, as though it were crushing me under its heap of brick and stone. Gray, drizzly skies, congested streets, the soot-belching boats and barges chugging up and down the Thames, the teeming mass of four millions hastening about the countless activities of daily life in a metropolis, things adventurous, meaningful, spiritual, quotidian, futile, criminal, meaningless and absurd. Amidst this seething stew of humanity, I painted.
Gary InbinderMots clés art historical-fiction london victorian
I would feel much better about this whole affair if you would slap me and get it over with. I know you want to.
Moriah DensleyMots clés historical-romance victorian
Dickens must have first heard his famous The law is an ass quote from a woman. And she was damned right, for all the good it did her.
Moriah DensleyMots clés historical-romance victorian
You have a spine of steel and fire in your eyes, Rosalie. To have such a quality, one must be shaken to the foundation of one’s soul and put back together. I want to know how you emerged from hell made of steel and fire.
Moriah DensleyMots clés historical historical-romance victorian victorian-era historical-romance-fiction
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