{"title":"Books by Sarah Wise","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780861544554","title":"The Undesirables","description":"\u003cp\u003eThrough the early twentieth century, the British Government locked away over 50,000 innocent people. Their ‘crimes’? Being poor and unyielding. This is their story.   A HISTORY TODAY BOOK OF THE YEAR'Staggering… Wise's book bristles with injustices.' Sunday Telegraph,\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBy 1950, an estimated 50,000 people had been deemed ‘defective’ by the British government and detained indefinitely under the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. Their ‘crimes’ were various: women with children born out of wedlock; rebellious teenagers caught shoplifting; those with epilepsy, hearing impairments and chronic illnesses who had struggled in school; and many who were simply ‘different’.   Forcibly removed from their families and confined to a shadow world of specialist facilities in the countryside, they were hidden away and forgotten – out of sight, out of mind.   Through painstaking archival research, award-winning historian Sarah Wise shines a light on this shameful chapter. Piecing together the lives irrevocably changed by this devastating legislation, The Undesirables provides a compelling study of how early twentieth-century attitudes to class, gender and disability resulted in a nationwide scandal – and how they continue to shape social policy to this day.   'The heartrending stories Sarah Wise has unearthed beggar belief… beautifully researched and truly compelling.' Catherine Bailey, author of Black Diamonds\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57685920383349,"sku":"9780861549795","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":43605832237234,"sku":"9780861544554","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780861549795_9079e02d-1b63-41e1-b5d4-ce87c23bcc05.jpg?v=1792599160"},{"product_id":"9780099541868","title":"Inconvenient People","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis highly original book brilliantly exposes the phenomenon of false allegations of lunacy and the dark motives behind them in the Victorian period.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGaslight tales of rooftop escapes, men and women snatched in broad daylight, patients shut in coffins, a fanatical cult known as the Abode of Love… \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The nineteenth century saw repeated panics about sane individuals being locked away in lunatic asylums. With the rise of the ‘mad-doctor’ profession, English liberty seemed to be threatened by a new generation of medical men willing to incarcerate difficult family members in return for the high fees paid by an unscrupulous spouse or friend. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Sarah Wise uncovers twelve shocking stories, untold for over a century and reveals the darker side of the Victorian upper and middle classes – their sexuality, fears of inherited madness, financial greed and fraudulence – and chillingly evoke the black motives at the heart of the phenomenon of the ‘inconvenient person.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e ‘A fine social history of the people who contested their confinement to madhouses in the 19th century, Wise offers striking arguments, suggesting that the public and juries were more intent on liberty than doctors and families’ \u003ci\u003eSunday Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56223755174261,"sku":"9780099541868","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780099541868_48782051-6588-41ac-831b-c6335f3c09ff.jpg?v=1786011508"},{"product_id":"9781844133307","title":"The Italian Boy","description":"\u003cp\u003eTowards the end of 1831, the authorities unearthed a series of crimes at Number 3, Nova Scotia Gardens in East London that appeared to echo the notorious Burke and Hare killings in Edinburgh three years earlier. After a long investigation, three bodysnatchers were put on trial for supplying the anatomy schools of London with suspiciously fresh bodies for dissection.They later became known as The London Burkers, and their story was dubbed 'The Italian Boy' case. The furore which led directly to the passing of controversial legislation which marked the beginning of the end of body snatching in Britain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Italian Boy\u003c\/i\u003e, Sarah Wise not only investigates the case of the London Burkers but also, by making use of an incredibly rich archival store, the lives of ordinary lower-class Londoners. Here is a window on the lives of the poor - a window that is opaque in places, shattered in others but which provides an unprecedented view of low-life London in the 1830s.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56307710558581,"sku":"9781844133307","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781844133307_9ac784cb-4cfa-4091-b07a-bcfc25c463d8.jpg?v=1786027812"},{"product_id":"9781844133314","title":"The Blackest Streets","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'An excellent and intelligent investigation of the realities of urban living that respond to no design or directive... This is a book about the nature of London itself' Peter Ackroyd, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA powerful exploration of the seedy side of Victorian London by one of our most promising young historians\u003c\/b\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1887 government inspectors were sent to investigate the Old Nichol, a notorious slum on the boundary of Bethnal Green parish, where almost 6,000 inhabitants were crammed into thirty or so streets of rotting dwellings and where the mortality rate ran at nearly twice that of the rest of Bethnal Green. Among much else they discovered that the decaying 100-year-old houses were some of the most lucrative properties in the capital for their absent slumlords, who included peers of the realm, local politicians and churchmen. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Blackest Streets\u003c\/i\u003e is set in a turbulent period of London's history when revolution was in the air. Award-winning historian Sarah Wise skilfully evokes the texture of life at that time, not just for the tenants but for those campaigning for change and others seeking to protect their financial interests. She recovers Old Nichol from the ruins of history and lays bare the social and political conditions that created and sustained this black hole which lay at the very heart of the Empire.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA revelatory and prescient read about cities, class and inequality, the message at the heart of \u003ci\u003eThe Blackest Streets\u003c\/i\u003e still resonates today.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56308312834421,"sku":"9781844133314","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781844133314_23936b5f-4782-4683-ab2e-00f99bb47836.jpg?v=1786027813"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-sarah-wise.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}