2 10 26 https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/adb7766fb62f3e216feda263b4b1128a.jpg e3af372ce930d02ae2777afeb0ae96e9 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 846 Height 1062 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource The illustration shows Want and Ignorance, a boy and a girl, standing in front of the Ghost of Christmas Present with Scrooge facing the triad in his nightcap. illustration by John Leech. 1843 Chapman and Hall edition of A Christmas Carol. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. “What has ever got your precious father then?” said Mrs. Cratchit. “And your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha warn’t as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour?” “Here’s Martha, mother!” said a girl, appearing as she spoke. “Here’s Martha, mother!” cried the two young Cratchits. “Hurrah! There’s such a goose, Martha!” “Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!” said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal. “We’d a deal of work to finish up last night,” replied the girl, “and had to clear away this morning, mother!” “Well! Never mind so long as you are come,” said Mrs. Cratchit. “Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!” “No, no! There’s father coming,” cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. “Hide, Martha, hide!” So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame! “Why, where’s our Martha?” cried Bob Cratchit, looking round. “Not coming,” said Mrs. Cratchit. “Not coming!” said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim’s blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. “Not coming upon Christmas Day!” Martha didn’t like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper. “And how did little Tim behave?” asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart’s content. “As good as gold,” said Bob, “and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.” Bob’s voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty. His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs—as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby—compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round and put it on the hob<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> to simmer; Master Peter, and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession. (89-92) <h3>Notes</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> A metal shelf inside a hearth. </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Christmas Carol Description An account of the resource One of the most recognizable characters in Victorian fiction, “Tiny Tim” Cratchit reappears each Christmas in radioplays, television, stage, and film. Through these cultural reproductions, Tim has come to represent yuletide charity and the reductive idea that “the plight of the disabled can always be alleviated by philanthropy” (Fiedler 68)<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a>. However, as the short selection of the story below shows, the text of A Christmas Carol itself gives a more complicated depiction of disability than this. On one hand, the melodramatic tone—“Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!”— implies that Tim’s physical state inspires pity alone. Moreover, by way of synecdoche Tim’s identity is reduced to his non-normative body: his diminutive size and his crutch stand in for his name (Norden 190-91). In fact, Tim sees himself as a reminder of Christ’s healings, that is, of erasures of disability; that his father, Bob, reports this rather than Tim further obscures Tim’s autonomy. On the other hand, the passage also shows Tim as an active member of his community and family, taking full part in their religious and festive traditions. The narrator here not only depicts Tim’s body as bearing physical limitations, but also as using adapted and energetic mobility, as seen in his “active little crutch” (Rodas 67). <div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> Fiedler suggests that respect and empowerment do much more than charity and pity for people with disabilities. </div> </div> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. London: Chapman and Hall, 1843. Available online at <a href="http://www.archive.org/stream/1843christmascar00dickuoft#page/n7/mode/2up">http://www.archive.org/stream/1843christmascar00dickuoft#page/n7/mode/2up</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1843 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kylee-Anne Hingston Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The illustration shows Want and Ignorance, a boy and a girl, standing in front of the Ghost of Christmas Present with Scrooge facing the triad in his nightcap. illustration by John Leech. 1843 Chapman and Hall edition of A Christmas Carol. Relation A related resource <ul><li> Fiedler, Leslie A. “Pity and Fear: Images of the Disabled In Literature and the Popular Arts.” Salmagundi 57 (Summer 1982): 57-69. </li> <li> Norden, Martin F. “Tiny Tim on Screen: a Disability Studies Perspective.” Dickens On Screen. Ed. John Glavin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. </li> <li> Rodas, Julia Miele. “Tiny Tim, Blind Bertha, and the Resistance of Miss Mowcher: Charles Dickens and the Uses of Disability.” Dickens Studies Annual 34 (Summer 2004): 51-97. </li> </ul> Language A language of the resource English Charles Dickens Class Invalidism Literature Mobility Novel https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/f940507ad6ffc60de21b570554471496.jpg 0db5bb1781b1c60678f52b1fe8a25724 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. 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Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A Victorian ear trumpet swathed in black silk and lace mouning Photograph 19th century Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html IPTC Array a:5:{s:16:"copyright_notice";s:123:"Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";s:6:"byline";s:15:"Wellcome Images";s:11:"object_name";s:32:"L0035591 A Victorian ear trumpet";s:8:"headline";s:32:"L0035591 A Victorian ear trumpet";s:7:"caption";s:360:"L0035591 A Victorian ear trumpet Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A Victorian ear trumpet swathed in black silk and lace mouning Photograph 19th century Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource Photograph of a Victorian hearing trumpet swathed in black fabric and lace.  https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/5c639dbba52e3fb9a04970fe57b20840.jpg 25c09d6a80556aadcfcd52b79326b57d Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. 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Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A Victorian ear trumpet swathed in black silk and lace mouning Photograph 19th century Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html IPTC Array a:5:{s:16:"copyright_notice";s:123:"Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";s:6:"byline";s:15:"Wellcome Images";s:11:"object_name";s:32:"L0035592 A Victorian ear trumpet";s:8:"headline";s:32:"L0035592 A Victorian ear trumpet";s:7:"caption";s:360:"L0035592 A Victorian ear trumpet Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A Victorian ear trumpet swathed in black silk and lace mouning Photograph 19th century Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource This photograph of an ear trumpet swathed in black and lace is taken from the front of the device, showing the trumpet, whose copious fabric makes it look like a black pom-pom. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ear Trumpet in Mourning Description An account of the resource The ear trumpet is among the earliest hearing aid devices designed to bring sound more effectively to the ear, dating to as early as 1800 when manufacturer Frederick Charles Rein opened shop in London (later becoming F.C. Rein & Son). They came in various designs from long trumpets 16” to 19” inches in length, to collapsible trumpets that could be placed in an individual’s pocket, banjo-styles, or bell/dome types that were popular for their ability to resonate sound effectively—the greater an individual’s hearing loss, the larger the instrument was recommended for use. These hearing trumpets, however, were very conspicuous devices and drew attention to an individual’s hearing loss. In the nineteenth century, a design trend towards hearing instruments favouring concealment became popular; large devices were redesigned to be worn on the person, as part of their attire, or masked as <a title="Ear Trumpet as Furniture" href="http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/did/19thcent/index.htm" target="_blank">furniture</a>. As hearing trumpets and devices became aesthetically appealing and socially acceptable, more individuals were making use of them to improve their hearing losses. This particular nineteenth-century hearing trumpet is a unique one, designed for use during a woman’s mourning period, to blend in with her clothes, as evident by the black fabric, lace, ribbon, and earpiece wrapping the device. It was likely constructed by one of the popular hearing aid instrument makers in London—F.C. Rein & Son, or T.Hawksley, Ltd., on Oxford Street, which was established in 1869 (later Hawksley & Sons). This hearing trumpet was part of the elaborate accoutrements of Victorian mourning inspired in part by Queen Victoria’s 40-year mourning period following the death of King Albert in 1861. Lavish funerals, formal garments, black-bordered stationery, were all part of the complicated and dignified mourning period, clearly an aspect for the wealthier parts of society, though in some cases these mourning rituals may served as sources of financial anxiety and commercial exploitations (Clewell 2004). The mourning period also invoked a strict and fashionable dress code which was applied rigorously to widows, who were required to wear full black mourning for at least <a title="Victorian mourning conventions" href="https://www.msu.edu/user/beltranm/mourning/mourning.htm" target="_blank">two years</a>. Extravagance and social emulation were part of the mourning rituals for the middle-classes and were reflected in fashion magazines such as Queen or Gentlewoman that outlined dictations for refinements and mourning and even updated mourning outfits according the latest season’s fashions (Jalland 1996:301). Advice manuals such as Manners and Rules of Good Society, or Solecisms to be Avoided (London: Frederick Warne & Co., 1887) also provided clear instructions for devotion to the mourning period. It was believed that mourning clothes, fashion, furniture, or even ear trumpets were the grieving family’s way of displaying their inner feelings over the loss of a loved one. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Uknown Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jaipreet Viridi Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Photograph of a Victorian hearing trumpet swathed in black fabric and lace. Image courtesy <a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://wellcomeimages.org/" target="_blank">Wellcome Library, London</a> under a Creative Commons License (<a title="wellcome images" href="http://wellcomeimages.org/" target="_blank">Museum No. A129677</a> and <a title="Wellcome Images" href="Museum%20No%20A129677" target="_blank">Museum No A129677</a>). Relation A related resource <ul><li>Science Museum “Brought to Life” exhibit: Ear Trumpet c.1850-1910. <a href="http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/objects/display.aspx?id=92089">http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/objects/display.aspx?id=92089</a></li> <li>Bernard Becker Library Virtual Exhibit: Deafness in Disguise: Concealed Hearing Devices of the 19th and 20th Centuries <a href="http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/did/index.htm">http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/did/index.htm</a></li> <li>Tammy Clewell, “Consolation Refused: Virginia Woolf, The Great War, and Modernist Mourning,” Modern Fiction Studies 50.1 (2004): 197-223.</li> <li>Jalland, Pat. Death in the Victorian Family. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.</li> <li>Rothman, Heather, “Mourning in the Victorian Era.” Web. May 2013. <a href="http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/agunn/teaching/enl3251/vf/pres/rothman.htm">http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/agunn/teaching/enl3251/vf/pres/rothman.htm</a></li> <li>Berger, Kenneth W. The Hearing Aid, it’s Operation and Development. Michigan, USA: National Hearing Aid Society, 1970.