This book investigates how late nineteenth-century English culture constructed and communicated the experience of bodily pain across diverse literary and social texts. Lucy Bending, a scholar of Victorian literature, examines how pain functions not as a universal constant, but as a socially mediated concept shaped by power dynamics. By analyzing a wide array of sources—from medical literature to political pamphlets—the author argues that pain is fundamentally interpreted through the lenses of class, gender, race, and criminality.

Scholars in the field of Victorian studies and medical humanities frequently cite this work for its rigorous interdisciplinary approach to the history of the body. Readers note the academic density of the prose, which serves as a foundational text for understanding how nineteenth-century discourse framed the limits of human empathy.