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Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England

Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England Paperback - 2013

by Wise, Sarah

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London: Vintage, 2013 9780099541868. First edition. Softcover. Third printing. Like New. No creasing to spine or anywhere else. Signed by the author on the title page. (Certified by sticker on front cover.) No other inscriptions or annotations. Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize 2014. This highly original book brilliantly exposes the phenomenon of false allegations of lunacy (and the dark motives behind them...) in the Victorian period. 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'. "Fascinating... It has enoughtragedy, comedy, farce and horror to fill a dozen fat novels." Financial Times. .
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From the publisher

SARAH WISE took an MA in Victorian Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her most recent book, The Blackest Streets, was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize (2009). Her debut, The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave Robbery in 1830s London, was shortlisted for the 2005 Samuel Johnson Prize and won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction. Sarah was a major contributor to Iain Sinclair's compendium London, City of Disappearances. She has spoken on Radio 4's Thinking Allowed, Woman's Hour and the Today programme, and she regularly lectures to societies and at history events. She lives in central London.

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About the author

SARAH WISE took an MA in Victorian Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her most recent book, "The Blackest Streets, " was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize (2009). Her debut, "The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave Robbery in 1830s London, " was shortlisted for the 2005 Samuel Johnson Prize and won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction. Sarah was a major contributor to Iain Sinclair's compendium "London, City of Disappearances." She has spoken on Radio 4's "Thinking Allowed, Woman's Hour" and the" Today" programme, and she regularly lectures to societies and at history events. She lives in central London.

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