After murdering his father, the painter Richard Dadd is confined to Bedlam. Dr Hood is determined to reform Bedlam and has enlightened views about mental illness. In 1857 Dr Hood gives Dadd a spacious room to work in. Dadd visits 21st century London where he glimpses the mysterious Nina and his own painting in Tate Britain.

A fully illustrated account of Richard Dadd's life and career, this title presents a fascinating exploration of the relationship between art and madness.

A breathtakingly original novel of time travel, Bedlam, and a mad Victorian painter London, 1854: Nina, the wife of an ambitious doctor, is heavily traumatized by the death of her young daughter and finds herself mysteriously transported 150 years into the future. A tourist in the 21st century, she believes she is witnessing a Utopia, with the grime and evil of Victorian London expunged, and while in the future, she embarks upon a brief affair. Returning to her own time, her husband takes fright hearing her experiences and has her committed to Bedlam, where she meets Richard Dadd and finds another Utopia under the charge of a doctor with 21st-century ideas on patient rehabilitation. Meanwhile, her husband is on a collision course with her lover who is traveling to find her from another time, in this mesmerizing blend of time travel, Victoriana, and romance.

No one is more conscious of the faults of this work than the author. Therefore some self -criticism should be woven into this foreward. There are two possible methodologically pure solutions to this book's theme: a de scriptive catalog of the pictures couched in the language of natural science and accom panied by a clinical and psychopathological description of the patients, or a completely metaphysically based investigation of the process of pictorial composition. According to the latter, these unusual works, explained psychologically, and the exceptional circum stances on which they are based would be integrated as a playful variation of human expression into a total picture of the ego under the concept of an inborn creative urge, behind which we would then only have to discover a universal need for expression as an instinctive foundation. In brief, such an investigation would remain in the realm of phenomenologically observed existential forms, completely independent of psychiatry and aesthetics. The compromise between these two pure solutions must necessarily be piecework and must constantly defend itself against the dangers of fragmentation. We are in danger of being satisfied with pure description, the novelistic expansion of details and questions of principle; pitfalls would be very easy to avoid if we had the use of a clearly outlined method. But the problems of a new, or at least never seriously worked, field defy the methodology of every established subject.

Victorian Paintingis a comprehensive survey of one of the most fertile and varied eras in the history of painting. It embraces not just the United Kingdom, but also English-speaking countries linked to Britain by cultural ties of empire and emigration, such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Africa. Long regarded as a backwater of sentiment and outmoded academic convention that was bypassed by the mainstream of development in Western art, Victorian painting is now wholeheartedly enjoyed in its own right. Unfettered by old prejudices, Lionel Lambourne presents a vivid panorama of an age of unparalleled energy and creativity. Wealth, optimism, education and self-confidence created a huge demand for art, and a remarkable array of talent emerged to meet it. Producing works in a wide variety of styles, subjects and media, many artists became rich celebrities, while the profession as a whole enjoyed unprecedented public esteem. The author tackles this protean subject by dividing it into themes that reflect its richness and variety. Chapters are devoted to such topics as Mural/ History Painting, the Nude, the Portrait, Sporting Painting, Genre Scenes and Women Painters; and social themes such as the Fallen Woman, Social Realism, Travel and Emigration; as well as movements such as the Pre-Raphaelites. Written with a light touch, full of illuminating anecdotes, and with 600 color illustrations, Victorian Paintingis beautiful, highly entertaining and informative. It is also an invaluable reference work since, in addition to many famous and well-loved images, it presents a wealth of fine work by lesser-known artists, and explores the byways as well as highways of Victorian art, demonstrating the astounding range and depth of talent of the age.

Includes a catalogue of his works.