Itch, Clap, Pox: Venereal Disease in the Eighteenth-Century Imagination

A lively interdisciplinary study of how venereal disease was represented in eighteenth-century British literature and art

In eighteenth-century Britain, venereal disease was everywhere and nowhere: while physicians and commentators believed the condition to be widespread, it remained shrouded in secrecy, and was often represented using slang, symbolism, and wordplay. In this book, literary critic Noelle Gallagher explores the cultural significance of the “clap” (gonorrhea), the “pox” (syphi...