</li> </ul> Deafness Material Culture Prosthesis Technology https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/4843e0ea0a11561b558630326e621b1a.jpg 1b0a9d95db9719344154cb2e17c91295 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 800 Height 514 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 IPTC String copyright_notice:Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html byline:Wellcome Images object_name:L0037241 Artificial left leg headline:L0037241 Artificial left leg caption:L0037241 Artificial left leg Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk Artificial left leg with thigh socket for amputation above the knee. Photograph circa 1920 Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html IPTC Array a:5:{s:16:"copyright_notice";s:123:"Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";s:6:"byline";s:15:"Wellcome Images";s:11:"object_name";s:28:"L0037241 Artificial left leg";s:8:"headline";s:28:"L0037241 Artificial left leg";s:7:"caption";s:360:"L0037241 Artificial left leg Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk Artificial left leg with thigh socket for amputation above the knee. Photograph circa 1920 Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource An artificial left leg with a thigh socket for amputation above the knee. Photograph (circa 1920). Courtesy of <a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://wellcomeimages.org/" target="_blank">Wellcome Library, London</a> under a Creative Commons License (<a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://wellcomeimages.org/" target="_blank">Museum No A500465</a>). Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. I shall proceed to adduce in favour of a single member, in opposition to what I am forced to confess is the general current opinion, an opinion resulting as I hope to shew [sic.], from inconsiderate habit and the mere accident of birth. Let us glance, then, in the outset, at the numberless miseries and calamities in every shape that lie in wait for the thoughtless bipeds who on two active legs run to-and-fro upon the earth, and, mounted on “Shank’s naggie,”<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> rush headlong to their hurt. Let him number who can the fractures, the maimings, the fatal results that have ensued from these rampant and foolhardy exploits in which a man of single sole would never engage, and could not if he would. How many enterprising youths have broken their necks through having one leg too much? How many have jumped at all, had they, instead of elastic flesh and sinew, possessed good wooden substitutes? How many have sunk in the fateful flood who would never have dreamed of swimming with a timber-toe? and how many have followed their heedless noses into irretrievable mischief, who would have remained safe from all harm upon a single foot? Then look at the double risks of the double-footed, even in calamities that come unsought. The gout, that horrible visitant, has but half a victim in a one-legged man; of corns, also, he has but half a crop; his bunions never mar his quiet pilgrimage; and, come what may, he cannot by any possibility suffer from damp feet. [. . .] Then the man of one leg, it must not be forgotten, is the possessor of certain physical advantages to which the biped is for ever a stranger. He is exempt by law from all personal participation in the turmoils and brutalities of war. A man of peace by Act of Parliament,<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> he never incurs the disgrace of running away, or is laughed at for avoiding a combat by shewing what he has not got “a fair pair of heels”—though if by any aggression he is driven to his shifts, he can, upon an emergency, find a footing where the greatest hero upon two legs could not make a stand. Or he may cross a steam dry-shot where another would get up to his knee in water, simply by plunging his insensible substitute in the middle, and transferring the natural limb to the opposite bank. [. . .] Moreover, in cases of emergency, when it becomes necessary to put the best foot foremost, he is never hesitating and at a loss, like your bipeds, being at no pains on deciding between the leg which cost him nothing, and that which has cost him perhaps from ten shillings to ten pounds,<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a> as taste or circumstances may have led him to the adoption of the convenient cork, the patent spring, or the unsophisticated but manly stump, in the choice of a pedestal. I might enumerate many other advantages which contribute to his exclusive enjoyment, were I so disposed, but I scorn to accumulate evidence in favour of a truth which the reader must by this time be ready to admit, and shall proceed, as in fairness bound, to notice the objections that may be urged by prejudiced bipeds against his fortunate condition. <h3>Notes</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> A Scottish phrase literally meaning “to ride on Shank’s mare”. To “shank” is “To set off smartly, to walk away with expedition” (Jamieson 342). In this context, then, Smith means merely to walk with great haste. See Jamieson, John. Supplement to the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language. Vol. 2. Edinburgh, 1825. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> Like nowadays, men wishing to enlist in the British Army faced a medical screening. If an applicant did not match certain physical requirements, he was not offered an enlistment (which were typically for ten or twelve years). For more on British Army enlistment, see Skelley, Alan Ramsay. The Victorian Army at Home: The Recruitment and Terms and Conditions of the British Regular, 1859-1899. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1977. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[3]</a> There was in fact a huge difference in price between top-of-the-range artificial legs (such as those made by British prosthetist Frederick Gray and the Americans Frank Palmer and A. A. Marks) and peg legs, which were produced by carpenters, cabinet makers and doctors as well as by prosthesis specialists. Mexican political leader Antonio López de Santa Anna, who lost his leg fighting the French in 1839, is said to have purchased two high-tech wooden legs from an American cabinet maker for a staggering $1,300 a piece. By contrast, in 1888 A. A. Marks charged just $10 a piece for his cheapest peg legs. For more on nineteenth-century British currency, see Marje Bloy’s “<a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/economics/currency.html">British Currency before 1971</a>” on The Victorian Web. </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource An Essay on Wooden Legs, with Some Account of Herr Von Holtzbein Description An account of the resource Charles Manby Smith (1804–80) was a writer fascinated by and deeply concerned with the position of “cripples” in Victorian society. In the second edition of his most famous work <a href="http://archive.org/stream/curiositiesoflon00smit#page/16/mode/2up">Curiosities of London Life: Or, Phases, Physiological and Social, of the Great Metropolis</a> (1857), a study of London street life that has been compared to Charles Dickens’s <a href="http://archive.org/details/sketchesbyboz00dick">Sketches by Boz</a>(1833–36) and Henry Mayhew’s <a href="http://archive.org/stream/londonlabourlond01mayhrich#page/n7/mode/2up">London Labour and the London Poor</a> (1851), he expresses particular anxiety for those maimed by “commerce” (referring to labourers injured by industrial machinery), who, according to him, were given little support and “left to fight the battle of life at fearful odds” (17). The “tale of adventure” “<a href="http://archive.org/stream/deadlockalsotal00smitgoog#page/n6/mode/2up">An Essay on Wooden Legs, with Some Account of Herr Von Holtzbein</a>” (first printed in the April 1854 edition of Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine and later published in a volume with Smith’s novel The Dead Lockin 1863), on the other hand, presents the amputee as curios whilst playfully gesturing toward the enabling potential of human prosthesis. In a perspicuously ironic manner, the narrator of “An Essay on Wooden Legs” goes beyond identifying prostheses as devices that can enable amputees to live normal lives, suggesting instead that such technologies are capable of enhancing a user beyond the limits of normalcy. As the narrator explains, “it is my present purpose to reconsider a question which I fear has been too summarily settled, without duly weighing the arguments which have been, or might be, adduced on both sides—the question being, whether TWO legs are better than ONE” (emphasis original; 247). According to the narrator, the use of an artificial leg not only lessens the chances of the user contracting illnesses or defects, such as gout, corns, and bunions, but also prevents damp feet and the risk of sustaining injuries as a result of doing things too quickly. It also, according to the narrator, provides some physical advantages, such as providing a better footing on soft ground. To exemplify his argument, the narrator also tells the story of Herr Von Holtzbein—the name in German literally means “wooden leg”—, a Berlin-based war veteran, who after losing his leg to a bullet-wound in the Napoleonic war, “cured the ills that fighting flesh is heir to by applications of wood and steel, and leather and whalebone and cork, all so elaborately made and so perfectly simulating nature's handy-work, that his reputation, amateur though he was, surpassed that of the first professors of the day” (254). After Von Holtzbein’s daughter gets engaged to a fellow veteran’s son, the prosthesis maker breaks off the engagement because of an off-hand comment made by the young suitor regarding the inferiority of prosthetic limbs to their organic equivalents. Only after the suitor has an accident himself—resulting in amputation and the chartable offering of an artificial leg by Von Holtzbein—is the relationship between father and son-in-law-to-be restored. Herr Doppelschank, the suitor, is thus only enabled to marry the successful prosthetist’s daughter (thus raising his status and, presumably, his finances) once he is himself adorned with a prosthetic limb. While the tone of Smith’s “tale of adventure” is obviously ironic, what is significant is that at no point are inorganic-looking prostheses privileged over human legs. Indeed, Von Holtzbein’s legs are described as being so impressive exactly because they “so perfectly simulat[e] nature's handy-work” (254). In this sense, then, while the author light-heartedly champions the durability of wood as a replacement for “elastic flesh and sinew” (248), he resists advocating a prosthetic device that looks mechanical or inhuman. The tale is therefore comical, rather than radical. The artificial limb is suggested to be more durable and resilient than the organic, but quietly nature’s design goes unquestioned. While the author is happy to mock the material flaws of the organic leg and also the supposed ingeniousness of contemporary artificial legs, he nonetheless privileges the appearance of the natural limb. This restraint reflects a wider Victorian acceptance of prosthetic technology on the condition that it resembles human form and masks the disability of its user. Indeed, as Vanessa Warne and others have identified, artificial legs (like the one displayed in the image above and those produced by Von Holtzbein) were seen as distinct from and were privileged over peg legs (worn predominantly by lower class characters such as Silas Wegg from Dickens’s <a href="http://archive.org/stream/ourmutualfriend00883gut/old/mfrnd10.txt">Our Mutual Friend</a>) in the Victorian period since they possessed superior mimetic capabilities and better disguised middle-class and aristocratic users from appearing maimed. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, Charles Manby Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1854 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ryan Sweet Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource An artificial left leg with a thigh socket for amputation above the knee. Photograph (circa 1920). Courtesy of <a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://wellcomeimages.org/" target="_blank">Wellcome Library, London</a> under a Creative Commons License (<a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://wellcomeimages.org/" target="_blank">Museum No A500465</a>). Relation A related resource <ul><li>Gray, Frederick. Automatic Mechanism, as Applied in the Construction of Artificial Limbs, in Cases of Amputation. London, 1855. Available <a href="http://archive.org/details/automaticmechani00gray">online</a> at archive.org.</li> <li>Mihm, Stephen. “A Limb Which Shall Be Presentable In Polite Society: Prosthetic Technologies in the Nineteenth Century”. eds. Katherine Ott, David Serlin and Stephen Mihm. Artificial Parts, Practical Lives: Modern Histories of Prosthetics. New York: New York University Press, 2002. 282–299. Print.</li> <li>Warne, Vanessa. “‘To Invest a Cripple with Peculiar Interest’: Artificial Legs and Upper-Class Amputees at Mid-Century”. Victorian Review 35.2 (2009): 83–100.