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Bedlam und andere Stationen einer Reise, die ein gewisser Richard Dadd im Jahre 1842 unternahm
I did not write my life, and therefore cannot tell you in simple terms what happened to effect such change.
I have left that task to the images that have fallen from my fingers since my youth.
I have let them fall, so that one day they might be picked up.
My pictures describe me correctly. Jennifer Higgie In 1842 an English artist accompanied a former mayor on a Grand Tour of Europe and the Middle East. Within a year he had become a devotee of the Egyptian god Osiris and murdered his beloved father, believing him to be an impostor. Bedlam is a novel inspired by a year in the life of Richard Dadd, a great Victorian painter and inmate of London's Bethlem Hospital – more commonly known as Bedlam. Higgie's prose is fragmentary yet lucid, and the novel evokes the inextricable beauty and terror of Dadd's sensory journey, while raising some of the philosophical questions it poses about art, language and other minds. Bedlam is a mystery story in which we search for clues as to how an individual might go from precocious talent to parricide. Oliver Harris, Times Literary Supplement Jennifer Higgie is co-Editor and staff writer of frieze magazine. She is the editor of Art and Humour published by the Whitechapel Gallery, London and MIT Press. She also wrote the screenplay for the feature film I Really Hate My Job , which will be on general release in 2007.
I have left that task to the images that have fallen from my fingers since my youth.
I have let them fall, so that one day they might be picked up.
My pictures describe me correctly. Jennifer Higgie In 1842 an English artist accompanied a former mayor on a Grand Tour of Europe and the Middle East. Within a year he had become a devotee of the Egyptian god Osiris and murdered his beloved father, believing him to be an impostor. Bedlam is a novel inspired by a year in the life of Richard Dadd, a great Victorian painter and inmate of London's Bethlem Hospital – more commonly known as Bedlam. Higgie's prose is fragmentary yet lucid, and the novel evokes the inextricable beauty and terror of Dadd's sensory journey, while raising some of the philosophical questions it poses about art, language and other minds. Bedlam is a mystery story in which we search for clues as to how an individual might go from precocious talent to parricide. Oliver Harris, Times Literary Supplement Jennifer Higgie is co-Editor and staff writer of frieze magazine. She is the editor of Art and Humour published by the Whitechapel Gallery, London and MIT Press. She also wrote the screenplay for the feature film I Really Hate My Job , which will be on general release in 2007.
- GenresFictionHistoricalArt
239 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
3 people are currently reading
109 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 9, 2026
4.5 stars !!!
Bedlam was so beautifully written, I am thoroughly impressed by Jennifer Higgie's prose. Richard's thoughts were so relatable, and even quite funny at times. She wrote the unraveling of his mind in such a beautiful way.
Highly recommend, especially if you like or have a background in art.
Bedlam was so beautifully written, I am thoroughly impressed by Jennifer Higgie's prose. Richard's thoughts were so relatable, and even quite funny at times. She wrote the unraveling of his mind in such a beautiful way.
Highly recommend, especially if you like or have a background in art.
March 1, 2026
Review: The Brilliant, Fractured Mind of Richard Dadd
In her evocative new work, Jennifer Higgie manages a rare feat: she captures the precise moment a brilliant mind begins to fray at the edges. The novel follows Richard Dadd—the Victorian painter now infamous for his intricate, supernatural canvases—during his incarceration at London’s notorious Bethlem Hospital. Through Higgie’s empathetic lens, we are invited to retracing the steps of the journey that broke him: a grand tour of the Middle East that began as an artistic pilgrimage and ended in a divine, or perhaps demonic, obsession with the god Osiris.
A Poetic Descent into Madness
The prose is, in a word, superb. Higgie adopts a voice for Dadd that is the "most literary of literary writing"—a style that is at once jarringly acute and alarmingly askew. The early chapters function as a vivid, poetic travelogue, documenting Dadd’s journey with his patron, Sir Thomas Phillips, across the European continent and into the unforgiving heat of the Levant.
Higgie’s descriptions are wonderfully insightful, often leaning into a certain "unknowing naivety" that makes Dadd’s observations feel both fresh and haunting. Early in the journey, Dadd muses on whether the cows in the fields yearn to read or look at pictures. It is a moment that hints at an autistic temperament—a mind wired differently from the start—and serves as a subtle, chilling omen for the internal collapse to follow.
The Sun and the Shadow
The turning point of the narrative lies in the shift of the atmosphere. As the party moves from the cool German forests to the scorching deserts of Syria and Palestine, the sun becomes a character in its own right. Dadd’s observation that "the Sun cannot be the same sun that we have in England" is a sentiment many travelers will recognize, yet in his case, it takes on a sinister weight.
