The 19th Century saw a revolution in the medical profession including the administering of the first anaesthetic, the performing of the first blood transfusion and heart operation, the development of the first vaccines and the discovery of X-Rays.

These scientific advances provided a rich source of inspiration for the gruesome Gothic imagination. From Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a tale of medical hubris, to Robert Louis Stevenson’s pharmaceutical sorcery in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde to H.G. Wells’s monstrous vivisectionist Dr Moreau, the mysteries and power of medicine created a new Gothic environs, far removed from the remote castle and a step closer to where a reader might find themselves a victim.

The medical discoveries of the present day have continued to add to the pantheon of Gothic horrors, as the very boundary between life and death becomes blurred.

In this illustrated talk in the chapel at Guy’s Hospital in London, author Roger Luckhurst will trace the path across the decades of this distinctive strand of the Gothic ethos.