Main description:

Did Shakespeare's doctors addle his brain with mercury, leading to his early retirement? Was Jane Eyre inspired by the plagued school that claimed the Bronte clan? Did writing 1984 kill George Orwell? Many of our most beloved scribes struggled to conquer not just writer's block but a bevy of medical maladies. John Ross opens his surgery to consult with the likes of Milton, Swift, Melville, and Joyce, to debunk myths and probe muses, both literary and medical. Ross peppers his tales with vivid vignettes of medical practice through the centuries, from Shakespeare's cloaked visits to Southwark to cure his unsavoury rashes to the arsenic-and-horse-serum jabs given for Yeats's fevers. With novelistic flair and deep expertise, Ross reveals a wholly absorbing view of the writer's life - the perfect gift for the doctor, aspiring novelist, or literary addict in your life.