Acknowledgements

This book is based on my PhD thesis, so I am indebted to my supervisors, Prof Kirstie Blair and Prof Matt Smith, for their unerring encouragement during the project and beyond. I would also like to thank Prof Sally Shuttleworth and Dr Elsa Richardson for their constructive feedback; Dr Megan Coyer, who has offered me her generous mentorship and friendship in the years after graduation; the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, where I have found a welcoming, inspiring, and supportive international academic community; Dr Lois Burke and Dr Charlotte Lauder, for sharing the journey with me; Dr Rosemary Golding, Dr Ute Oswald, Dr Laura Blair, and Dr Jessica Campbell and the rest of the Psychiatry and the Arts in Nineteenth-Century Britain (PAN) Network for the conversations that shaped and improved my understanding of asylums and their inhabitants.

My research has been heavily dependent on the expertise and resourcefulness of archivists and librarians across the UK and the US. I thank them for all their help, kindness, and consideration.

I am also grateful to the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities for making it possible to complete the research and develop as an academic and a person along the way.

Finally, I am forever grateful to all my friends in Scotland, Bulgaria, and across the world who have supported me and brightened my days. To Daniel, who always listens. To my family, who are always there for me. And especially to my mother Ilvana and my grandmother Vera, my veshtitsi, who continue to inspire me and give me strength despite the distance. If this is not magic, I don’t know what is. This work was supported by the AHRC grant number AH/L503915/1.