Memoirs of My Nervous Illness

In 1884 the German judge Daniel Paul Schreber (1842-1911) suffered the first of a series of mental breakdowns that would eventually lead to his permanent confine in an insane asylum. He accused his doctors of soul-murder and composed this memoir to tell the public about his treatment and as a plea for his release. The book, as Rosemary Dinnage says in her introduction, is an account of what it is to be forsaken by everything familiar and real, and of the delusionary world that gets invented in their place -- one of the most revealing dispatches ever received from the far side of madness. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.