</li> </ul> Language A language of the resource English Medicine Mobility Prosthesis Technology https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/4a462b9ba9ae2ced26fb6154b9e6b1be.jpg bda9a06c8ca846113d576fd91b2e397a Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 396 Height 549 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 IPTC String copyright_notice:Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html byline:Wellcome Images object_name:L0028076 Caricature - Punch\'s fancy portraits headline:L0028076 Caricature - Punch\'s fancy portraits caption:L0028076 Caricature - Punch\'s fancy portraits Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk "Punch\'s Fancy Portraits - No. 42. Dr. Henry Thompson". Punch Published: 1881 Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html IPTC Array a:5:{s:16:"copyright_notice";s:123:"Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";s:6:"byline";s:15:"Wellcome Images";s:11:"object_name";s:46:"L0028076 Caricature - Punch\'s fancy portraits";s:8:"headline";s:46:"L0028076 Caricature - Punch\'s fancy portraits";s:7:"caption";s:351:"L0028076 Caricature - Punch\'s fancy portraits Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk "Punch\'s Fancy Portraits - No. 42. Dr. Henry Thompson". Punch Published: 1881 Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource The cariacature shows Henry Thompson weilding an instrument that is knife on one side, pen on the other, standing in front of a table surrounded by papers, a dinner menu, and a skeleton.  The caption reads:  "Great Artist-Surgeon, who is so well able / To point a Pencil and adorn a Table? / First in the Ranks of Men of Light and Leading / Our best Authority on Food and Feeding." "Punch's Fancy Portraits - No. 42. Dr. Henry Thompson." Punch (1881). Courtesy of the <a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/" target="_blank">Wellcome Library, London</a> under a Creative Commons License (<a title="Wellcome Library Catalogue" href="http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1312142" target="_blank">Record no. 1714437</a>). Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. … No doubt all admire the sang-froid and skill, possession of which is necessary to make a good surgical operator — qualities, by the way, which are perhaps more frequently developed by training, than found already existing as a natural inheritance. But it is germane to our purpose to remember that everybody has a direct practical concern in the existence of an available supply of the necessary talent to meet a certain demand on the part of the body politic, for no one knows how soon his own personal necessities may not be such as to give him the strongest possible interest in its exercise: a demand that is absolutely inevitable; — for be assured that, without any wish to alarm you, gentle reader, Mr. Neison will, if requested to make the calculation, inform us at once what the numerical chances are that your own well-proportioned nether limb will, or will not, fall before the surgeon's knife, or that that undoubtedly hard and well-developed cranium may not yet be scientifically explored by “trepan” or “trephine.”<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> He will estimate with unerring certainty the probability (to nine places of decimals, if you demand it) that your own fair person may become the subject of some unpleasing excrescence<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a>; and also what the chances are that you must seek the surgeon's aid to remove it. While Mr. Buckle will stoutly maintain, and you will find it hard to gainsay him, that, given the present conditions of existence, a certain ascertainable number of tumours, broken legs, and natural-born deformities will regularly make their appearance every year among the human family. And he will probably add, that it is perfectly within the province of possibility to calculate, if we had all the required data, the exact number of individuals who have the requisite courage to submit to operation; as of those who will not have heart to do so, and who will inevitably die without benefit of surgery; together with the exact percentage to the population of those who will, and who will not, put faith in the blessed boon of chloroform. (500) … [He goes on to describe the roughness of early-amputation, the “patient’s torture” from surgeons using “a red-hot knife” to amputate in the eleventh century or “red-hot irons” or “boiling pitch”<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a> to cauterize after surgery in the sixteenth century and then the surgical improvement of ligature to stop bleeding after amputation, introduced to England in the seventeenth century (501-02).] But enough of this: let us soothe our ruffled nerves by seeing how the thing is done to-day. We will take a quiet post of observation in the area of the operating theatre at one of our metropolitan hospitals, in this year of our Lord 1860. Notice is posted that amputation of the thigh will be performed at 2 o'clock p.m., and we occupy our seat ten minutes before the hour. (502) … [He goes on to describe the operating theatre, the presence of surgeons, tools, and students, the application of the tourniquet to limb to be amputated, and then the smooth operating process itself, which he relates using precise words such as “central axis,” “incision,” and “transfixion” (503) as opposed to the rougher words, such as “dreadful remedies” and “horribly loathsome” (502) used to depict historical amputation above.] Half an hour hence that patient will regain consciousness, and probably the first observation he makes will be, “I am quite ready for the operation, when is it going to begin?” And it takes no little repetition of the assurance that all is over to make him realize the happy truth. So it is that he who loses the limb knows less about the process than any one concerned; infinitely less, my gentle reader, than you who have shared with us the quiet corner, and have seen all without losing consciousness, or fainting. (504) … <h3>Notes</h3> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> A trephine is a surgical hole saw devoted to the removal of tissue or bone; a trepan is a trephine devoted to surgery of the skull. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> A tumour or growth. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[3]</a> Boiling tar. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Under Chloroform Description An account of the resource “Under Chloroform,” an unsigned article on amputation written by surgeon Henry Thompson, was published in the first volume of the popular literary magazine, The Cornhill. At the time, Thompson, a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, specialized in urology and was a consulting surgeon at a workhouse infirmary; two years later he would become full surgeon at University College Hospital (Paton). “Under Chloroform” demonstrates The Cornhill’s editorial mandate to educate its readers on a wide variety of issues, publishing articles by scientists and physicians as well as poems and serial fiction (Kennedy 80). More significantly, however, this article exhibits Victorian ambivalence regarding bodily integrity, that is, bodily wholeness. After stating that his purpose is to correct incorrect public knowledge about modern amputation, Thompson highlights the high probability of undergoing such an operation, saying, “no one knows how soon his own personal necessities may not be such as to give him the strongest possible interest in its exercise” (500). In doing so, Thompson reminds readers of the transient state of their bodily wholeness, implying that surgery is “absolutely inevitable” (500). As if to increase the reader anxiety this statement produces, Thompson then provides a gruesome account of past methods of amputations. Following this, however, Thompson “soothes [readers’] ruffled nerves” (502) by reassuring readers of modern medicine’s capability to safely restore bodily stability in spite of amputation. To do this, he makes his readers imaginary spectators of modern surgery, rather than imagined recipients of it as before. Doing so palliates reader anxiety about the body, placing medical ignorance and bodily difference upon an unnamed, imaginary patient: “So it is that he who loses the limb knows less about the process than any one concerned; infinitely less, my gentle reader, than you who have shared with us the quiet corner, and have seen all without losing consciousness, or fainting” (504). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource [Thompson, Henry] Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived [Thompson, Henry]. “Under Chloroform.” Cornhill. 1.4 (1860): 499-504. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1860 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kylee-Anne Hingston Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The cariacature shows Henry Thompson weilding an instrument that is knife on one side, pen on the other, standing in front of a table surrounded by papers, a dinner menu, and a skeleton. The caption reads: "Great Artist-Surgeon, who is so well able / To point a Pencil and adorn a Table? / First in the Ranks of Men of Light and Leading / Our best Authority on Food and Feeding." "Punch's Fancy Portraits - No. 42. Dr. Henry Thompson." Punch (1881). Courtesy of the <a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/" target="_blank">Wellcome Library, London</a> under a Creative Commons License (<a title="Wellcome Library Catalogue" href="http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1312142" target="_blank">Record no. 1714437</a>). Relation A related resource <ul><li>Paton, Alex. “Thompson, Sir Henry, first baronet (1820–1904).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2010. Online. 12 Feb. 2013 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36490]</li> <li>Kennedy, Meegan. Revising the Clinic: Vision and Representation in Victorian Medical Narrative and the Novel. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2010.</li> </ul> Cognition Medicine Mobility Prosthesis https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/e395394a0d67c1b013c123fd275dcabf.jpg 4bf7790948a346849fd6971aa32d5980 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 635 Height 800 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 IPTC String caption:by FranÁois Theodore Rochard, watercolour, 1846 caption_writer:National Portrait Gallery London - www.npg.org.uk headline:NPG 4381; Martin Farquhar Tupper by FranÁois Theodore Rochard special_instructions:Unauthorised reproduction prohibited. For authorisation contact rightsandimages@npg.org.uk www.npg.org.uk byline:National Portrait Gallery London - www.npg.org.uk byline_title:Rights and Images Department credit:National Portrait Gallery London source:National Portrait Gallery London object_name:NPG 4381; Martin Farquhar Tupper date_created:02.05.2012 city:London, St Martin's Place, WC2 0HE country:United Kingdom copyright_notice:© National Portrait Gallery, London IPTC Array a:13:{s:7:"caption";s:48:"by FranÁois Theodore Rochard, watercolour, 1846";s:14:"caption_writer";s:49:"National Portrait Gallery London - www.npg.org.uk";s:8:"headline";s:62:"NPG 4381; Martin Farquhar Tupper by FranÁois Theodore Rochard";s:20:"special_instructions";s:105:"Unauthorised reproduction prohibited. For authorisation contact rightsandimages@npg.org.uk www.npg.org.uk";s:6:"byline";s:49:"National Portrait Gallery London - www.npg.org.uk";s:12:"byline_title";s:28:"Rights and Images Department";s:6:"credit";s:32:"National Portrait Gallery London";s:6:"source";s:32:"National Portrait Gallery London";s:11:"object_name";s:32:"NPG 4381; Martin Farquhar Tupper";s:12:"date_created";s:10:"02.05.2012";s:4:"city";s:34:"London, St Martin's Place, WC2 0HE";s:7:"country";s:14:"United Kingdom";s:16:"copyright_notice";s:36:"© National Portrait Gallery, London";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource This watercolour, in an ornate frame, shows a dapper Martin Tupper leaning against a wall, hat in hand. Martin Farquhar Tupper by François Theodore Rochard. Watercolour, 1846. