Victorian Pain

Victorian Pain (Princeton University Press), by Rachel Ablow ’91, is a new analysis of the literary and philosophical history of pain, viewed through the lens of 19th-century developments in science and medicine. Ablow, a professor of English at the University of Buffalo, uses close readings of authors such as Charles Darwin, John Stuart Mill, and Charlotte Brontë to explore the concept of pain in the Victorian era, tracing its evolution from a divine test or punishment to a personal struggle.