This Way Madness Lies (Hardcover)
A compelling and evocatively illustrated exploration of the evolution of the asylum, and its role in society over the course of four centuries
This Way Madness Lies is a thought-provoking exploration of the history of madness and its treatment as seen through the lens of its proverbial home: Bethlem Royal Hospital, London, popularly known as Bedlam. The book charts the evolution of the asylum through four incarnations: the eighteenth-century madhouse, the nineteenth century asylum, the twentieth-century mental hospital, and the post-asylum modern day, when mental health has become the concern of the wider community. The book reveals the role that the history of madness and its treatment has played in creating the landscape of the asylum, in all its iterations.
Moving and sometimes provocative illustrations sourced from the Wellcome Collection's extensive archives and the Bethlem Royal Hospital's archive highlight the trajectory of each successive era of institution: founded in the optimistic spirit of humanitarian reform but eventually dismantled amid accusations of cruelty and neglect. Each chapter concludes with a selection of revealing and captivating artwork created by some of the inmates of the institutions of that era.
This Way Madness Lies highlights fundamental questions that remain relevant and unresolved: What lies at the root of mental illness? Should sufferers be segregated from society or integrated more fully? And in today’s post-asylum society, what does the future hold for a world beyond Bedlam?
— The New York Times Book Review
An illuminating, generously illustrated book that accompanies the exhibition Bedlam: The Asylum and Beyond on madness and the history of its treatment.”
— SCIENCE Magazine
Fascinating and lavishly illustrated…Provides a lively account of developments in the past three centuries [about] the fate of the mentally ill. Mr. Jay has taken great pains to try to recover what it must have been like to be a patient in the asylum and to offer an array of images, made by the inmates themselves, that give some access to their feelings about their confinement and the emotional and intellectual turmoil that consumed them.
— The Wall Street Journal