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. Ah! think it not a light calamity To be denied free converse with my kind, To be debarred from man’s true attribute, The proper glorious privilege of Speech. Hast ever seen an eagle chain’d to earth? A restless panther in his cage immured? A swift trout by the wily fisher checked? A wild bird hopeless strain its broken wing? Hast ever felt, at the dark dead of night, Some undefined and horrid incubus Press down the very soul, — and paralyse The limbs in their imaginary flight From shadowy terrors in unhallowed sleep? Hast ever known the sudden icy chill Of dreary disappointment, as it dashes The sweet cup of anticipated bliss From the parched lips of long-enduring hope? Then thou canst picture, — aye, in sober truth, In real, unexaggerated truth, — The constant, galling, festering chain that binds Captive my mute interpreter of thought; The seal of lead enstamp’d upon my lips, The load of iron on my labouring chest, The mocking demon that at every step Haunts me, — and spurs me on—to burst with silence! Oh! tis a sore affliction to restrain, From mere necessity, the glowing thought; To feel the fluent cataract of speech Check’d by some wintry spell, and frozen up, Just as it leapeth from the precipice! To be the butt of wordy captious fools, And see the sneering self-complacent smile Of victory on their lips, when I might prove, (But for some little word I dare not utter,) That innate truth is not a specious lie: To hear foul slander blast an honour’d name, Yet breathe no fact to drive the fiend away: To mark neglected virtue in the dust, Yet have no word to pity or console: To feel just indignation swell my breast, Yet know the fountain of my wrath is sealed: To see my fellow-mortals hurrying on Down the steep cliff of crime, down to perdition, Yet have no voice to warn, — no voice to win! ‘Tis to be mortified in every point, Baffled at every turn of life, for want Of that most common privilege of man, The merest drag of gorged society, Words, — windy words. And is it not in truth, A poison’d sting in every social joy, A thorn that rankles in the writhing flesh, A drop of gall in each domestic sweet, An irritating petty misery, That I can never look on one I love, And speak the fullness of my burning thoughts? That I can never with unmingled joy Meet a long-loved and long-expected friend, Because I feel, but cannot vent my feelings, — Because I know I ought,—but must not speak, Because I mark his quick impatient eye Striving in kindness to anticipate The word of welcome, strangled in its birth! Is it not sorrow, while I truly love Sweet social converse, to be forced to shun The happy circle, from a nervous sense, An agonizing poignant consciousness That I must stand aloof, nor mingle with The wise and good, in rational argument, The young in brilliant quickness of reply, Friendship's ingenuous interchange of mind, Affection’s open-hearted sympathies, But feel myself an isolated being, A very wilderness of widow’d thought! Aye, ‘tis a bitter thing, — and not less bitter Because it is not reckoned in the ills, “The thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to;” Yet the full ocean is but countless drops, And misery is an aggregate of tears, And life, replete with small annoyances, Is but one long protracted scene of sorrow. I scarce would wonder, if a godless man, (I name not him whose hope is heavenward,) A man, whom lying vanities hath scath’d And harden’d from all fear, — if such an one By this tyrannical Argus goaded on Were to be wearied of his very life, And daily, hourly foiled in social converse, By the slow simmering of disappointment Become a sour’d and apathetic being, Were to feel rapture at the approach of death, And long for his dark hope, — annihilation. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Stammerer's Complaint Description An account of the resource Most celebrated, and often ridiculed, in the Victorian era for his Proverbial Philosophy, <a title="Martin Tupper Wikipedia Entry" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Farquhar_Tupper" target="_blank">Martin Farquhar Tupper</a> (1810-1889) was one of the most popular poets of the nineteenth century. His poem “The Stammerer’s Complaint” (1838) is one of the nineteenth century’s most provocative first-hand accounts of the mysterious condition of stuttering. A life-long stutterer, Tupper introduces a poetics of the stutterer’s melancholic disposition. The poem appeared in an era that had increasingly turned its attention to the causes and cures of a condition that still confounds doctors, therapists, and researchers today. “The Stammerer’s Complaint” reflects the sense that medical and elocutionary experts of the period had of the melancholia of the person who stutters. Composed of precise iambic pentameter lines, Tupper’s poem is essentially a fantasy of fluent speech from the lyric voice of a poet who laments being excluded from even the most basic privileges of communication granted to fluent speakers. The fantasy reaches a climax as Tupper’s speaker (presumably Tupper himself) imagines the self-annihilation that would result when “wordy captious fools” (l. 31), now become “godless” (l. 82), were to be forced to feel the misery, isolation, and loneliness that is the stammerer’s lot in life. Throughout the nineteenth century, representations of stuttering were fraught with stereotypes, misconceptions, and jokes at the expense of people who stutter. Even those, such as Wright in his The Stutterer's Friend (1843), who promoted the rights of people who stutter against the promotion of dangerous surgical “cures” in the early 1840s, admitted that stuttering is a woefully debilitating disorder that completely bars people who stutter from even the most tolerant and inclusive of conversations. Tupper’s poem demonstrates the longing for fluent speech that was rampant throughout the nineteenth century, a period that promoted a seemingly endless number of systems of cure for disfluent speech, many of which resulted in a further spiraling of melancholia for people who stutter as they sought the privileges of “normal” speech. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tupper, Martin Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Tupper, Martin. “The Stammerer’s Complaint.” Geraldine, A Sequel to Coleridge’s Christabel: with Other Poems (London: Rickerby, 1838). 119-23. Print. The poem can also be accessed here: <a href="http://archive.org/stream/geraldineaseque01colegoog#page/n5/mode/2up">http://archive.org/stream/geraldineaseque01colegoog#page/n5/mode/2up</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rickerby Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1838 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Daniel Martin Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This watercolour, in an ornate frame, shows a dapper Martin Tupper leaning against a wall, hat in hand. <a href="http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw06416/Martin-Farquhar-Tupper?">Martin Farquhar Tupper</a> by François Theodore Rochard. Watercolour, 1846. NPG 4381. Courtesy <a title="National Portrait Gallery Link" href="http://www.npg.org.uk/" target="_blank">National Portrait Gallery</a> under a Creative Commons License (<a title="National Portrait Gallery" href="http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw06416/Martin-Farquhar-Tupper?LinkID=mp04561&search=sas&sText=martin+tupper&role=sit&rNo=0" target="_blank">NPG 4381</a>). Relation A related resource <ul><li>Rockey, Denyse. Speech Disorder in Nineteenth Century Britain: The History of Stuttering. London: Croom Helm, 1980. Print.</li> <li>Shell, Marc. Stutter. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2005. Print.</li> <li>Wingate, Marcel E. Stuttering: A Short History of a Curious Disorder. Westport: Bergin & Garvey, 1997. Print. </li> </ul> Language A language of the resource English Audio Culture Literature Martin Tupper Non-Standard Language Poetry https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/3682d8c699e444ae4b5f5e8261af025a.gif d5a1aa8b3e55908850d3253e007aba83 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 312 Height 429 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource The illustration shows Phineas on crutches in the foreground with Jael, looking towards John Halifax, who is walking toward him carrying a hobo's bindle à la Dick Whittington. The caption reads: “I smiled, for I, at least, had no difficulty in recognizing John Halifax.” Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. I lifted myself, and began looking for my crutches. John found them and put them into my hand, with a grave, pitiful look. “You don’t need those sort of things,” I said, making pretense to laugh, for I had not grown used to them and felt often ashamed. “I hope you will not need them always.” “Perhaps not—Doctor Jessup isn’t sure. But it doesn’t matter much; most likely I shan’t live long.” For this was, God forgive me, always the last and greatest comfort I had. John looked at me—surprised, troubled, compassionate—but he did not say a word. I hobbled past him; he following through the long passage to the garden door. There I paused—tired out. John Halifax took gentle hold of my shoulder. “I think, if you did not mind, I’m sure I could carry you. I carried a meal sack once, weighing eight stone.” I burst out laughing, which may be was what he wanted, and forthwith consented to assume the place of the meal sack. He took me on his back—what a strong fellow he was!—and fairly trotted with me down the garden walk. We were both very merry, and though I was his senior, I seemed with him, out of my great weakness and infirmity, to feel almost like a child. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource John Halifax, Gentleman Description An account of the resource Dinah Mulock Craik’s (1826-1887) novel John Halifax, Gentleman (1856) follows John Halifax’s journey from an impoverished orphan boy to self-made tradesman hero. As their friendship unfolds, Phineas Fletcher, the novel’s disabled first-person narrator, relates John’s narrative of heroic strength, and the invalid’s physical immobility and pre-bachelor dandy femininity forms a stark contrast to the masculine strength of John Halifax. Scenes depicting Phineas’s admiration of John’s able body and John’s tenderness as he carries his feeble friend in strong arms emit a homoerotic charge that was apparent even to Craik’s contemporary readers. Victorian critic R.H. Hutton remarked, “it is hard to suppress the fear that Phineas Fletcher will fall hopelessly in love with John Halifax, so hard is it to remember that Phineas is of the male sex” (258). Modern critics continue to remark on Phineas’s femininity its possible impact in making the novel popular with an audience of middle-class women readers. For instance, Kiran Mascarenhas interprets Phineas as a stand-in for the female novel reader, observing that his “repression and circumscription makes him a character that they identify with, and along with whom they could look—with some longing—at John, the epitome of ideal masculinity” (257). Craik wrote extensively about the lives of disabled men and women in Victorian society, with many of her novels, such as Olive (1850), A Noble Life (1866), and The Little Lame Prince (1875) offering complex and often contradictory representations of the experiences of disabled protagonists. Phineas is no exception, and scholars continue to debate about whether Phineas provides a positive glimpse into the pleasures of bachelor invalid domesticity or serves as a helpless, negative foil to John’s middle class determination. In either case, the relationship between Phineas and John underscores the importance of caring for one another; John’s tenderness with Phineas proves as important to his development as gentleman as his devotion to labor. In the following excerpt, John has just met Phineas for the first time after Phineas’s father, Abel Fletcher, trusts Phineas to the strong young man’s care. John’s body willingness to carry not only a heavy meal sack, but also its human equivalent—a weary Phineas— underscores his value as both a hearty, masculine laborer and a gentle caretaker. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Craik, Dinah Mulock Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Craik, Dinah Mulock. John Halifax, Gentleman. 1856. Ed. Lynn M. Alexander. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2005. Page 43. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1856 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Melina Moore Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The illustration shows Phineas on crutches in the foreground with Jael, looking towards John Halifax, who is walking toward him carrying a hobo's bindle à la Dick Whittington. The caption reads: “I smiled, for I, at least, had no difficulty in recognizing John Halifax.” John Halifax, Gentlemen (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, Publishers, 1897). Relation A related resource <ul><li>R.H. Hutton, “Novels by the Authoress of ‘John Halifax.’” North British Review 29 (1858)</li> <li>Holmes, Martha Stoddard. Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture, The Corporealities Series (Ann Arbour: U of Michigan P, 2004). </li> <li>Mascarenhas, Kiran. “John Halifax: A Counter Story,” Antifeminism and the Victorian Novel: Rereading Nineteenth-Century Woman Writers (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2009) 255-269.</li> <li>Mitchell, Sally. Dinah Mulock Craik. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983. Available online: <<a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/craik/index.html">http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/craik/index.html</a>></li> <li>Sussman, Herbert. Victorian Masculinities: Manhood and Masculine Poetics in Early Victorian Literature and Art. Cambridge University Press, [1995] 2008.</li> </ul> Language A language of the resource English Class Dinah Mulock Craik Gender Literature Mobility Novel https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/71af39c7eaade68d3cb6a52f4078158b.jpg a6f335910de598c2e2360988ce543a57 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 353 Height 515 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 IPTC String copyright_notice:Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html byline:Wellcome Images object_name:L0040536 \'Comfort for Invalids\' advice page headline:L0040536 \'Comfort for Invalids\' advice page caption:L0040536 \'Comfort for Invalids\' advice page Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk Advice on comfort for invalides from The Lancet March 22nd, 1856. Shows various beds, chairs and wheelchairs to make a invalid\'s life easier and more comfortable. 1856 Ephemera Collection By her majesty\'s letters patent : J. Alderman Published: 1856. Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html IPTC Array a:5:{s:16:"copyright_notice";s:123:"Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";s:6:"byline";s:15:"Wellcome Images";s:11:"object_name";s:45:"L0040536 \'Comfort for Invalids\' advice page";s:8:"headline";s:45:"L0040536 \'Comfort for Invalids\' advice page";s:7:"caption";s:524:"L0040536 \'Comfort for Invalids\' advice page Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk Advice on comfort for invalides from The Lancet March 22nd, 1856. Shows various beds, chairs and wheelchairs to make a invalid\'s life easier and more comfortable. 1856 Ephemera Collection By her majesty\'s letters patent : J. Alderman Published: 1856. Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource In 12 sketches, this advertisement showcases how the invalid chair can be reclined in various poses, used in the bedroom, outdoors, and even up staircases. "Comfort for Invalids" from the Lancet General Advertiser. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. [Text of Advertisement] The Lancet,]  THE LANCET CENTRAL ADVERTISER.  [March 22, 1856. By Her Majesty’s Letters Patent Comfort for Invalids 8 Denmark St. Soho London. J. ALDERMAN, Nephew and Successor to Mr. CHAPMAN, begs most respectfully to inform his Friends and the Medical Profession, that after many years’ experience in the manufacture of all kinds of Invalid Beds, Couches, Chairs, Carriages, &c., and more especially the well-known Earle’s Fracture Bed,<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> he has obtained Her Majesty’s Letters Patent<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> for his imperceptibly Graduating, Mechanical, and Elastic Adjustments, which he has invented for the comfort and convenience of Invalids; he has also made them applicable to all kinds of Operating Couches and Chairs, for surgical and dental purposes.  Earle’s Bed, a few years ago, was used principally for Fractures, it being too hard, and its movements too coarse, for general use; but by carefully studying the properties of this Bed, or Couch, the Patentee saw hat by proper mechanical and elastic adjustments it might be made the most perfect, useful, and elaborate piece of Furniture extant.  To accomplish this would be a work of time and expense, and could only be attained by being constantly working for Invalids, and making careful experiments to alleviate the sufferings of various patients, so as to render the Bed or Couch suitable for every case. The Pantentee is now happy to say, that after many years’ experience in trying every mechanical action and elastic adjustment that could be thought of, to alleviate the sufferings by every possible change of position, and that imperceptibly to the patient, at the same time avoiding all pressure by his elastic adjusting foundation and mattress, to prevent bed-sores, so as to supersede the use of water, he has at length succeeded in making his mechanical and elastic adjustments so simple and perfect as to be able to apply them to all sorts of Invalid Furniture.  Earle’s Bed, or Couch, can now be safely said to be the most perfect, useful, and elaborate piece of furniture in use, and will be found the greatest boon to all those who are suffering from Spinal Affections [sic], Hip Complaints, Paralysis, Fractures, and in all cases where perfect rest is required.  Ladies, who require complete rest before and after their Confinements, will find this Couch a great luxury.  The Illustrations—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7—will show the various ways and positions in which this Couch can be fitted-up and used. These Beds, or Couches, are also fitted-up for Hospital use, and with every necessary arrangement to prevent the patient being removed.  The Patentee would particularly recommend them for the use of our Military Hospitals,<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a> where they would be found of the greatest comfort and convenience, both to the surgeon and patient. Nos. 6, 6, 6, is an illustration of J. Alderman’s Patent Portable Equilibrium Carrying Chair, by which a patient can be carried up- or down-stairs with perfect ease and safety, the Chair always adjusting itself, which enables the two persons who carry to walk up- or down-stairs in the usual way and quite erect, with their arms down, so as to avoid any strain upon the muscles; it has also a shifting stand upon very easy Castors, so that it can be used as an easy Chair to prevent the patient being disturbed. Nos. 8, 8, is the Patent self-adjusting Invalid Chair, which is adjusted by Graduating Imperceptible Mechanism.  This Chair, like the Couch, has been a work of time, the Patentee having followed Nature in every part of it: for instance, when the back is depressed, the arms, the seat, and the leg-rest all work together imperceptibly, so that not a muscle of the patient is disturbed.  In order that the patient may get on and off from either side while the leg-rest is up, either of the arms can be taken off. No. 9 is a self-propelling Chair, which renders a patient quite independent, being able to go from room to room without any assistance. No. 10 is a four-wheeled Brighton chair, suitable for either hand or Pony. No. 11 and 12 are three-wheeled Garden or Bath Chairs, with and without a hood. No. 12 is J. Alderman’s Improved Spinal or Sofa Carriage, mounted upon C and under-springs; also the patent noiseless wheels, if required.  The couch being made to slide on and off the carriage, and having a stand upon easy castors for the room, prevents the necessity for the patient’s removal from the couch. J.A. begs to state that, in order to bring these general comforts within the reach of all those who do not wish to purchase, he intends Lending them on Hire, and where the hirer wishes to become a purchaser within the third month, the hire will be deducted. N.B. Inclined Planes, Prone Couches, Bed Chairs, and every other article required by Invalids. <h3> Notes</h3> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> London surgeon <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Earle">Henry Earle</a> (1789–1838) invented this bed for leg fractures. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> A <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_patent">letters patent</a> is an open document from a monarch (in this case Queen Victoria) or a government issuing a patent or right. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[3]</a> Military Hospitals:  Alderman is trying to appeal to the great number of disabled soldiers who were coming out of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_War">Crimean war</a>, which was in full force when this advertisement was published on 22 March 1856. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Comfort for Invalids Description An account of the resource In this advertisement for a variety of what we would now call “wheelchairs” or “lounge chairs,” J. Alderman offers “comfort for invalids” in his newly patented “Imperceptibly Graduating, Mechanical, and Elastic Adjustments” available in a variety of couches and chairs. Credit for the “first wheelchair” most often goes to John Dawson of Bath, a town that attracted many invalids seeking its healing waters in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Around 1798, Dawson called himself a “Wheel-chair maker” and hired out his chairs to the invalids who flocked to the spa town. These "Bath Chairs" typically had two large wheels in the back and a smaller wheel on the front; they were pushed by an attendant, but directed by the passenger by means of a rod attached to the front wheel. Yet, as Herman L. Kamenetz points out, there was a long global history of carrying invalids in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litter_(vehicle)">litters</a>, pushing them in wheelbarrows, or later, carrying them in sedan chairs.  (Sedan chairs were also used by the upper classes.) Furthermore, wheeled chairs certainly existed before the late eighteenth century.  Louis XIV, for example, was one of many historical figures who had a wheeled chair (his was known as the roulette) to accommodate immobilizing health issues such as gout.  It would thus be oversimplifying to give the credit of “inventing” the wheelchair to Dawson alone. Yet, as Alderman’s advertisement demonstrates, there was certainly a thriving industry catering to the many self-professed invalids of the nineteenth century (who included figures such as Florence Nightingale and Elizabeth Barrett Browning). Alderman’s couches and chairs are above all a product, to be sold or hired to some of the same invalids who spent winters in <a title="San Remo" href="http://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/items/show/13" target="_self">San Remo</a> due to diseases of the chest, or who sought cures at expensive hydrotherapy establishments such as <a title="Ben Rhydding" href="http://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/items/show/1" target="_self">Ben Rhydding</a>. One important difference between the chairs and couches that Alderman advertises and the contemporary wheelchair is that most of Alderman’s products are either stationary, reclining chairs, or would require an attendant to push them. No. 9 alone is self-propelling.  By contrast, contemporary wheelchairs are assumed to be self-propelling using either a motor or the user’s two arms. Alderman’s products thus highlight interdependence rather than independence, and the places to be found for invalids within the home.  Another possible reading of Alderman’s many stationary chairs is that comfortable reclining chairs were no longer the province of invalids alone by the twentieth century; indeed, one can still buy “Earl” or “Earle” lounge chairs or chaises today, whose name may well come from Alderman’s patent.   Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Alderman, J. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived "Comfort for Invalids." The Lancet (22 March 1856): 330. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 22 March 1856 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Karen Bourrier Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In 12 sketches, this advertisement showcases how the invalid chair can be reclined in various poses, used in the bedroom, outdoors, and even up staircases. "Comfort for Invalids" from the Lancet General Advertiser.  Courtesy of the <a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/" target="_blank">Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine</a> under a Creative Commons License (Call no <a title="Wellcome Library Catalogue " href="http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1658436" target="_blank"> EPH448:7</a>). Relation A related resource <ul> <li>Kamenetz, Herman L. “A Brief History of the Wheelchair.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 24.2 (1969): 205-210. </li> <li>Frawley, Maria. Invalidism and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.</li> <li>“<a title="wheelchair wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheelchair" target="_blank">Wheelchair</a>” and “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litter_(vehicle)" target="_blank">Litter</a>” on Wikipedia.org.</li> </ul> Language A language of the resource English Advertisement Invalidism Medicine Mobility Technology Visual Culture https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/dfb3d57671da48f43f07bbc25d2db837.jpg 2b8ebc083ad500236f735bd05338ccdb Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 391 Height 524 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 IPTC String copyright_notice:Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html byline:Wellcome Images object_name:L0047932 A lady retiring to bed, and ordering her maid to look a headline:L0047932 A lady retiring to bed, and ordering her maid to look after caption:L0047932 A lady retiring to bed, and ordering her maid to look after Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A lady retiring to bed, and ordering her maid to look after her artificial aids to beauty (wig, teeth, glass eye etc.). Coloured etching by P. Roberts after G.M Woodward Titled \'Celia Retiring\' c. 1807 By: G. M. Woodwardafter: P. RobertsPublished: [ca. 1807] Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html IPTC Array a:5:{s:16:"copyright_notice";s:123:"Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";s:6:"byline";s:15:"Wellcome Images";s:11:"object_name";s:64:"L0047932 A lady retiring to bed, and ordering her maid to look a";s:8:"headline";s:68:"L0047932 A lady retiring to bed, and ordering her maid to look after";s:7:"caption";s:555:"L0047932 A lady retiring to bed, and ordering her maid to look after Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A lady retiring to bed, and ordering her maid to look after her artificial aids to beauty (wig, teeth, glass eye etc.). Coloured etching by P. Roberts after G.M Woodward Titled \'Celia Retiring\' c. 1807 By: G. M. Woodwardafter: P. RobertsPublished: [ca. 1807] Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource The colour sketch shows a lady retiring to bed and ordering her maid to look after her artificial aids to beauty (wig, teeth, glass eye etc.), entitled “Celia Retiring” by P. Roberts (after G.M Woodward). Coloured etching, 1807. