Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough: Diagnosing the Medical Groans and Last Gasps of Ten Great Writers

"The stories of the wounded storytellers unfold smoothly on the page, as mesmerizing as any they themselves might have told." —The New York Times

The Bard meets House, M.D. in this fascinating untold story of the impact of disease on the lives and works of some the finest writers in the English language. John Ross cheerfully debunks old biographical myths and suggests fresh diagnoses for these writers' real-life medical mysteries.

Were Shakespeare's shaky handwriting, his obsession with vener...