
My Experiences in a Lunatic Asylum
'My Experiences in a Lunatic Asylum ' Summary
Fully titled My Experiences in a Lunatic Asylum, by a Sane Patient, this memoir describes its author's, Herman Merivale's, experience in one of England's countryside asylums during the 1860's. The main subject - in this case, the author - is less than justly sentenced to a facility for the mentally disturbed. Literally crazy caricatures abound, prisoner and jailer alike. Lofty psychology experts float in and out of Merivale's stay, some more respectable than others, but mostly clueless to patients' real needs. Nurses withhold or too bountifully dispense medications. Wardens rely on inhumane tactics to illicit compliance. As our writer states, this time in British history was "when imprisonment was a form of cruelty which [needed] a new name." He highlights the horrific, hopeless conditions faced by any man, woman or child with even a mild case of depression or of schizophrenia or, for perhaps the most unfortunate souls, of ill-meaning family paying hefty sums to have them committed.
Book Details
Authors

Herman Charles Merivale
United States
Herman Charles Merivale was an English dramatist and poet, son of Herman Merivale. He also used the punning pseudonym Felix Dale. Herman Charles Merivale was born in London on 27 January 1839, the on...
Books by Herman Charles MerivaleDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books

Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon by Austen Layard
Austen Henry Layard is best known as the excavator of Nimrud and of Nineveh, where he uncovered a large proportion of the Assyrian palace reliefs know...

Recollections of a Busy Life by William Forwood
Liverpool in the second half of the 19th century was burgeoning with rich merchants and swollen with poor immigrants. It was known variously as the "N...

Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume 04 by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
Unravel the enigmatic legacy of an extraordinary emperor as "Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume 04" unveils the gripping conclusion of a remarkable...

Steep Trails by John Muir
A collection of Muir's previously unpublished essays, released shortly after his death. "This volume will meet, in every way, the high expectations of...

California Coast Trails by Joseph Smeaton Chase
In 1911, long before the iconic California Highway 1 existed, an Englishman named Joseph Smeaton Chase embarked on a solitary journey along the entire...

In Excelsis by Lord Alfred Douglas
In Excelsis is a collection of sonnets written by Lord Alfred Douglas during his six-month imprisonment at Wormwood Scrubs. The poems are spiritual in...

Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette by Henriette Campan
Step into the opulent world of 18th-century France's most iconic queen with "Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette" by Henriette Campan. Delve into...

Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons by John McElroy
Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons is a comprehensive four-volume history of one soldier's 15 months in Andersonville Prison during the...

In the Oregon Country by George Palmer Putnam
In the Oregon Country is a travelogue by George Palmer Putnam that describes the author's experiences traveling through the Pacific Northwest in the l...

Cellar-House of Pervyse by Mairi Chisholm
This book recounts the extraordinary true story of Mairi Chisholm and Elsie Knocker, two British nurses who defied regulations and risked their lives...
Reviews for My Experiences in a Lunatic Asylum
No reviews posted or approved, yet...