Examining the ways in which hypochondria forms both a malady and a metaphor for a range of British Romantic writers, Grinnell contends that this is not one illness amongst many, but a disorder of the very ability to distinguish between illness and health, a malady of interpretation that mediates a broad spectrum of pressing cultural questions.
'The Age of Hypochondria demonstrates sound scholarship, highly competent knowledge of its period, and a facile use of current theories of interpretation. Its choice of subject and authors treated will give it a distinct and original place among the roster of good books on Romantic medicine published in recent years.' Hermione de Almeida, Pauline Walter Chair in Comparative Literature, University of Tulsa, USA