This highly original book brilliantly exposes the phenomenon of false allegations of lunacy (and the dark motives behind them...) in the Victorian period.
Sarah Wise has an MA in Victorian Studies from Birkbeck College.
She teaches 19th-century social history and literature to both
undergraduates and adult learners, and is visiting professor at the
University of California's London Study Center, and a guest
lecturer at City University.
Her interests are London/urban history, working-class history,
medical history, psychogeography, 19th-century literature and
reportage.
Her website is www.sarahwise.co.uk
Her most recent book, Inconvenient People- Lunacy, Liberty and the
Mad-Doctors in Victorian England (Bodley Head), was shortlisted for
the Wellcome Book Prize 2014.
Her 2004 debut, The Italian Boy- Murder and Grave Robbery in 1830s
London (Jonathan Cape), was shortlisted for the 2005 Samuel Johnson
Prize for Non-Fiction. Her follow-up The Blackest Streets- The Life
and Death of a Victorian Slum was published in 2008 and was
shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje
Prize.
Sarah was a major contributor to Iain Sinclair's compendium London,
City of Disappearances (2006). She has contributed to the TLS,
History Today, BBC History magazine, the Literary Review, the FT
and the Daily Telegraph. She discussed bodysnatching for BBC2's
History Cold Case series; provided background material for BBC1's
Secret History of Our Streets; and spoke about Broadmoor Hospital
on Channel 5's programme on that institution.She has been a guest
on Radio 4's All in the Mind, Radio 3's Night Waves and the
Guardian's Books Podcast about 19th-century mental health.
Excellent
*Guardian*
A fine social history of the people who contested their confinement
to madhouses in the 19th century, Wise offers striking arguments,
suggesting that the public and juries were more intent on liberty
than doctors and families
*Sunday Telegraph*
Action-packed and entertaining… [A] marvellous book
*i*
Fascinating… It has enough tragedy, comedy, farce and horror to
fill a dozen fat novels, and enough bizarre characters to people
them
*Financial Times*
Wise is a terrific researcher and storyteller. Here she has woven a
series of case studies into a fascinating history of insanity in
the 19th century
*Guardian Books of the Year*
Deeply researched and gripping...it makes for harrowing reading
*Mail on Sunday*
An illuminating look at an area of social history that inspired
Wilkie Collins among others
*Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year*
Excellent... One often feels as if one is actually present at the
scenes she describes. There can be no higher praise... Inconvenient
People is as interesting a work of social history as you are ever
likely to read.
*Spectator*
Fascinating and chilling, Inconvenient People reads like a series
of Victorian novels in brief - only all the tales are true
*Daily Mail*
This superlative study opens the door on the cruelty of the quacks
who locked up lost souls
*Independent*
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