Artist James Tissot compiled photographs of his work in three albums, which are reproduced in this book.

In Victorian England, vulgarity, first used to define language use and class position, became implicated in behavior, material possessions, sexuality, and race. Victorian Vulgarity explores vulgarity's troubled history through dictionaries and grammars; essays, journalism and visual art; and fiction by Dickens, Eliot, Gissing, and Trollope. Neither dismissing nor reveling in vulgarity's myriad temptations, the contributors invite readers to consider the concept's implications for today's writers and artists.

If moods are as contagious as colds, and wickedness as debilitating as a bad diet, inquiries into assorted discourses in 18th-century France still have much to tell. Author Anne Vila shows that multiple junctures between the body and the mind promoted a steady commerce of speculation and discussion between science and the social salons of the time. 9 illustrations.

In the early modern centuries a body of popularized medical writings appeared, telling ordinary people how they could best take care of their own health. Often written be doctors, such books gave simple advice for home treatments, while commonly warning of the dangers of magic, quackery, old wive's tales and faith-healing. The Popularization of Medicine explores the rise of this form of people's medicine, from the early days of printing to the Victorian age, focusing on the different experiences of Britain, the Continent and North America.