Inconvenient people and how to find them: Tales from the Victorian lunacy panics

The 19th century saw a series of scandals concerning sane
individuals being locked away in lunatic asylums, who were the
victims of unscrupulous persons who wanted to be rid of a
'difficult' family member, spouse or friend. But who were the
victims of this trade? How much can you find about contested
cases, private asylums and dishonest doctors in the surviving
records? Sarah Wise explains what she learned during research for
her latest book, which made use of The National Archives'
holdings as well as a number of other less well known sources of
data.


Sarah Wise's debut, The Italian boy: Murder and grave robbery in
1830s London, was shortlisted for the 2005 Samuel Johnson Prize
for non-fiction and won the Crime Writers' Association Gold
Dagger for non-fiction. Inconvenient people: Lunacy, liberty and
the mad doctors (Vintage) has recently been published in
paperback. Find out more at www.sarahwise.co.uk.