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. A lion-hearted old warrior was Miss Ruff,—one who could not stand with patience the modern practice of dallying in the presence of her enemies' guns. She had come there for a rubber of whist<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a>—to fight the good fight—to conquer or to die, and her soul longed to be at it […] “That Miss Ruff is dreadful.” Here an awful note was heard, for the Lady Ruth had just put her thirteenth trump on Miss Ruff's thirteenth heart. What Littlebathian female soul could stand that unmoved? “Oh, dear! that poor old woman!” continued Miss Todd. “You know one lives in constant fear of her having a fit. Miss Ruff is horrible. She has a way of looking with that fixed eye<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> of hers that is almost worse than her voice.” The fact was, that Miss Ruff had one glass eye. “I know she'll be the death of that poor old creature some of these days. Lady Ruth will play, and she hardly knows one card from another. And then Miss Ruff, she will scold. Good heavens! do you hear that?” “It's just seven minutes since I turned the last trick of the last hand,” Miss Ruff had said, scornfully. “We shall have finished the two rubbers about six in the morning, I take it.” “Will your ladyship allow me to deal for you?” said Mr. Fuzzybell, meaning to be civil. “I'll allow you to do no such thing,” croaked out Lady Ruth. “I can deal very well myself; at any rate as well as Miss Ruff. And I'm not the least in a hurry;” and she went on slobbering out the cards, and counting them over and over again, almost as each card fell [. . .] This was dreadful to Miss Ruff. Here had her rival played two rubbers, won them both, pocketed all but a sovereign<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a>, and was again at work; while she, she was still painfully toiling through her second game, the first having been scored against her by her partner's fatuity in having trumped her long heart. Was this to be borne with patience? “Lady Ruth,” she said, emitting fire out of her one eye, “do you ever mean to have done dealing those cards?” Lady Ruth did not condescend to make any answer, but recommenced her leisurely counting; and then Miss Ruff uttered that terrific screech which had peculiarly excited Miss Todd's attention. [. . .] The table at which Lady Ruth and her party were sitting—we ought rather to say, Miss Ruff and her party—was in one corner of the room, and our friends had placed themselves on a cushioned seat fixed against the wall in this very corner. Things were still going badly with Miss Ruff. As Sindbad carried the old man, and could not shake him off, so did Miss Ruff still carry Lady Ruth Revoke; and the weight was too much for her. She manfully struggled on, however—womanfully would perhaps be a stronger and more appropriate word. She had to calculate not only how to play her own hand correctly, but she had also to calculate on her partner's probable errors. This was hard work, and required that all around her should be undisturbed and silent [. . .] The quarrelling had been going on unabated, but that had caused little surprise. It is astonishing how soon the ear becomes used to incivilities. They were now accustomed to Miss Ruff's voice, and thought nothing of her exclamations. “Well, I declare—what, the ten of spades!—ha! ha! ha! well, it is an excellent joke—if you could have obliged me, Lady Ruth, by returning my lead of trumps, we should have been out,” &c., &c., &c. All this and more attracted no attention, and the general pity for Lady Ruth had become dead and passive. But at last Miss Ruff's tongue went faster and faster, and her words became sharper and sharper. Lady Ruth's countenance became very strange to look at. She bobbed her head about slowly in a manner that frightened Mr. Fuzzybell, and ceased to make any remark to her partner. Then Mrs. Garded made two direct appeals to Miss Ruff for mercy. But Miss Ruff could not be merciful. Perhaps on each occasion she refrained for a moment, but it was only for a moment; and Mrs. Garded and Mr. Fuzzybell ceased to think of their cards, and looked only at the Lady Ruth; and then of a sudden they both rose from their seats, the colonel, as we have said, rushed across the room, and all the players at all the tables put down their cards and stood up in alarm. Lady Ruth was sitting perfectly still, except that she still bobbed her old head up and down in a strange unearthly manner. She had about ten cards in her hand which she held motionless. Her eyes seemed to be fixed in one continued stare directly on the face of her foe. Her lower jaw had fallen so as to give a monstrous extension to her cadaverous face. There she sat apparently speechless; but still she bobbed her head, and still she held her cards. It was known at Littlebath that she had suffered from paralysis, and Mrs. Garded and Mr. Fuzzybell thinking that she was having or about to have a fit, naturally rushed to her assistance. [. . .] “Do you feel yourself ill, Lady Ruth?” said Miss Todd. But her ladyship answered nothing. It seemed, however, that her ladyship could walk, for with her two supporters she made her way nearly to the door of the room. There she stood, and having succeeded in shaking off Sir Lionel's arm, she turned and faced round upon the company. She continued to bob her head at them all, and then made this little speech, uttering each word very slowly. “I wish she had a glass tongue as well, because then perhaps she'd break it.” And having so revenged herself, she suffered Miss Todd to lead her away into the bedroom. It was clear at least that she had no fit, and the company was thankful. (359-80) <h3>Notes</h3> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> Whist is a card game that was popular throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was derived from the older game “Ruff and Honours”, perhaps explaining Miss Ruff’s name. Rubber refers to a scoring system that decides the winner, meaning the best of three—that is, the winner is the first player to win two games. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> One of the major flaws in early ocular prosthesis was that shell design artificial eyes (curved shells of glass or enamel that would rest upon the surface of an atrophied eye) were often ill-fitting, or had sharp edges which restricted their range of movement and caused damage to surrounding tissue. It was rare for eyes to be surgically removed (enucleated) at this time—prior to improvements in anatomical knowledge and surgical procedure enucleation was extremely dangerous—and so shell design eyes were by far the most common forms of ocular prosthesis available. For more on the medical, technological and commercial history of artificial eyes, see Katherine Ott’s“Hard Wear and Soft Tissue: Craft and Commerce in Artificial Eyes” in Katherine Ott, David Serlin and Stephen Mihm’s (eds.) Artificial Parts, Practical Lives: Modern Histories of Prosthetics (New York: New York University Press, 2002), 147-71. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[3]</a> A sovereign was a £1 coin. For more on Victorian currency, see Marje Bloy’s “<a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/economics/currency.html">British Currency before 1971</a>” on The Victorian Web. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Bertrams Description An account of the resource Anthony Trollope's <a href="http://ia600308.us.archive.org/19/items/bertramsnovel01troluoft/bertramsnovel01troluoft.pdf">The Bertrams</a> (1859) is a rare example of a nineteenth-century novel that depicts a one-eyed female character. Whereas male characters that have missing eyes appear frequently elsewhere in nineteenth-century British literature—thinking, for instance, of Mr. Squeers from Charles Dickens’s <a href="http://archive.org/stream/nicholasnickleby00967gut/old/ncklb10.txt">Nicholas Nickleby</a>(1838-39), Mr. Pinto from William Makepeace Thackeray’s short story“<a href="http://archive.org/stream/thelockandkeylib01831gut/lckyl10.txt">The Notch on the Ax: A Story a la Mode</a>” (1862) and M. Laferté from George du Maurier’s <a href="http://archive.org/stream/themartian27400gut/pg27400.txt">The Martian</a>(1897) to name but a few—Trollope’s text includes a character that, despite her sex, aligns with several of the common negative characteristics that were associated with one-eyed men and ocular prosthesis wearers in this period. The minor character, Miss Ruff, who is a regular visitor to Littlebath in Trollope’s tale (the home of well-to-do spinster Miss Todd), is indeed a wearer of an artificial eye and like many of the male characters described elsewhere in Victorian fiction, is portrayed in a far from flattering manner. Despite resisting associating the deformed with criminality in this text, which was often the case in relation to the one-eyed male character, Trollope does, however, depict Miss Ruff as someone who is as ugly in character as she is in appearance. In fact, though to a less extreme extent, like the sinister schoolmaster Mr. Squeers from Dickens’s novel, Miss Ruff is portrayed as somewhat villainous and, considering her excessively aggressive card-play, to some extent violent. Significantly, the tale also reveals the gender-specific social difficulties that faced Victorian one-eyed women. Written at a time when artificial eyes were becoming more user-friendly and increasingly accurate-looking replacements for the human eye, Trollope’s text can, to some extent, be read as a critique of contemporary ocular prostheses due to the very fact that Miss Ruff is a recognisable user of a glass eye: the primary aim of the artificial eye maker was to produce a device that could as accurately as possible mimic the appearance of a real eye, making the wearer’s loss unperceivable thus alleviating unwanted attention and stigma. While significant and well-publicised developments in artificial eye technology were made in the 1840s, 50s and 60s—most notably by French prosthetist Auguste Boissonneau, who pioneered the production of ergonomically designed bespoke enamel artificial eyes—Trollope’s text suggests that ocular prostheses could still easily be distinguished from their natural counterpart. In fact, the very flaws in Miss Ruff’s prosthesis add to her abhorrent demeanour: the “fixed” position of her eye is a physical manifestation of the intensity and harshness that she displays behaviourally in her aggressive card-play. For one-eyed women, ocular prosthesis use has long been associated with aging, abhorrence and spinsterhood. Jonathan’s Swift’s satirical poem “<a href="http://archive.org/stream/thepoemsofjonath14353gut/14353.txt">A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed</a>“ (1731), Louis-Léopold Boilly’s painting “Les epoux assortis” (1825; available to view at <a href="http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/">Wellcome Images</a>) and G.M Woodward’s “Celia Retiring” (1803; see image above) are just three examples that exemplify this point. As it would appear, Trollope reaffirms these connotations with his depiction of Miss Ruff. An unwanted ever-present at the whist table, Miss Ruff’s glass eye can be read as both a reason for and signifier of her old age and spinsterhood. Since such a premium was placed on physical appearance and maternal function, women with deformities, especially those with visible physical disfigurements, often occupied a marginalised position within society. In Miss Ruff’s case, her obvious use of an artificial eye is a visual signifier for her inability to attract a male suitor; it could, in fact, be the very reason why she remains single. Trollope further emphasises her unsuitability for marriage by enamoring her with a number of unattractive traits—sternness, competitiveness, rudeness and aggressiveness—which reaffirm the prejudices against bodily difference which were rife during this period. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Trollope, Anthony. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Trollope, Anthony. The Bertrams. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1859. Vol. 1. Pages 359-80. Available <a href="http://ia600308.us.archive.org/19/items/bertramsnovel01troluoft/bertramsnovel01troluoft.pdf">online</a> at archive.org. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1859 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ryan Sweet Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The colour sketch shows a lady retiring to bed and ordering her maid to look after her artificial aids to beauty (wig, teeth, glass eye etc.), entitled “Celia Retiring” by P. Roberts (after G.M Woodward). Coloured etching, 1807. Courtesy of the <a href="http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/">Wellcome Library, London</a> under Creative Commons License (<a title="Wellcome Library Catalogue" href="http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1662684" target="_blank">Wellcome Library no. 662684i</a>). Relation A related resource <ul><li>The College of Optometrists, “<a href="http://www.college-optometrists.org/en/knowledge-centre/museyeum/online_exhibitions/artificialeyes/glass.cfm">Glass Eyes</a>”.</li> <li>Davis, Lennard J. “Constructing Normalcy”. The Disability Studies Reader. ed. Lennard J. Davis. 