Nineteenth Century Popular Fiction, Medicine and Anatomy, 1st ed. 2019
The Victorian Penny Blood and the 1832 Anatomy Act
Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine Series

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Language: English

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This book investigates the relationship between the fascinating and misunderstood penny blood, early Victorian popular fiction for the working class, and Victorian anatomy. In 1832, the controversial Anatomy Act sanctioned the use of the body of the pauper for teaching dissection to medical students, deeply affecting the Victorian poor. The ensuing decade, such famous penny bloods as Manuscripts from the Diary of a Physician, Varney the Vampyre, Sweeney Todd, and The Mysteries of London addressed issues of medical ethics, social power, and bodily agency. Challenging traditional views of penny bloods as a lowlier, un-readable genre, this book rereads these four narratives in the light of the 1832 Anatomy Act, putting them in dialogue with different popular artistic forms and literary genres, as well as with the spaces of death and dissection in Victorian London, exploring their role as channels for circulating discourses about anatomy and ethics among the Victorian poor.

1. Preface: Dissecting a Literary Monster.- 2. Penny Bloods, The Anatomy Act, and a Common Ground for Analysis.- 3. Manuscripts from the Diary of a Physician: Power, Ethics, and the Super-Doctor.- 4. Coping with the Displaced Corpse: Medicine, Truth, and Masculinity in Varney the Vampyre.- 5. Underground Truths: Sweeney Todd, Cannibalism, and Discourse Control.- 6. The Unknown Labyrinth: Radicalism, The Body, and the Anatomy Act in The Mysteries of London.- 7. Dissection Report: Patterns of Medicine and Ethics.

Anna Gasperini received her PhD from the National University of Ireland Galway. She specialises in Victorian popular fiction, Victorian medical history, and spatial and discourse theory. She is the current Membership Secretary of the UK-based Victorian Popular Fiction Association (VPFA).


Analyses four narratives within the context of the 1832 Anatomy Act and its aftermath Explores penny bloods’ elaboration of discourses about anatomy-related anxieties, such as cannibalism, medical voyeurism, and resurrectionism Develops an interconnected discussion about the inclusion in the fictional narratives of real spaces and events relating to the Anatomy Act's history