Writing the Bedlam Trilogy

Abstract

This essay is a reflective exploration of the inception and development of three novels I
wrote set in Victorian (and Regency) London, so as to try and understand why this period
still has such a powerful grip on our collective imaginations. I question whether our
understanding of the nineteenth century is stereotypical or superficial, and to what extent
we can escape from our own intellectual preoccupations and biases into those of our
forebears. By reflecting on my own writing process, I ask whether, if we do manage to thus
‘escape’, this amounts to ‘escapism’ – a fear of confronting our own uncertain present –
and in what way writing about real people differs from writing about imaginary ones. This
leads on to wider speculations regarding the extent to which the internet and an ever more
globalised and interconnected world influence what we write, in particular biofictions.