Not strictly Victorian: Books That Feature A Lot Of Fainting

[Sasha]

You all know the trope: Victorian women fainted a lot. (Insert conversation about corsets here.) I need examples. (Well, no I don't. I want examples, because I'm preparing a lecture and I want to spend like two minutes of it on swooning.)

I'm looking for novels where it seems like women do a lot of swooning. So far I have:
- Evelina
- The Mysteries of Udolpho
Both heroines in these books spend basically half their lives passed out.

Obviously it's not crucial that they be specifically Victorian novels; anything from around the late 1700s or 1800s will do. In fact, I don't even care about the time period; if you know a swoony book from the 1980s, I'm at least interested to hear what it is.

Thanks!

[Pip]

Doesn't Pamela (Pamela. Or, Virtue Rewarded) spend a lot of time fainting? Also, anything vampirical has no end of freaked-out females passing out with their necks conveniently bared. Here's an especially choice excerpt from Thomas Preskett Prest or James Malcolm Rymer's penny dreadful Varney the Vampire:

"The bed-clothes fell in a heap by the side of the bed—she was dragged by her long silken hair completely on to it again. Her beautifully rounded limbs quivered with the agony of her soul. The glassy, horrible eyes of the figure ran over that angelic form with a hideous satisfaction—horrible profanation. He drags her head to the bed's edge. He forces it back by the long hair still entwined in his grasp. With a plunge he seizes her neck in his fang-like teeth—a gush of blood, and a hideous sucking noise follows. The girl has swooned, and the vampyre is at his hideous repast!"

That's just the end of chapter one. Of 96 chapters.

[Maria]

The Woman in White

[Pip]

I don't know if you've come across this article about Victorians and fainting, Alex - it's quite an interesting read, but avoid it if you've never read The Law and the Lady and want to avoid spoilers because you get the whole story.

[Sasha]

Pamela: Yeah, probably, good call. I think I've blocked that terrible book out. But it seems like a safe guess.

Varney, awesome - and an excellent quote there. Y'know, I've only read that first chapter. It's included in a superfun collection: Dracula's Guest and Other Victorian Vampire Stories. I looked into Dracula, figuring it'd be a gimme, but I couldn't actually find anything conclusive.

And I have read that Law & the Lady article, in the course of (fruitlessly) researching this. Sortof interesting - I didn't even know that book existed, for one thing - but weirdly, tightly focused on that one book.

Maria, are you sure about Woman in White? I wasn't sure enough. Certainly Miss Halcombe is no fainter. (Among other things, she doesn't wear a corset, which Collins gleefully goes out of his way to tell us.) I could see Laura Fairlie doing some swooning though.

Thanks to both of you for helping!

[Pip]

I've just realised I omitted to include the link to the Law and the Lady article, but you obviously know the one I'm talking about. The website is down now for some reason, but I'll try and post it later for anyone else who might be interested.

Re Woman in White, I can't remember huge amounts of fainting, but if anyone were a good candidate for that, I'd go for Mr Fairlie ;-))

Finally, I'm ploughing slowly through Udolpho but finding it a trial. Not so much fainting yet (im 9% in) but barely a page goes by without someone weeping with emotion. Often more than one character at a time. I'll get a more detailed update on my progress to you soon!

[Pip]

By the way Alex - is your lecture confined exclusively to novels? If not, melodrama would probably give you plenty of examples too.

[Sasha]

No, it's everything, so melodrama would be fine.

And yeah, Udolpho is killing me. I'm almost halfway done now and it's ...just not the most compelling read I've had this year.

[Lily]

Alex wrote: "No, it's everything, so melodrama would be fine.

And yeah, Udolpho is killing me. I'm almost halfway done now and it's ...just not the most compelling read I've had this year."

Alex -- Here is a discussion that dates back to 2008 on Udolpho:
http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t...

Most of the people there long ago migrated to Goodreads, but as I recall, we had fun reading together that too long book written for/in a much slower paced era. I didn't browse through our notes just now when I went looking for a link.

[Pip]

Fantastic link - thank you so much, Lily.
Alex - perhaps this B&N discussion will help us to focus on more than just excessive weeping and swooning!!

[Sasha]

Thanks Lily, that was interesting!

Pip - I don't want to throw this important conversation about fainting too off track, but the B&N conversation did remind me that I also have opinions about Emily's poetry. I threw them here.