Science, Medicine, and Aristocratic Lineage in Victorian Popular Fiction

“Abigail Boucher’s debut monograph is an incisive, erudite, and pointed intervention in Victorian studies as well as the health/medical humanities ... . Science, Medicine, and Aristocratic Lineage in Victorian Popular Fiction makes a successful case for studying genre fiction to glean middle- and working-class attitudes towards both the aristocracy and the scientific and medical theories of that period. ... One of the monograph’s many strengths is the sheer comprehensiveness … .” (Bassam Sidiki, Victorian Studies, Vol. 67 (4), 2025) 

“Boucher’s book provides a fascinating overview of representations of aristocratic lineage in Victorian popular fiction and will be of interest to scholars working in a variety of different fields, including scholars of Victorian popular fiction, scholars working on the history of science and medicine, and scholars interested in social class in literature.” (Sarah Frühwirth, BAVS Newsletter, Vol. 24 (2), 2024)

“This title is a monograph … . It has a very detailed table of contents that make it easy to find Boucher’s discussions of individual topics and texts, and each chapter has its own conclusion and works cited. This makes Science, Medicine and Aristocratic Lineage in Victorian Popular Fiction easy to navigate and use in smaller pieces. This format also makes it ideal for classroom usage as a chapter can easily be excerpted from the whole.” (Ellen Stockstill, The British Society for Literature and Science, bsls.ac.uk, June 6, 2024)