This searingly honest, thought-provoking and beautifully written memoir is the story of the author's madness years, set inside the wider story of the death of the asylum system in the twentieth century.
Barbara Taylor's previous books include an award-winning study of nineteenth-century socialist feminism, Eve and the New Jerusalem; an intellectual biography of the pioneer feminist Mary Wollstonecraft; and On Kindness, a defence of fellow feeling co-written with the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips. She is a longstanding editor of the leading history journal, History Workshop Journal, and a director of the Raphael Samuel History Centre. She teaches History and English at Queen Mary University of London.
Eloquent, compassionate, and utterly absorbing . . . The Last
Asylum is the best sort of memoir, transcending the purely personal
to confront a larger social history
*Sarah Waters*
Beautiful . . . it is hard to write well enough about this book
because it is so good
*Independent*
A wise, considered and timely book
*Hilary Mantel*
Moving, brave and intelligent
*The Times*
Superb. Riveting, insightful and relentlessly honest
*Darian Leader*
An impressive book, strong on narrative, deeply felt and measured
in tone... The Last Asylum will stand the test of time.
*Literary Review*
A gripping (often painful) account of madness, a fascinating
description of psychoanalysis, a historical reflection on asylums
and a meditation of the interrelationships between care and cure...
Unsparing [and] subtly theoretical, an endeavor not only worth
reading, but worth emulating.
*LA Review of Books*
A fascinating if harrowing journey . . . Taylor is a deft and
engaging historian
*Washington Post*
Barbara Taylor's [memoir] is not to be missed . . . An
extraordinarily measured, fascinating and honest account, that
stands out within the genre... Her book can be compared with Helen
Macdonald's H is for Hawk . . . Barbara Taylor is to be applauded
for an important and original contribution
*Metapsychology*
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