Mysterious
Medicine: The Doctor-Scientist Tales of
Hawthorne and Poe is
one in a series of books called Literature and Medicine dedicated to the
exploration and explication of the intersection of the two titled
disciplines. This volume, edited by L.
Kerr Dunn, looks at the short stories (mostly—it includes one sonnet) of Nathaniel
Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe from the viewpoint of each author’s use of, and
in some cases experiences with, doctors, diseases, and the medical
profession. The volume begins with an
Introduction that situates the writings within the medical and social milieu of
the period (the authors were contemporaneous) and illustrates the way in which
the tales reflect the times. The stories
are grouped by author and arranged chronologically. Among the nineteen entries included are “The
Minister’s Black Veil,” “Lady Eleanore’s Mantle,” “The Birthmark,” and
“Rappaccini’s Daughter” for Hawthorne, and “The Black Cat,” “The Fall of the
House of Usher,” “Berenice,” and “Some Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” for
Poe; each entry is preceded by a brief introduction and followed by discussion
questions. An extensive list of
scholarly references closes out the volume.
