Dangerous Asylums: Stories From Denbigh Mental Hospital (as editor)

Publisher: North Wales Mental Health Research Project, 2016 | ISBN: 978-1534608658 | Format: 20.3×12.7cm paperback | Length: 134 pages | Price: £7.95.

By Glenda Beagan, Carys Bray, A. L. Reynolds, Manon Steffan Ros, Simon Thirsk, Elaine Walker, and Gee and David Williams, and edited by Rob Mimpriss

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A successful London Welshman after the Great War tells his grand-daughter of the madness that infects the family blood. A former inmate at Denbigh Asylum throws herself under a train. A woman made notorious by killing her own child prepares herself for release, and a businesswoman touring a derelict hospital is troubled by the lingering horrors of its past.

When Denbigh Hospital was opened in 1848, it was considered one of the most progressive and humane institutions in Wales, yet it was dogged by over-crowding and rumours of abuse. Now some of the leading writers in Wales tell its story, drawing on the records of patients long dead to give us a portrait of mental illness and care during the Victorian and Edwardian era.

‘In an area still notable for conjecture, experiment, reversals, and slow pace is joined this book’s rich imaginings.’

Nigel Jarrett, Wales Arts Review

‘In this exemplary collaboration between medical science and imagination, lives preserved in official records, in the language and diagnoses of their times, are restored not just to light, but to humanity and equality. This anthology is a resurrection.’

Philip Gross

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Dangerous Asylums goes to New Welsh Review


Rob Mimpriss interviewed by Caroline Stockford of New Welsh Review concerning the North Wales Mental Health Research Project and the anthology, Dangerous Asylums.


Behind the Walls — Dr Sarah Gallup Reads from Dangerous Asylums

Dr Sarah Gallup is a clinical psychologist at the California Department of State Hospitals. She also runs a podcast exploring the history of mental health care and the stories of people who lived or worked Behind the Walls of the World’s Psychiatric Hospitals. In six recent episodes she reads from Dangerous Asylums, choosing work by Carys Bray, Manon Steffan Ros, Glenda Beagan, and Simon Thirsk; discusses the history of the hospital; and explores the myths surrounding the hospital and rumours of its haunting. You can listen to these episodes below:

Behind the Walls


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Books by Rob Mimpriss

Cover of Dangerous Asylums

Dangerous Asylums

‘In this exemplary collaboration between medical science and imagination, lives preserved in official records, in the language and diagnoses of their times, are restored not just to light, but to humanity and equality. This anthology is a resurrection.’

Philip Gross