The history of Bethlem

Till now, the only comprehensive history of the most famous asylum in the Englishspeaking world has been a rare volume produced by the hospital's one-time chaplain E G O'Donoghue, The story of Bethlehem Hospitalfrom itsfoundation in 1247, which was published in 1914.1 To coincide with the institution's 750th anniversary, Routledge have produced another one-volume history, the product this time of the collective labours of two very famous social historians, Roy Porter and Asa Bfiggs, and three younger colleagues. Eighty years ago, the charity's governors purchased and distributed 2,000 copies of O'Donoghue's idiosyncratic romp through their institution's past. It is extremely doubtful that their present-day successors will follow suit, not because the professional historians' production is less hagiographic and flattering to their sensibilities-though at least intermittently it is-but rather on purely financial grounds. Astonishingly, and in an appalling demonstration of self-defeating rapaciousness, Routledge have elected to charge a stratospheric price for a plainly produced volume of some 750 pages, accompanied by less than three dozen black and white illustrations. At retail, one would be expected to pay the princely sum of £300,000 for a couple of thousand copies of their product! At this price, in a few years' time,