The Cure of the Passions and the Origins of the English Novel

This new study examines the role of the passions in the rise of the English novel. Geoffrey Sill examines medical religious and literary efforts to anatomize the passions paying particular attention to the works of Dr. Alexander Monro of Edinburgh Reverend John Lewis of Margate and Daniel Defoe novelist and natural historian of the passions. He shows that the figure of the physician of the mind is prominent not only in Defoe''s novels but also in those of Fielding Richardson Smollett Burney and Edgeworth.