The Measure of Manliness: Disability and Masculinity in the Mid-Victorian Novel

The Measure of Manliness examines the proliferation of crippled, maimed, and disabled men in the mid-nineteenth-century novel, showing that far from being marginalized or pathologized, disability was central to Victorian narrative form. Karen Bourrier argues that this unexpected interest in masculine weakness and disability was a response to the rise of a new Victorian culture of industry and vitality, and its corollary emphasis on a hardy, active manhood. In chapters on novels by Kingsley, Yonge, Mulock Craik, Arnold, Eliot, and Henry James, Bourrier shows how the figure of the voluble weak man was a necessary narrative complement to the silent strong man. The analysis unites historical and narrative concerns, showing how developments in nineteenth-century masculinity led to a formal innovation in literature: the focalization or narration of the novel through the perspective of a weak or disabled man.

The book will appeal to those interested in disability studies, gender and masculinity studies, the theorization of sympathy and affect, the recovery of women’s writing and popular fiction, the history of medicine and technology, and queer theory.