What Sir Thomas mistakes for simple sunstroke is, in fact, the total transformation of a man. Higgie masterfully navigates this transition, showing how a mind "taxed to the limit" by extraordinary images can swiftly and dangerously go awry.
In her evocative new work, Jennifer Higgie manages a rare feat: she captures the precise moment a brilliant mind begins to fray at the edges. The novel follows Richard Dadd—the Victorian painter now infamous for his intricate, supernatural canvases—during his incarceration at London’s notorious Bethlem Hospital. Through Higgie’s empathetic lens, we are invited to retracing the steps of the journey that broke him: a grand tour of the Middle East that began as an artistic pilgrimage and ended in a divine, or perhaps demonic, obsession with the god Osiris.
A Poetic Descent into Madness
The prose is, in a word, superb. Higgie adopts a voice for Dadd that is the "most literary of literary writing"—a style that is at once jarringly acute and alarmingly askew. The early chapters function as a vivid, poetic travelogue, documenting Dadd’s journey with his patron, Sir Thomas Phillips, across the European continent and into the unforgiving heat of the Levant.
Higgie’s descriptions are wonderfully insightful, often leaning into a certain "unknowing naivety" that makes Dadd’s observations feel both fresh and haunting. Early in the journey, Dadd muses on whether the cows in the fields yearn to read or look at pictures. It is a moment that hints at an autistic temperament—a mind wired differently from the start—and serves as a subtle, chilling omen for the internal collapse to follow.
The Sun and the Shadow
The turning point of the narrative lies in the shift of the atmosphere. As the party moves from the cool German forests to the scorching deserts of Syria and Palestine, the sun becomes a character in its own right. Dadd’s observation that "the Sun cannot be the same sun that we have in England" is a sentiment many travelers will recognize, yet in his case, it takes on a sinister weight.
What Sir Thomas mistakes for simple sunstroke is, in fact, the total transformation of a man. Higgie masterfully navigates this transition, showing how a mind "taxed to the limit" by extraordinary images can swiftly and dangerously go awry.
March 7, 2026
Perhaps the story chooses the man and wraps him in it until he suffocates.
For me, the sun made up my mind, and the sun became my story.
But what of before?
This slim novel is full of the loveliest prose I’ve read in quite some time. I cannot judge it as a depiction of Richard Dadd specifically, but as a portrait of a shy young man slowly falling to madness, it is brilliantly subtle: the slow curving in on himself until he’s the only real thing, the changing relationship to sun and moon. While it was a bit dry in the middle, the dread continued to grow all the way up to the truly heartbreaking end.
For me, the sun made up my mind, and the sun became my story.
But what of before?
This slim novel is full of the loveliest prose I’ve read in quite some time. I cannot judge it as a depiction of Richard Dadd specifically, but as a portrait of a shy young man slowly falling to madness, it is brilliantly subtle: the slow curving in on himself until he’s the only real thing, the changing relationship to sun and moon. While it was a bit dry in the middle, the dread continued to grow all the way up to the truly heartbreaking end.
March 21, 2013
"My head is so full of terrible thoughts that at times I have truly doubted my own reason. I have begun to believe that paintings are not imaginary things, while the world I move through is constructed entirely from shadows."
In 1842 painter Richard Dadd toured Europe and the Middle East. In Egypt he becomes an Osiris worshipper, then returns home to London, stabs his father to death and gets locked up in Bedlam. All true - except maybe the bit about Osiris, but then, this is a novel. And a damn fine one that reads like an extended prose poem at times. Desirable as this hardback is though, with its stark grey boards and silver edge painting, the book deserves a wider audience. Why haven't Dedalus republished this as a paperback? It's got their style all over it. Get to it chaps and chapesses.
In 1842 painter Richard Dadd toured Europe and the Middle East. In Egypt he becomes an Osiris worshipper, then returns home to London, stabs his father to death and gets locked up in Bedlam. All true - except maybe the bit about Osiris, but then, this is a novel. And a damn fine one that reads like an extended prose poem at times. Desirable as this hardback is though, with its stark grey boards and silver edge painting, the book deserves a wider audience. Why haven't Dedalus republished this as a paperback? It's got their style all over it. Get to it chaps and chapesses.
June 14, 2016
Über das titelgebende berühmte Irrenhaus in London wird kaum ewas gesagt, dennoch sind die Eindrücke die Dadd, bei der Reise durch Europa bis nach Ägypten beschreibt sehr einprägsam.
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October 17, 2016propably an excellent painter but a sad sad story
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December 6, 2016a strange and very sad story
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews