Beautifully descriptive, fictionalised account of a real poet patient in a victorian asylum with - I thought - a disappointingly weak ending given the strength of the writing to begin with.

Excited to receive this RABCK of a book from my wishlist. Thanks so much Curly-cat.

The blurb reads:

"Epping Forest, 1840. Struggling with alcohol, critical neglect and his powerful imagination, the poet John Clare is incarcerated in High Beach Asylum. At the same time, the young Alfred Tennyson movese nearby and becomes entangled in the ill-fated schemes of the charistmatic asylum owner, Dr Matthew Allen. Beyond the walls lies nature, Clare's paradise. For him, a locked door is a kind of death and Clare longs for home, redemption and escape. Based on real events, brilliantly re-imagined, the closed world of High Beach and Clare's vertiginous fall into madness are brought vividly to life".

A lyrical representation of the brutality of a Victorian mental asylum imagined through the fictional realisation of historical figures including Alfred Lord Tennyson, John Clare and Matthew Allen. I enjoyed the intertwining of the narrative with descriptions of the natural world and Romany life, echoing the poetry of Clare and Tennyson. All the characters are trapped in one way or another: by their gender, by debt, by mental illness, by marriage.

On the seats nearest the ticket barriers, on the concourse, at about 09:15.