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 2010. 3-19.</li> <li>Holmes, Martha Stoddard. Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2004.</li> <li>Ott, Katherine. “Hard Wear and Soft Tissue: Craft and Commerce in Artificial Eyes”. Artificial Parts, Practical Lives: Modern Histories of Prosthetics. eds. Katherine Ott, David Serlin and Stephen Mihm. New York: New York UP, 2002. 147-71.</li> <li>Prince, J. H. Ocular Prosthesis. Edinburgh: E. & S. Livingstone, 1946.</li> </ul> Anthony Trollope Gender Literature Novel Prosthesis https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/88827b02647bc61954d0b04d19d5b56e.jpg b3efb378adbdb35aa67a765bfb6861df Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 501 Height 649 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource The black and white frontispiece from the Life of John Kitto by John Eadie shows the mutton-chopped deaf missionary in a relaxed seated pose, looking past the viewer to the left. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. Any one who has spent a considerable portion of time under peculiar, or at least undescribed, circumstances, must have been very unobservant if he has nothing to relate in which the public would be interested. It may be, indeed, that such a person lies under the same obligation to the public of describing his own condition, as a traveller is under to render his report respecting the unexplored countries which he has traversed in his pilgrimage. It is under this impression that I now write. I am unwilling to quit this world, without leaving behind me some record of a condition of which no sufferer has yet rendered an account. The condition itself is not entirely new; and that it has not been hitherto described, may be owing to the fact that a morning of life subject to such crushing calamity, has seldom, if ever, been followed by a day of such self-culture — which is the only culture possible, — and of such active exertion, as seems indispensably necessary to prevent the faculties from rusting under the absence of the diverse influences by which they are, in ordinary circumstances, brought into working condition for [end page 5] the useful labours at which all men should aim, and for the struggles necessary to self-advancement in a country and in a time like this. My case is this. It has pleased Providence that three-fourths of a life now at its meridian, should be passed in the most intense DEAFNESS to which any living creature can be subjected; and which could not be more entire had the organs conducive to the sense of hearing been altogether wanting. It is the consequences resulting from this position, that form the theme which I have now placed before me. For one who is deaf, my life has been studious; and for one who has been both deaf and studious — or indeed for any one — my life has not been uneventful. I know not, however, that I have any right to obtrude the events or studies of my life upon the public notice; and it is not my intention to refer to them further than may be necessary to bring out the points and peculiarities of the deaf condition. From the multifarious matters arising from the activities of a life which once seemed doomed to inertion, I shall select those only which arise from, which illustrate, or which are in any remarkable way connected with my deafness. It is needful to explain this, lest in sketching the natural history of my deafness, I should be supposed to offer a biography of myself. I became deaf on my father's birthday, early in the year 1817, when I had lately completed the twelfth year of my age. The commencement of this condition is too clearly connected with my circumstances in life to allow me to abstain from troubling the reader with some particulars which I should have been otherwise willing to withhold. [...] The circumstances of that day — the last of twelve years of hearing, and the first of twenty-eight years of deafness, have left a more distinct impression upon my mind than those of any previous, or almost any subsequent, day of my life. It was a day to be remembered. The last day on which any customary labour ceases, — the last day on which any customary privilege is enjoyed, — the last day on which we do the things we have done daily, are always marked days in the calendar of life; how much, therefore, must the mind not linger in the memories of a day which was the last of many blessed things, and in which one stroke of action and suffering, — one moment of time, wrought a greater change of condition, than any sudden loss of wealth or honours ever made in the state of man. Wealth may be recovered, and new honours won, or happiness may be secured without them; but there is no recovery, no adequate compensation, for such a loss as was on that day sustained. The wealth of sweet and pleasurable sounds with which the Almighty has filled the world, — of sounds modulated by affection, sympathy, and earnestness, — can be appreciated only by one who has so long been thus poor indeed in the want of them, and who for so many weary years has sat in utter silence amid the busy hum of populous cities, the music of the woods and mountains, and, more than all, of the voices sweeter than music, which are in the winter season heard around the domestic hearth. *** [In the omitted section, Kitto describes falling from a ladder while assisting his father in slating the roof of a house and then being carried, senseless, to his home where he lay unconscious for two weeks.] *** I was very slow in learning that my hearing was entirely gone. The unusual stillness of all things was grateful to me in my utter exhaustion; and if in this half-awakened state, a thought of the matter entered my mind, I ascribed it to the unusual care and success of my friends in preserving silence around me. I saw them talking indeed to one another, and thought that, out of regard to my feeble condition, they spoke in whispers, because I heard them not. The truth was revealed to me in consequence of my solicitude about the book which had so much interested me in the day of my fall. It had, it seems, been reclaimed by the good old man who had sent it to me, and who doubtless concluded, that I should have no more need of books in this life. He was wrong; for there has been nothing in this life which I have needed more. I asked for this book with much earnestness, and was answered by signs which I could not comprehend. "Why do you not speak?" I cried; "Pray let me have the book.” This seemed to create some confusion; and at length some one, more clever than the rest, hit upon the happy expedient of writing upon a slate, that the book had been reclaimed by the owner, and that I could not in my weak state be allowed to read. "But," I said in great astonishment, "Why do you write to me, why not speak? Speak, speak.” Those who stood around the bed exchanged significant looks of concern, and the writer soon displayed upon his slate the awful words— "You are Deaf." Did not this utterly crush me? By no means. In my then weakened condition nothing like this could affect me. Besides, I was a child; and to a child the full extent of such a calamity could not be at once apparent. However, I knew not the future — it was well I did not; and there was nothing to show me that I suffered under more than a temporary deafness, which in a few days might pass away. It was left for time to show me the sad realities of the condition to which I was reduced. Time passed on, and I slowly recovered strength, but my deafness continued. The doctors were perplexed by it. They probed and tested my ears in various fashions. The tympanum was uninjured, and the organ seemed in every respect perfect, excepting that it would not act. Some thought that a disorganization of the internal mechanism had been produced by the concussion; others that the auditory nerve had been paralyzed. They poured into my tortured ears various infusions, hot and cold; they bled me, they blistered me, leeched me, physicked me; and, at last, they put a watch between my teeth, and on finding that I was unable to distinguish the ticking, they gave it up as a bad case, and left me to my fate. I cannot know whether my case was properly dealt with or not. I have no reason to complain of inattention, of my own knowledge; but, some six months after, a wise doctor from London affirmed that, by a different course at the commencement, my hearing might have been restored. He caused a seton<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> to be inserted in my neck; but this had no effect upon my deafness, although it seems to have acted beneficially upon the general health. Some years after, Mr. Snow Harris,<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> with a spontaneous kindness, for which I am happy to be able at this distant day to express my obligations, put my ears through a course of electrical operations. He persevered for more than a month; but no good came of it: and since then nothing further has been done or attempted. Indeed, I have not sought any relief; and have discouraged the suggestions of friends who would have had me apply to Dr. This and Dr. That. The condition in which two-thirds of my life has been passed, has become a habit to me — a part of my physical nature: I have learned to acquiesce in it, and to mould my habits of life according to the conditions which it imposes; and have hence been unwilling to give footing for hopes and expectations, which I feel in my heart can never be realized. <h3>Notes</h3> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> “A thread, piece of tape, or the like, drawn through a fold of skin so as to maintain an issue or opening for discharges, or drawn through a sinus or cavity to keep this from healing up” (Oxford English Dictionary). <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> Sir William Snow Harris (1791-1867) was a British physician who is best known for his experiments with electricity, including the development of an effective system for lightning conduction on ship. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Lost Senses Description An account of the resource John Kitto (1804-1854) was a British missionary and writer of religious books who was deafened at the age of 12 by a fall. In his youth, Kitto, who typically worked with his father, a mason, rather than attend school, was also forced to spend time in the workhouse. Kitto, then, was largely self-educated. His religious texts and travel writing, including The Pictorial Bible (1835-8)and the Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature (1845)were popular in his age. In addition to his religious writings, he composed an autobiographical narrative, The Lost Senses (1845), at the behest of his publisher, Charles Knight. While Kitto calls The Lost Senses “a natural history of my deafness” rather than “a biography of myself,” the first volume of the work, which is focused on deafness, narrates how Kitto came to be deaf and his experiences as a deaf man both in England and abroad. The second volume, blindness, is not autobiographical (since Kitto was not blind) and turns its attention, instead, to experiences of, and texts about, blind people, including the famous American Laura Bridgman, and various blind poets, musicians and philosophers. In this excerpt from the beginning of The Lost Senses, Kitto likens his autobiographical undertaking to the reports of travellers of “unexplored countries.” (Indeed, Kitto published accounts of his own travels in the Middle East). He then describes his fall from a ladder that led to his deafness and his experience of coming to understand his new disability. After becoming deaf, Kitto underwent extensive medical treatment; this excerpt provides a glimpse into the range of Victorian medical approaches to deafness. As Mary Wilson Carpenter notes, a Victorian “attitude toward deafness as an affliction or infirmity…was…reflected in medical practice during the nineteenth century. Some medical practitioners began to call themselves aurists…and to devise a variety of treatments and cures for the deaf, many of which were torturous and some of which actually caused or intensified deafness” (110). Kitto explains that at the time of writing The Lost Senses, he no longer sought remedies for his deafness because of his acceptance of this “part of [his] physical nature.” For Kitto, one of the most important results of his fall and subsequent deafness was how it provided him with increased time, inclination and ability to read widely; Kitto emphasizes that his reading and writing, which emerged from his experience of deafness, allowed him to move from poverty to comfort as a prominent writer of religious works. Martha Stoddard Holmes describes Kitto’s account of his deafness as a “strange melodramatic mix of misery and triumph” where Kitto at once bemoans what he understands as the limitations of his deafness while celebrating the way that his deafness enabled his scholarly and literary success (163). In this excerpt Kitto describes both his deafness and his work as a reader and writer as “habit[ual]” to him; both enabled his success as a Victorian writer and their productive interaction is no more evident in his body of work than in The Lost Senses. