Alice Wilkinson explores how Victorian attitudes to drug and alcohol abuse changed and developed during the 19th century in both professional and social circles.
She will discuss how images, illustrations, fiction and specialised journalism represented and examined the relationship between addict and doctor and how public opinion of medical practice was influenced by the growth of consumerism.
Alice will illustrate her talk with well known images such as George Cruickshank’s series ‘The Bottle’ and William Hogarth’s ‘Gin Lane’ as well as illustrations from periodicals such as the Strand Magazine’ and weekly newspapers including the ‘Illustrated London News’. She will draw on the writings of Thomas de Quincey (‘Confessions of an English Opium-Eater’) and Humphrey Davy (inventor of the Davy lamp) in the early 1800’s through to the works of Arthur Conan Doyle at the end of the century.
Alice will explore the complexities inherent in representations of addiction.
Alice is the author of a doctoral thesis ‘Addiction and the pharmakon in nineteenth-century periodical culture.’
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15 Russell Square, Broadway, Worcestershire, WR12 7AP
01386 854695
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Our opening hours are Tuesday-Sunday 10am-4pm (last admission 3.30pm)
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