Book Review: Female Physicians in American Literature: Abortion in 19th-Century Literature and Culture by Margaret Jay Jessee
Margaret Jay Jessee. Female Physicians in American Literature: Abortion in 19th-Century Literature and Culture (New York: Routledge, 2021). pp. 108. £44.99. Female Physicians in American Literature: Abortion in 19th-Century Literature and Culture (2022) asserts that it is not the first time in the history of America that previously claimed rights are being revoked and something as grave as overturning Roe v. Wade is put into discussion. This book is a gem that reveals the root of American anti-abortion sentiments in the nineteenth century context and it is amazingly relevant to what is happening to the US in 2022. Margaret Jay Jessee takes the debates on the female physicians and female abortionists in nineteenth-century American fiction to a new level by building a compelling argument that draws on previous scholarship and deploys affect theory to reveal the roots of the ‘fear’ evoked by these characters and its impact on their depiction in the […]