About this item
The phenomenon of false allegations of mental illness is as old as our first interactions as human beings. Every one of us has described some other person as crazy or insane, and most all of us have had periods, moments at least, of madness. But it took the confluence of the law and medical science, mad-doctors, alienists, priests and barristers, to raise the matter to a level of “science,” capable of being used by conniving relatives, “designing families” and scheming neighbors to destroy people who found themselves in the way, people whose removal could provide their survivors with money or property or other less frivolous benefits. Girl Interrupted in only a recent example. And reversing this sort of diagnosis and incarceration became increasingly more difficult, as even the most temperate attempt to leave these “homes” or “hospitals” was deemed “crazy.
About the Author
Extra stories, pictures and further exploration of the subjects of each of my three books are available to read at You can follow me on twitter @MissSarahWiseMy Psychology Today blog on 19th-century mental health is here You can hear me speak about each of my books by going to the following site, and clicking the linksA bit about me: I live in central London and as well as writing my non-fiction books, I am currently working on a screenplay of Inconvenient People. I grew up in West London and went to school in White City. After graduation in English Literature, I worked as an arts journalist, mostly for the Guardian's arts desk and Space magazine (the paper's design and architecture supplement) .I did a Master's degree in Victorian Studies at Birkbeck, University of London ?? jumping ship from EngLit to History. A chance discovery while writing my dissertation (a throwaway one-liner in a piece of Edwardian journalism) led to the writing of The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave Robbery in 1830s London, which was published in 2004. I followed this up with The Blackest Streets: the Life and Death of a Victorian Slum in 2008. My third book, Inconvenient People, came out in 2012. I lecture regularly on London history and the history of 19th-century mental health. I also teach 19th-century social history and fiction ?? details of my courses can be found here: Prizes/shortlistings:The Italian Boy won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction, and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. The Blackest Streets was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize for evocation of a location/landscape. Inconvenient People was shortlisted for the 2014 Wellcome Book Prize and was a book of the year in the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, Guardian and Spectator.
