Exploring recesses of our greatest minds fine but flawed

Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives, By Brian Dillon, Penguin Ireland, €22.80

I n Tormented Hope, Dubliner Brian Dillon examines the lives of nine people over three centuries, from Marcel Proust and Andy Warhol to Charles Darwin and Florence Nightingale, and studies the degree to which hypochondria was a feature of their lives.

A definition of hypochondria would, perhaps, be helpful for the reader at this point, but to merely supply the latest diagnostic ...