Introduction

This book offers new readings and interpretations of the non-normative narratives of nineteenth-century disability as they have been reimagined by neo-Victorian fiction, museum exhibitions, and other aspects of the heritage experience. Over the past few decades, an increase of critical work in the histories of disability, particularly figures linked to the Victorian freak show, has occurred across disciplines. Scholars such as Robert Bogdan [(Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press (1988)], Rachel Adams [Sideshow U.S.A.: Freaks and the American Cultural Imagination. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago University Press (2001)], Rosemarie Garland-Thomson [Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body. New York and London: New York University Press (1996), pp. 1–19], Richard Sandell and Jocelyn Dodd [Re-presenting Disability: Activism and Agency in the Museum. New York and London: Routledge (2010), pp. 12–23], are situated in the interdisciplinary field of humanities that includes disability studies, museology, and literary studies. The growth of scholarly interest in institutional histories has been mapped by a surge of neo-Victorian fiction about historical figures with disabilities, supported by scholarship in response to these representations. However, an extensive study has not yet been carried out to interrogate the continued display of the bodies and artefacts of historical figures linked to the freak show through their ‘disabilities’, and the significant theoretical connections between these displays and broader cultural and fictional representations. This book argues that museum displays, collections, and neo-Victorianism intersect through a much more complex and intriguing dialogue than has previously been identified, shedding light on the way in which historical disability functions in the twenty-first century and the role and scope of neo-Victorianism beyond the written text.