ABSTRACT
This chapter explains Boyd's differences in his examination of the interplay between disease and literature as far as possible. It presents an overview of the relationship between literature and disease in the nineteenth century, historicising its development in relation to key shifts in historiography, historical context, and literary and critical paradigms. With particular emphasis on the representation of tuberculosis and cholera, the chapter explores the changing signification of these diseases over time. Focusing on a selection of novels published after the Second World War, it considers representations within fictional narratives of the historical past, particularly those set in the nineteenth century and concerned with the representation of cholera. The chapter explores why, in an era of British national decline, authors turned to medicine and disease in order to examine the national past, and how such representations had shifted in comparison to those of nineteenth-century origin.
