Wilkie Collins – Journal of Victorian Culture Online

“The Lady is Ugly!”: The Imposition of Gender Binaries Upon Marian Halcombe

January 9, 2023 Therese Ruud Gordeladze Other

Marian Halcombe is a complex woman. Unlike many other female characters, both within and outside Victorian fiction, she stands outside the gender binary. She is often attributed male characteristics, both in mind and appearance. Her appearance is complex, juxtaposing her feminine and sexualized body with her masculine and ‘ugly’ face: The lady is dark. […] The lady is young. […] The lady is ugly! Never has the old conventional maxim, that Nature cannot err, more flatly contradicted – never was

Victorian Literature and the History and Philosophy of Psychology

April 28, 2013 Serena Trowbridge Victorians Beyond the Academy

Serena Trowbridge, Birmingham City University In March I had the opportunity to participate in a symposium at the British Psychological Society’s History and Philosophy of Psychology (HPP) Conference at the University of Surrey. This session was convened by Gregory Tate (Surrey), and included four papers: ‘Definitions of sanity and insanity in sensation novels by Wilkie Collins and Mary Elizabeth Braddon’ by Helena Ifill (Sheffield), ‘Diagnosis and mental trauma in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette’ by Alexandra Lewis (Aberdeen), ‘The self-diagnosis of Sydney

Food Adulteration, the Victorians and Us

March 26, 2013 lucinda matthews-jones Victorians Beyond the Academy

or rather How Britain Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Processed Meat Helen Williams is Ph.D. student in the School of English, Drama, American and Canadian Studies at the University of Birmingham. Her thesis explores the representation of medicine and middle-class healthcare in the novels of Wilkie Collins, reading his texts alongside contemporary layperson writings on medicine. Her postgraduate profile is available to view here. Whilst the origins of the recent horsemeat scandal are still uncertain, with some press reports