Heart and Science: A Story of the Present Time

In Victorian London, a young surgeon named Ovid Vere abandons his plans for a Mediterranean voyage when he encounters Carmina Graywell, an orphaned heiress whose guardian aunt is scheming to control her inheritance. But the greatest threat to Carmina comes from Dr. Benjulia, a brilliant neurologist whose passion for studying diseases of the brain leads him to encourage the progress of her life-threatening illness for scientific observation. As Carmina weakens, the web tightens around her, and Collins builds toward a pair of spectacularly lurid climactic scenes that would have shocked even Victorian readers. Written in 1883 during the height of the vivisection debate, this novel was Collins' passionate polemic against the 'hideous secrets' of live animal experimentation, inspired by a notorious real-life case of a doctor acquitted under the new Cruelty to Animals Act. Yet it functions also as a gripping sensation novel, a story of strong-willed women battling against predatory men, and a dark meditation on what science justifies in the name of knowledge. Collins himself placed it alongside The Woman in White as his masterpiece.