Janis Caldwell investigates the links between the growing scientific materialism of the nineteenth century and the persistence of the Romantic literary imagination. Through closely analyzing literary texts from Frankenstein to Middlemarch, and examining fiction alongside biomedical lectures, textbooks and articles, Caldwell argues that the way "Romantic materialism" influenced these disciplines compels us to revise conventional accounts of the relationship between literature and medicine. "[a] broad-ranging and inventive engagement ... [a] very interesting and valuable contribution to the field of literature and medicine." Victorian Studies "Caldwell's book presents a well-articulated argument that traces the roots of Romantic materialism from the eighteenth century definitions of sympathy to Eliot's idealistic vision of the clinic. Her research is well documented" Journal of the History of Medicine, Marcia K. Farrell, University of Tulsa "With this monograph, Janis McLarren Caldwell makes an important contribution to literature and medicine studies...Her insights are astute, generous, and never overly clever or self-aggrandizing." Stephanie P. Browner, Berea College, Studies in the Novel ‘An excellent collection of essays, and one that I shall warmly recommend to my students, undergraduate and postgraduate.’ Chris Mounsey, The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cat Janis McLarren Caldwell investigates the impact of medical science and the Romantic interest in material culture on nineteenth-century literature. Janis McLarren Caldwell practiced emergency medicine for five years before pursuing a Ph.D. in English Literature. She now teaches literature and science at Wake Forest University, where she is an Assistant Professor of English. An expert in nineteenth-century literature and medicine, she has received grants for research at Cambridge University and at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.