Space and Narrative in the Nineteenth-Century British Historical Novel, Book Review: Sex and Sexuality in Modern Southern Culture, Fall 2018 Review Supplement Table of Contents, Book Review: Bellies, Bowels and Entrails in the Eighteenth Century, Book Review: The History of Reason in the Age of Madness. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. She also has a great YouTube channel called Under the Knife. The true story of a Victorian era surgeon experimenting with different hygiene methods in the early battle against germs could easily be the most boring book in the world. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. Yucky details don’t usually make me uncomfortable, but a few lines in this book managed to make me nearly gag. Indeed, such digressions seem to be her specialty, and their inclusion makes the book very diverting reading, especially for the Victorian Era novice unfamiliar with milestones such as, say, the Great Exhibition, or with the prevalence of domestic abuse. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine. He even was called upon to operate on Queen Victoria—this gives you a sense of how important a figure he was in the British medical community. Love her descriptive and captivating wiring style! But this book was riveting. Helpful. The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris "Heroic medicine" is well named. I really enjoyed the story and the excellent quality of the writing. I actually feel that this book is poorly written.. but that's just my opinion. It can be hard to focus on Lister or indeed any cohesive subject from chapter to chapter; when Fitzharris follows a conversational thread, the reader loses sight of the book’s main theme. He is the author of Space and Narrative in the Nineteenth-Century British Historical Novel (Routledge, 2016). 5 people found this helpful. ( Log Out /  I'm Jillianne Hamilton—history geek, graphic+web designer and author of three action/comedy novels and one non-fiction book, The Lazy Historian's Guide to the Wives of Henry VIII. ( Log Out /  The Lazy Historian focuses mainly on Western European and women's history but delves into anything fascinating. Each chapter has a sprinkling of foreshadowing hooks that seek to link the content to Lister’s “quest,” though such connections are often tenuous, such foreshadowing forced. The Butchering Art is an astounding debut book and I can’t wait to see what topic she covers next. 2256) DOI: 10.14296/RiH/2014/2256 Date accessed: 23 May, 2020. Prime members enjoy Free Two-Day Shipping, Free Same-Day or One-Day Delivery to select areas, Prime Video, Prime Music, Prime Reading, and more. Learn how your comment data is processed. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. The pain and horror of feeling a surgeon cutting into your body is something we now associate with a… Read my disclosure policy to learn more. Change ). It can be hard to focus on Lister or indeed any cohesive subject from chapter to chapter; when Fitzharris follows a conversational thread, the reader loses sight of the book’s main theme. Tom Bragg is an Associate Professor at the University of South Carolina Salkehatchie. The Doctor has an easy reading form of writing and the information given is excellent. Every chapter begins with a novel-like hook of immediacy and detail: “A halo of light from a gas lamp illuminated the corpse…,” “The thundering of cannon reverberated around the battlefield,” “…Isabella Pim felt the weight of the world on her shoulders” (37, 111, 175).