Anxious Times explores perceptions of the pressures of modern life and their impact on bodily and mental health in nineteenth-century Britain. Drawing on both specialist and popular material, the authors consider anxieties surrounding the potentially detrimental impact of new technologies, changing work and leisure practices, and evolving cultural pressures and expectations. Explorations of these concerns range from developments in occupational and public health to fictional speculations as to what lies ahead for human beings once they become, literally, a bundle of nerves.