[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-114081-en":3,"doc-seo-114081-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":90},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":4,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":11,"is_downloadable":11,"audit_status":11,"page_count":20,"language":21,"language_code":22,"site_id":23,"html_lang":22,"table_of_contents":24,"faqs":25,"seo_title":26,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},114081,34359740700684,"Finn","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/1f400023980c374ae676?_k=1777273430885731487",1,"Story & Novel","Bedlam - A Novel - Jennifer Higgie","Bedlam is a novel presented through a reflective, first-person voice set against the historical atmosphere of Broadmoor Hospital in 1885 and shifting memories around London, July 1842. The narrative explores identity transformation, visionary experience, and the burden and power of images, as a mind recounts a life that was not fully authored and a “sun” that becomes both obsession and story. It moves between confinement, recurring lists, and sensory intensities of light, language, and skin.","Bedlam  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nBedlam  \nA Novel  \nJennifer Higgie  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nThis edition first published by Verso 2026 First published by Sternberg Press 2006  \n© Jennifer Higgie 2006 All rights reserved The moral rights of the author have been asserted  \nVerso  \nUK: 6 Meard Street, London W1F 0EG US: 207 32nd Street, New York, NY 10016  \n[versobooks.com](versobooks.com)  \nVerso is the imprint of New Left Books  \nISBN-13: 978-1-83674-204-3  \nISBN-13: 978-1-83674-206-7 (US EBK)  \nISBN-13: 978-1-83674-205-0 (UK EBK)  \nBritish Library Cataloguing in Publication Data  \nA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library  \nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data  \nA catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nBedlam A NOVEL  \nJennifer Higgie  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nFor Martine Murray who made me go to Amorgos  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nBroadmoor Hospital, 1885  \nPerhaps it is the story that chooses the man and wraps him in it until he suffocates.  \nFor me, it was the sun that made up my mind, and the sun became my story.  \nDespite the blood that persists in flowing through me, I am no longer the person I was born to be. I did not write my life, and therefore cannot tell you in simple terms what happened to effect such change.  \nI have left that task to the images that have fallen from my fingers since my youth.  \nI have let them fall, so that one day they might be picked up. My pictures describe me correctly.  \nI have laid my head on the grey sheets of Bedlam and was not allowed to leave.  \nI have dabbled in visions. This is the tiny image of me that the pinhole of people’s minds has illuminated.  \nBut what of before?  \nThe fulcrum of my life took place when I was 25, the year I grew old and died as others knew me. It was the same year I discovered another realm, a place inhabiting a truth that is, I have been told, no more than an elaborate fiction.  \nWhere have I come from to arrive at this place?  \nMy recollection changes with every retelling. For the moment, this is the story that slips from me.  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nLondon, July 1842  \nI have heard the heat there is so great it inhibits the singing of birds.  \nI have not slept for days. My head is filled with infinite lists. Sir Thomas speaks as if he were eating boiled eggs. As if they press hard against the inside flesh of his cheeks, against his tongue. Something must account for the way he forms his words. They meet resistance at every vowel and wobble into silence.  \nThe sun, Richard. You will not believe the sun. You will have to struggle at first to accommodate it to your skin, to your appetite, to your palette.  \nMy ignorance of sunlight gives him inordinate pleasure, and although Ido agree with him on one count, that my flesh is more accustomed to rain than heat, I cannot look him in the eye because his assessment of my ability is so skewed. Namely, I know that struggle will be unnecessary in adapting such light to my palette. The idea of sun has been growing in me since I was born, like a bone growth that affects my every movement. If I have been so far deprived of the actual experience of it, except at its most pale and withered, I have not for a moment been deprived of dreaming. I have dreamt of light through a cloth, dripping through a wing. I have dreamt in yellow and gold. I have felt my sight singe my imagination. I have leaptinto consciousness so hot I cannot breathe. It will be astonishing not to have to imagine such light, but to see and feel it, to move through and feel its presence in the architecture and the skin of the people it has chosen to live among.  \nMy fingertips are restless and beg permission to begin.  \nThey long to become active, to be things that undo in order to release something else: buttons, hard lines, colour, and the cloth that covers us. To collect tickets, shade eye","cbCailupYLSNvyXe","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCailupYLSNvyXe","pdf",1792483,186,"English","en",105,"# Introduction\n## Bedlam and inner narrative\n## Broadmoor Hospital, 1885\n## London, July 1842\n## The sun, images, and visions","[{\"question\":\"What setting anchors the novel’s narrative?\",\"answer\":\"The text moves between Broadmoor Hospital in 1885 and London in July 1842, using these periods to frame the narrator’s recollections and experiences.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the narrator describe the source of personal change?\",\"answer\":\"The narrator suggests life changes are not simply self-authored, leaving explanation to images that “fell from” their fingers since youth.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the “sun” represent in the story?\",\"answer\":\"The sun becomes an enduring idea that grows from birth into the narrator’s story, tied to sensations of light, dreaming, and the struggle to live with its reality.\"}]","Bedlam - A Novel - Jennifer Higgie | PDF",1785397792,286,{"code":4,"msg":30,"data":31},"ok",{"site_id":23,"language":22,"slug":32,"title":13,"keywords":33,"description":14,"schema_data":34,"social_meta":85,"head_meta":87,"extra_data":89,"updated_unix":27},"bedlam-a-novel-jennifer-higgie","",{"@graph":35,"@context":84},[36,53,67],{"@type":37,"itemListElement":38},"BreadcrumbList",[39,43,47,50],{"item":40,"name":41,"@type":42,"position":11},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":44,"name":45,"@type":42,"position":46},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":42,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/story-novel/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":42,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/bedlam-a-novel-jennifer-higgie/114081/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":22,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":61,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":62,"interactionStatistic":63},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":40,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-30",true,{"@type":64,"interactionType":65,"userInteractionCount":4},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":66},"ViewAction",{"@type":68,"mainEntity":69},"FAQPage",[70,76,80],{"name":71,"@type":72,"acceptedAnswer":73},"What setting anchors the novel’s narrative?","Question",{"text":74,"@type":75},"The text moves between Broadmoor Hospital in 1885 and London in July 1842, using these periods to frame the narrator’s recollections and experiences.","Answer",{"name":77,"@type":72,"acceptedAnswer":78},"How does the narrator describe the source of personal change?",{"text":79,"@type":75},"The narrator suggests life changes are not simply self-authored, leaving explanation to images that “fell from” their fingers since youth.",{"name":81,"@type":72,"acceptedAnswer":82},"What does the “sun” represent in the story?",{"text":83,"@type":75},"The sun becomes an enduring idea that grows from birth into the narrator’s story, tied to sensations of light, dreaming, and the struggle to live with its reality.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":51,"og:type":86,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":58,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":88,"canonical":51},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":23},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":91},[92,95,99,103,108,113,118,123,128,131,135],{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":93,"slug":94},90,"story-novel",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":96,"show_sort_weight":97,"slug":98},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":100,"show_sort_weight":101,"slug":102},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":104,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":105,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":107},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":109,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":110,"show_sort_weight":111,"slug":112},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":114,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":115,"show_sort_weight":116,"slug":117},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":119,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":120,"show_sort_weight":121,"slug":122},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":124,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":125,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":127},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":126,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":129,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":130},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":132,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":133,"show_sort_weight":132,"slug":134},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":136,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":137,"show_sort_weight":104,"slug":138},19,"General","general"]