Concealed pregnancy in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novels
Event
Missing the obvious: concealed pregnancy in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novels
Wednesday 29 October, 2025 – Wednesday 29 October, 20256:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution (BRLSI)
Queen Square, Bath, BA1 2HN
About this lecture
This lecture will consider the depiction of pregnancy in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fiction, exploring the ways in which novelists – and characters – simultaneously hide and reveal what is happening inside the female body.
By reconstructing the knowledge of reproductive medicine that operated on readers and writers during these periods, and also by drawing on visual art, Tracy Brain will uncover what can easily be missed in these representations.
Finally, she will consider why these portrayals and the challenges they pose continue to matter in the twenty-first century, and why concealed pregnancy and its aftermath is yet to be consigned to distant history and centuries-old books.
The talk is free to attend, and will be followed by a drinks reception. Please contact Dr Helen Goodman if you have any questions about the event.
About the speakers
Tracy Brain is Professor of Creative Writing and English Literature at Bath Spa University. She is the author of four novels and is also a Sylvia Plath scholar and literary critic. Tracy’s study of concealed pregnancy in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature and medicine, The Pregnancy Question and the Novel, will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2026.