The Power of MesmerismAnonymousOmniClassics · Literature
The Power of Mesmerism
AnonymousA fictional country household becomes the setting for a pornographic fantasy that uses mesmerism to suspend personal agency.
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About the book
Brackley Hall, the Etheridge family's Devon home, initially appears through the conventions of an established country estate. Frank's return from Germany introduces the circumstances through which the narrative develops its central device: an alleged mental power that can override ordinary restraint and control. The book uses that premise to organize sexual transgressions, including incest, rather than to investigate mesmerism with scientific care. Its most revealing subject for critical study is therefore the relationship between fantasy and consent. Claims of irresistible influence allow the narrative to evade responsibility for coercion while presenting itself as a report of extraordinary experiences. The anonymous text, bearing an 1891 imprint, belongs to historical pornographic fiction; its assertions about psychological power are part of that fiction's machinery.
- Coercion and consent
- Pseudoscientific narrative devices
- Domestic respectability and fantasy
Why read it
The mesmerism premise makes the suppression of agency unusually visible as a structural device in the story.
Anonymous English text identified as the 1891 edition