What did it mean to be mad in seventeenth-century England? This book uses vivid autobiographical accounts of mental disorder to explore the ways madness was identified and experienced from the inside, asking how certain people came to be defined as insane, and what we can learn from the accounts they wrote.

PART I: MADNESS, WRITING, HISTORY Introduction: Studying the History of Madness Writing the Mad Self PART II: EARLY MODERN MADNESS (i): THE DISORDERED MIND Being Mad: Melancholy, Distraction and Confusion of Mind Madness and the Feminine Doctors and Patients PART III: EARLY MODERN MADNESS (ii): RELIGION AND THE SELF The Christian Self: Problems of Hypocrisy and Despair Mad unto the World: Mid-Century Enthusiasm PART IV: MIND AND BODY: MADNESS AND THE SELF Inside and Outside: The Body and its Boundaries Beyond the Human Body Love and Power: The Self and Others Outward and Inward: The Self in Motion

KATHARINE HODGKIN teaches in the School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies at the University of East London, UK. She has published articles on various aspects of early modern cultural history, including gender, autobiography, madness, witchcraft and dreams, and co-edited with Susannah Radstone two volumes of essays on memory. She is currently preparing an edition of the writings of Dionys Fitzherbert.