Shortlisted for the inaugural Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction 2010.
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2009.
A fictionalised account of an asylum on the edge of Epping Forest where the poet John Clare spent some time. Tennyson visits the asylum adding that extra sense of reality but it is the story of the doctor Matthew Allen and his humane care for the patients in a time where such care was rare that makes this novel a pleasure to read.
| Primary Genre | Historical Fiction |
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Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
After a lifetime's struggle with alcohol, critical neglect and depression, in 1840 the nature poet John Clare is incarcerated. The asylum, in London's Epping Forest, is run on the reformist principles of occupational therapy. At the same time, the young Alfred Tennyson, moves nearby and became entangled in the life of the asylum. This historically accurate, intensely lyrical novel, describes the asylum's closed world and Nature's paradise outside the walls: Clare's dream of home, of redemption, of escape.
The Quickening Maze features in the following genres: Historical Fiction, Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Book Club Recommendations, eBooks of the Month, Fiction, General Fiction, Recommendations
The Quickening Maze is available in Paperback, Hardback
The Quickening Maze was written by Adam Foulds and published by Vintage an imprint of Random House
The Quickening Maze has 258 pages
£15.29
