This exciting new study looks at degeneration and deviance in nineteenth-century science and late-Victorian Gothic fiction. The questions it raises are as relevant today as they were at the nineteenth century's fin de siecle: What constitutes the norm from which a deviation has occurred? What exactly does it mean to be 'normal' or 'abnormal'?

Stephan Karschay is Lecturer in English Literature and British Cultural Studies at the University of Passau, Germany. His main research interests are the relationship between literature and science in the nineteenth century, the Gothic in literature and film, and the cultural representation of scandal.