The Victorian asylum

About this book

"Dreaded and reviled by many, Britain's nineteenth-century asylums provide a unique window on how the Victorians housed and treated the mentally ill. Despite initially good intentions, asylums became warehouses for society's outcasts, and cures were few. Hidden in the countryside, they could eventually be found throughout the British Empire, on the Continent and in North America, with 120 or so in England and Wales alone."--Back cover.