Invalidism in North and South and Advertisements in the Illustrated London News

By B. N.

I selected three advertisements from the 2 July 1853 issue of The Illustrated London News: one advertises a book on “neurotonics” (or medicine for the nerves), another advertises a cure for “Deafness,” and the last advertises a sanctuary for middle- and upper-class women with “nervous and mental disorders.” None of the advertisements are illustrated and each consists of, at most, a paragraph of text. Because society was undergoing many rapid changes in technology, medicine, and science, fiction in the Victorian era presents anxiety regarding illness and health. Although each advertisement prescribes something unique, each one has an optimistic tone and presents a hopeful image for the invalid. For example, the advertisement for deafness describes its treatment as “one of the most important discoveries ever made in medical science” and states that it is “the only certain and successful treatment known” (535).

Physical and Mental Health in North and South and “Sick Body, Sick Brain”

By Zach Brabazon

Both Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South and “Sick Body, Sick Brain” present circumstances of illness translating to psychological effects. In North and South, invalidism is paralleled by mental disturbance. The disturbed mindsets of Bessy Higgins, Fanny Thornton and Mrs. Hale are underlined by their invalid states. The article “Sick Body, Sick Brain” from Household Words discusses the way in which madness or hysteria is created on a larger scale by the presence of epidemic disease. “Sick Body, Sick Brain” gives interesting insight into how Victorians understood sanity and insanity, and provides context for the invalid hysteria that takes place in the North and South.

A “Change of Air” and Invalidism in North and South

By Elena Rardon

The figure of the invalid in nineteenth-century writing was often one of ridicule, as authors and playwrights poked fun at those overly infatuated with aches, pains, and nerves. In Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, the author upends some of these common tropes with the humanization of the invalid character Mrs. Hale. Often concerned with the effect of the “air” on her health, Mrs. Hale most likely followed the idea behind the Household Words article, “Change of Air”—namely, that physical constitution has a direct correlation with climate.

Between 1850 and 1859, Charles Dickens edited Household Words, a weekly-published journal that Gaskell herself contributed to in a serialized format with North and South. All articles were anonymously published, although they all had a fairly “Dickensian” feel. The article “Change of Air,” published in Household Words in 1854, discusses the idea that climate can have an effect on health, encouraging traveling as a method of self-care.