Overview

Out of His Mind is a socio-cultural study of the madman in Victorian society; through in-depth case studies and broad surveys of emergent trends it explores popular anxieties about health, gender, and modern life. Out of His Mind interrogates how Victorians made sense of the madman as both a social reality and a cultural representation. Even at the height of enthusiasm for the curative powers of nineteenth-century psychiatry, to be certified as a lunatic meant a loss of one's freedom and in many ways one's identify. Because men had the most power and authority in Victorian Britain, this also meant they had the most to lose. The madman was often a marginal figure, confined in private homes, hospitals, and asylums. Yet as a cultural phenomenon he loomed large, tapping into broader social anxieties about respectability, masculine self-control, and fears of degeneration. Using a wealth of case notes, press accounts, literature, medical and government reports, this text provides a rich window into public understandings and personal experiences of men's insanity.

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9781526155030

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Reviews

'An original contribution to our understanding of how gender, and especially masculinity, impacted the experience and representation of madness in Victorian Britain.' Katie Barclay, The American Historical Review 'Out of His Mind builds upon and strengthens work already done in the history of science to destabilise gendered notions of scientific and medical authority.' Heather Ellis, Women's History Review 'Amy Milne-Smith makes an important contribution to historical understandings of the multi-dimensional interactions between gender and mental health, encompassing the medical, social, attitudinal and cultural.' Leonard Smith, Cultural and Social History -- .

Author Information

Amy Milne-Smith is Professor of History at Wilfrid Laurier University

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