The Reader, the Body, and the Book

How do books dazzle, disgust, or delight audiences? What entices readers to track characters’ trials and tribulations? Why do stories echo across the ages with their intensity? Books with vibrant, somatic elements prompt us to identify with protagonists who fall in love, flee from pursuers, and fight for survival, enhancing the awareness of our own bodies. This transatlantic, diachronic study of 19th-century literature analyzes the rising complexity of sensorimotor descriptions in four major Vic