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Shakespeare's Tremor And Orwell's Cough: The Medical Lives Of Famous Writers (2012)

by John J. Ross(Favorite Author)

3.65 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0312600763 (ISBN13: 9780312600761)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

St. Martin's Press

review 1: Unfortunately, I was just not impressed with this. The premise sounded fantastic, but the writing was unfocused, the use of language uneven (ranging from the highly specialised to the idiomatic informal, sometimes within a single paragraph) nearly to the point of non sequitur. The short fictionalised pieces that opened each chapter seemed particularly ill-advised. It was clearly well-researched and the topic a fascinating one, but the presentation needed work.
review 2: John Ross looks at the lives, illnesses and deaths of several famous writers in an attempt to see what modern medicine would have diagnosed. Each of the 10 chapters consists of a potted biography of the writer (or writers in the case of the chapter on the Brontes) and a discussion of their malad... moreies, how these were treated and their invariable unhappy endings.Some of the chapters seem to speculate much more than others - for example the first chapter on Shakespeare does not present enough evidence to make its case. It also takes a fair bit of this evidence from the man's works, but being able to demonstrate that Shakespeare knew about a particular illness and its treatment doesn't necessarily mean that he had it.The book is enjoyable for fans of literature, history and the history of medicine. As I'm in the first two camps I found that there was a little too much medical detail, I'm sure those of a more scientific bent would disagree.I was disappointed, however, that only one of the 10 chapters dealt with women authors - this made the book feel too male and did not redress the balance of many centuries of male-only doctors.Despite this though, I liked the book and would recommend to anyone looking for something a bit different in non-fiction. less

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