"The brief turn to the contemporary in the conclusion offers a compelling and affective argument for literature’s potential to enable us to think through the paradoxes and contradictions of our individual and collective responses to the aging process. In the context of Covid-19, these questions of aging, population, and demographic thinking have come into yet sharper focus and this book is a brilliant example of what the past might have to tell us about growing older together." —Amy Culley, University of Lincoln, Studies in Romanticism

"Andrea Charise makes a substantial contribution to nineteenth-century studies and the field of aging studies." —University of Toronto Quarterly

“A must-read book for scholars, demographers, historians, health care professionals, and policy makers who get that aging—free of ageism—is our rightful destiny.” —Ashton Applewhite, author of This Chair Rocks

“Breathtaking in scope and in importance, this book showcases Charise’s unmatched eloquence. She shows that what’s new in thinking about twenty-first century population aging is in fact old, but also that what is old is always strangely new.” —Sally Chivers, author of The Silvering Screen

“Absolutely fascinating and illuminating, Charise is masterful in identifying crucial shifts in thought.” —Teresa Mangum, author of Married, Middle-Brow, and Militant

“Charise’s brilliantly argued book is an important intervention in nineteenth-century British literature, age studies, and medical humanities. It brings these areas of inquiry together in what seems a seamless way—as if they have always traveled together or ought to have.” —Devoney Looser, author of The Making of Jane Austen