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

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. And contrary to popular modern belief, the madwoman in the attic was at least as likely to have been a madman.Among the victims were the beautiful and charismatic Rosina, wife of the novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton; Edward Davies, victim of a mother’s greed; Louisa Lowe, who paid for her religious fervour; and John Perceval, who, despite the best efforts of the abusive asylum attendants, cured himself.Sarah Wise uncovers twelve shocking stories, untold for over a century, which reveal 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’.

Reviews

A wonderfully engaging book
Jad Adams (Who Do You Think You Are Magazine)

A dark and disturbing investigation...trenchant and disturbing book
John Carey (Sunday Times)

Rich, gripping and moving mix of social history, psychiatry and storytelling
 (Your Family Tree)

There is so much to interest and entertain in this book, which is enhanced by over eighty informative illustrations
Gillian Tindall (Literary Review)

Several riveting cases Sarah Wise has unearthed for this fine social history of contested lunacy in the 19th century... Wise has given us a fascinating book that teems with rich archival research. The pictorial sources are an added boon and make for a wonderfully illustrated addition to the history of the 19th century
Lisa Appignanesi (Daily Telegraph)

Sarah Wisehas used her subject like an axe, to split open the Victorian facade and examine everything wriggling behind. It has enough tragedy, comedy, farce and horror to fill a dozen fat novels, and enough bizarre characters to people them
Suzi Feay (Financial Times)