The Imaginary Invalid

“Although a comedy, this play has come to have a tragic resonance. During the fourth ever performance, Molière was taken ill while acting onstage as Argan, racked with terrible coughs. He managed to pass it off as part of the character, but after the play was over he collapsed and had to be carried in a litter to a colleague’s lodgings nearby. He died there a few hours later, choking on his own blood. Just a few hours before, he had convinced an entire theatre’s worth of people that he was perfectly fine, just a hypochondriac.” Read more...

The best books on Hypochondria

Caroline Crampton, Memoirist