The Physiology of the Novel

How did the Victorians read novels? Nicholas Dames answers that deceptively simple question by revealing a now-forgotten range of 19th-century theories of the novel, based in a study of human physiology during the act of reading. He shows us the ways in which the Victorians thought they read, and uncovers surprising responses to the question of what might have transpired in the minds and bodies of readers of Victorian fiction.