The Palgrave Handbook of Nineteenth Century Literature and Science focuses on the interplay between the emergence of natural, physical, and social sciences with the development of poetry, fiction, and prose of the period. In five parts, chapters explore how key topics in physics, mathematics and geology in the biological sciences, as well as new social sciences such as sociology, economics, and anthropology, were central to nineteenth-century literature. The handbook covers the transition from natural philosophy to the inception of scientific publishing and the disciplines as we know them today in natural sciences, physical sciences, psychology and medicine, and the social sciences. The handbook attends throughout to the importance of colonial and global interactions in science, from burgeoning areas such as affect studies and disability studies to the long arc of debates around materialism and idealism.

Pamela K. Gilbert is Philpott-West Point Stevens Eminent Scholar and Professor of English at Auburn University, USA. She has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature, popular culture, the body, and the history of medicine.