Inconvenient People: lunacy, liberty, and the mad doctors in Victorian England
Material type:
TextPublication details: London 2013Description: xxii, 473 pages : ills (black and white), map (black and white) ; 20 cmISBN: - 9780099541868
- 0099541866
- 9780099541868
- Insanity (Law) - Great Britain - History - 19th century
- Psychiatry - Corrupt practices - Great Britain - History - 19th century
- Health and Fitness
- Health and Wellbeing
- Great Britain - Social conditions - 19th century
- Vintage Books: Random House
- 12 separate stories of contested lunacy cases, ranging from the 1820s to the 1890s, reveal the various types of persons who came under threat of incarceration, the support that their plight aroused in the public mind and the newspapers, and doctors' shifting arguments about what constituted insanity.""Gaslight tales of rooftop escapes, men and women snatched in broad daylight, patients shut in coffins, a fanatical cult known as the Abode of Love. The nineteenth century saw repeated panics about sane individuals being locked away in lunatic asylums. With the rise of the 'mad-doctor' profession, English liberty seemed to be threatened by a new generation of medical men willing to incarcerate difficult family members in return for the high fees paid by an unscrupulous spouse or friend. Sarah Wise uncovers twelve shocking stories, untold for over a century and reveals the darker side of the Victorian upper and middle classes - their sexuality, fears of inherited madness, financial greed and fraudulence - and chillingly evoke the black motives at the heart of the phenomenon of the 'inconvenient person'
- 926 WISE
| Item type | Current library | Home library | Shelving location | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Week Loan | St. Luke’s Radiation Oncology Network Dublin | St. Luke’s Radiation Oncology Network Dublin | General | 926 WISE (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | 39015000023153 |
Total holds: 0
Originally published: London: Bodley Head, 2012. Includes bibliographical references and index.
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