The Dress Lodger

Sheri Holman

Sunderland during the cholera epidemic of 1832 is bitterly divided between the rich who believe they have nothing to fear from a disease which afflicts mainly the poor and the disenfranchised who fear cholera is part of a plot to exterminate them. Through the streets of the city walks Gustine a prostitute followed by the Eye an old woman paid by her pimp to keep Gustine under constant surveillance. Gustine has joined forces with a surgeon forced out of Edinburgh in the wake of the Burke & Hare body-snatching scandal. Henry operates an Anatomy School but has no bodies with which to teach; Gustine moving among the week and dying comes across bodies all the time. He believes she can help him advance medical science and she believes if he becomes a better doctor he can save the life of her critically ill baby.>