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kitto, John Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Kitto, John. The Lost Senses. London: Charles Knight & Co., 1845. Pages 5-14. Complete text available<a title="Online Edition of The Lost Senses" href="http://archive.org/stream/lostsensesseries00john#page/n9/mode/2up%20" target="_blank"> online</a> at archive.org. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1845 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jennifer Esmail Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The black and white frontispiece from the Life of John Kitto by John Eadie shows the mutton-chopped deaf missionary in a relaxed seated pose, looking past the viewer to the left. Relation A related resource <ul><li>Bar-Yosef, Eitan. “The ‘Deaf Traveller,’ the ‘Blind Traveller,’ and Constructions of Disability in Nineteenth-Century Travel Writing.” Victorian Review 35.2 (2009): 133-54.</li> <li>Carpenter, Mary Wilson. Health, Medicine and Society in Victorian England. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010.</li> <li>Esmail, Jennifer. Reading Victorian Deafness: Signs and Sounds in Victorian Literature and Culture. Athens: Ohio UP, 2013.</li> <li>Holmes, Martha Stoddard. Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2004. </li> </ul> Class Deafness Invalidism John Kitto life writing https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/0a38b3f9f7a845aad0b69a78a812161f.jpg 79f855406542a40866e6a31b693508c7 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 523 Height 800 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 IPTC String caption:by Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt, oil on panel, 1850 caption_writer:National Portrait Gallery London - www.npg.org.uk headline:NPG 967; Wilkie Collins by Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt special_instructions:Unauthorised reproduction prohibited. For authorisation contact rightsandimages@npg.org.uk www.npg.org.uk byline:National Portrait Gallery London - www.npg.org.uk byline_title:Rights and Images Department credit:National Portrait Gallery London source:National Portrait Gallery London object_name:NPG 967; Wilkie Collins date_created:02.05.2012 city:London, St Martin's Place, WC2 0HE country:United Kingdom keyword:Portraits with Archive documents; Eyeglasses and spectacles�� copyright_notice:© National Portrait Gallery, London IPTC Array a:14:{s:7:"caption";s:55:"by Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt, oil on panel, 1850";s:14:"caption_writer";s:49:"National Portrait Gallery London - www.npg.org.uk";s:8:"headline";s:59:"NPG 967; Wilkie Collins by Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt";s:20:"special_instructions";s:105:"Unauthorised reproduction prohibited. For authorisation contact rightsandimages@npg.org.uk www.npg.org.uk";s:6:"byline";s:49:"National Portrait Gallery London - www.npg.org.uk";s:12:"byline_title";s:28:"Rights and Images Department";s:6:"credit";s:32:"National Portrait Gallery London";s:6:"source";s:32:"National Portrait Gallery London";s:11:"object_name";s:23:"NPG 967; Wilkie Collins";s:12:"date_created";s:10:"02.05.2012";s:4:"city";s:34:"London, St Martin's Place, WC2 0HE";s:7:"country";s:14:"United Kingdom";s:7:"keyword";s:118:"Portraits with Archive documents; Eyeglasses and spectacles��";s:16:"copyright_notice";s:36:"© National Portrait Gallery, London";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource Millais's oil painting shows Wilkie Collins seated wearing a brown velvet jacket, and looking downwards pensively with his hands clapsed in front of his chest. Wilkie Collins (1850) by John Everett Millais. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. As the course of her education proceeded, many striking peculiarities became developed in Madonna's disposition, which seemed to be all more or less produced by the necessary influence of her affliction on the formation of her character. The social isolation to which that affliction condemned her, the solitude of thought and feeling into which it forced her, tended from an early period to make her mind remarkably self-reliant, for so young a girl. Her first impression of strangers seemed invariably to decide her opinion of them at once and for ever. She liked or disliked people heartily; estimating them apparently from considerations entirely irrespective of age, or sex, or personal appearance. Sometimes, the very person who was thought certain to attract her, proved to be absolutely repulsive to her--sometimes, people, who, in Mr. Blyth's opinion, were sure to be unwelcome visitors to Madonna, turned out, incomprehensibly, to be people whom she took a violent liking to directly. She always betrayed her pleasure or uneasiness in the society of others with the most diverting candor--showing the extremest anxiety to conciliate and attract those whom she liked; running away and hiding herself like a child, from those whom she disliked. There were some unhappy people, in this latter class, whom no persuasion could ever induce her to see a second time. She could never give any satisfactory account of how she proceeded in forming her opinions of others. The only visible means of arriving at them, which her deafness and dumbness permitted her to use, consisted simply in examination of a stranger's manner, expression, and play of features at a first interview. This process, however, seemed [end page 119] always amply sufficient for her; and in more than one instance events proved that her judgment had not been misled by it. Her affliction had tended, indeed, to sharpen her faculties of observation and her powers of analysis to such a remarkable degree, that she often guessed the general tenor of a conversation quite correctly, merely by watching the minute varieties of expression and gesture in the persons speaking--fixing her attention always with especial intentness on the changeful and rapid motions of their lips. Exiled alike from the worlds of sound and speech, the poor girl's enjoyment of all that she could still gain of happiness, by means of the seeing sense that was left her, was hardly conceivable to her speaking and hearing fellow-creatures. All beautiful sights, and particularly the exquisite combinations that Nature presents, filled her with an artless rapture, which it affected the most unimpressible people to witness. Trees were beyond all other objects the greatest luxuries that her eyes could enjoy. She would sit for hours, on fresh summer evenings, watching the mere waving of the leaves; her face flushed, her whole nervous organization trembling with the sensations of deep and perfect happiness which that simple sight imparted to her. All the riches and honors which this world can afford, would not have added to her existence a tithe of that pleasure which Valentine easily conferred on her, by teaching her to draw; he might almost be said to have given her a new sense in exchange for the senses that she had lost. She used to dance about the room with the reckless ecstasy of a child, in her ungovernable delight at the prospect of a sketching expedition with Mr. Blyth in the Hampstead fields. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Hide and Seek Description An account of the resource Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was a prolific British writer who was famous for his contributions to the genre of<a title="Sensation Fiction" href="http://www.victorianweb.org/genre/sensation.html" target="_blank"> “sensation fiction”</a> including the popular novels The Woman in White (1860) and The Moonstone (1868). Hide and Seek (1854), from which this passage is excerpted, one of his early novels, was centered on the mysterious parentage of its deaf character Madonna Blyth. Madonna, who was found as an orphaned infant by circus performers, was raised in the circus where, during a performance, she fell from a horse and was deafened. Eventually, an artist, Valentine Blyth, and his “invalid” wife Lavvie, adopt Madonna and raise her as their daughter. The mystery of the novel is eventually solved by Mat Grice, a character who enters the Blyth’s lives when he is looking for answers about the seduction and death of his sister Mary. While the plot of Hide and Seek centers on detection, intrigue and other sensational elements, Collins inserted a note to chapter seven explaining that he wished to “represent[] the character of a ‘Deaf Mute’ as literally as possible according to nature” (431). When Collins describes Madonna’s communicative and sensory experiences in detail, then, he typically relies on his source material, John Kitto’s <a title="Kitto The Lost Senses" href="http://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/items/show/9" target="_blank">The Lost Senses (1845)</a>, an autobiographical work by a deaf writer. In this passage, Collins suggests that Madonna has extraordinary visual abilities as a kind of “compensation” for her deafness and this notion that there must be a sensory compensation for a sensory impairment had enormous currency in Victorian writing about both deafness and blindness. When Collins describes Madonna’s skill at, and pleasure in, looking, he borrows from Kitto’s assessment of his own acuity; while Kitto disputes the idea that his sight must be better than the sight of people who can hear in compensation for his deafness, he nevertheless contends that his deafness led to his “passionate love” of “the beautiful in nature and art” (Kitto 51) and a “habit of seeking the character and passing sentiments of persons in their countenance” (Kitto 61). As Flint argues, in attending to the compensations of a sensory impairment in his novels featuring disabled character, “Collins is offering… a commentary on the role played by the senses in perception in general—something which was very much a live issue for many commentators in the mid nineteenth-century in the rapidly consolidating field of psychophysiology” (Flint 157). However, when Collins describes Madonna’s deafness as having “sharpen[ed] her faculties of observation and her powers of analysis to…a remarkable degree,” he is not only representing deafness in a way that he believes is realistic, nor simply commenting on her lip-reading abilities, but also is developing an important feature of characterization in a mystery novel. The fact that Madonna’s visual prowess enables her superior judgment is invaluable in a novel where looks can be deceiving and mysteries require solving. While, as Martha Stoddard Holmes has noted, Madonna’s sensitivity to visual pleasure may be read as a “dangerous” quality in a woman (Holmes 80), Madonna is also celebrated in the novel as a model of perceptiveness. Collins, who includes disabled characters in many of his works, explains that he has a “moral purpose” in introducing Madonna Blyth, who is deaf, and Lavvie Blyth, who is an “invalid”: I know of nothing which more firmly supports our faith in the better parts of human nature, than to see – as we all may—with what patience and cheerfulness the heavier bodily afflictions of humanity are borne, for the most part, by those afflicted and also to note what elements of kindness and gentleness the spectacle of these afflictions constantly developes [sic] in the persons of the little circle by which the sufferer is surrounded. Here is the ever bright side, the ever noble and consoling aspect of all human calamity…(Introduction to Hide and Seek 431) Despite Collins employment of the rhetoric of “affliction” and “calamity,” his depictions of disability, as Kate Flint notes, tend to “collapse the boundaries between the able-bodied and the impaired” (Flint 154), suggesting perhaps a more positive portrayal of disability in his novels. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Collins, Wilkie Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Collins, Wilkie. Hide and Seek. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. Pages 119-20. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1854 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jennifer Esmail Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Millais's oil painting shows Wilkie Collins seated wearing a brown velvet jacket, and looking downwards pensively with his hands clapsed in front of his chest. Wilkie Collins (1850) by John Everett Millais. Courtesy <a title="National Portrait Gallery" href="http://www.npg.org.uk/" target="_blank">National Portrait Gallery</a> under a Creative Commons License (<a title="National Portrait Gallery" href="http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw01409/Wilkie-Collins?LinkID=mp00975&search=sas&sText=wilkie+collins&role=sit&rNo=0" target="_blank">NPG 967</a>). Relation A related resource <ul><li>Carpenter, Mary Wilson. Health, Medicine and Society in Victorian England. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010. </li> <li>Esmail, Jennifer. Reading Victorian Deafness: Signs and Sounds in Victorian Literature and Culture. Athens: Ohio UP, 2013. </li> <li>Flint, Kate. “Disability and Difference.” The Cambridge Companion to Wilkie Collins. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. </li> <li>Holmes, Martha Stoddard. Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2004.</li> </ul> Deafness Literature Novel Wilkie Collins