A01=Jennifer Higgie
art
aslyum
Author_Jennifer Higgie
Bethlem
Category=FC
Category=FV
Category=FXK
Category=FXM
Dadd
delusion
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_historical-fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
fantasy
forthcoming
madness
painting
richard
Product details
- ISBN 9781836742043
- Weight: 204g
- Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 14 Jul 2026
- Publisher: Verso Books
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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Jennifer Higgie presents a year in the life of Richard Dadd, infamous inmate of one of England's most notorious sanitariums, London's Bethlem Hospital, better known as Bedlam.
A young man of great promise, Dadd embarks on a grand tour of Europe and the Middle East with his patron, Sir Thomas Phillips. The two men travel through German forests, Alexandrian brothels and across the desert to the Nile. By the time they find themselves beneath the unforgiving sun of Syria and Palestine, Dadd's fraught mind has been taxed to the limit with extraordinary images. He becomes stranger and more violent, changes his companion attributes to sunstroke. But in Dadd's imagination he has become a devotee of the god Osiris. Shortly after his return to England in 1843, the god directs him to take a life, and Dadd is set on the road to Bedlam.
At once jarringly acute and alarmingly askew, Dadd's voice is rendered with both empathy and acuity by Higgie. This is a poetic and considered portrait of an artist, as well as an intriguing mystery about how, and why, a mind can go so swiftly and dangerously awry.
A young man of great promise, Dadd embarks on a grand tour of Europe and the Middle East with his patron, Sir Thomas Phillips. The two men travel through German forests, Alexandrian brothels and across the desert to the Nile. By the time they find themselves beneath the unforgiving sun of Syria and Palestine, Dadd's fraught mind has been taxed to the limit with extraordinary images. He becomes stranger and more violent, changes his companion attributes to sunstroke. But in Dadd's imagination he has become a devotee of the god Osiris. Shortly after his return to England in 1843, the god directs him to take a life, and Dadd is set on the road to Bedlam.
At once jarringly acute and alarmingly askew, Dadd's voice is rendered with both empathy and acuity by Higgie. This is a poetic and considered portrait of an artist, as well as an intriguing mystery about how, and why, a mind can go so swiftly and dangerously awry.
Jennifer Higgie is an Australian writer who lives in London. Her recent books include The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World and The Mirror & The Palette: Rebellion, Revolution & Resistance, 500 Years of Women's Self Portraits. She is also the author and illustrator of the children's book There's Not One; the editor of The Artist's Joke; and the host of the podcasts Bow Down: Women in Art History and Artist's Artists.
