Pre-order
1
of
1
Bedlam
A Novel
Series: Verso Fiction
Brief Description
Bedlam is inspired by a year in the life of Richard Dadd, a great Victorian painter and inmate of London’s Bethlem Hospital. It's a poetic and considered portrait of an artist, as well as an intriguing mystery about how, and why, a mind can go so...
Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$2299
Unit price
/
Unavailable
Pre-order
Releases
3rd
November 2026
(Approx. Date)
Pre-order "Bedlam" now to secure your copy from our first shipment
Found a better price? Request a price match
Bedlam
$2299
Unit price
/
Unavailable
Latest News
Solo Board Games: Why I Love Playing Games By Myself
Why I love playing board games solo and why it’s become one of my favourite...
Review of Ordinary People Like Us by Kelly Ana Morey
While reading Ordinary People Like Us by Kelly Ana Morey I could feel the mauri from each...
Why I love Giselle Clarkson's books
It is no small compliment that for me if I could only have one non-fiction...
Movie Review on One Night Only
I didn’t watch the trailer. I sat down expecting just another brain-dead, conveyor-belt romantic comedy...
New Hero Alert! Meet Theresa – our new Warehouse Sidekick
We’re thrilled to welcome Theresa to the Book Hero team! Whenever we bring a new...
See moreThe debut novel from one of our most acclaimed art critics takes us into the tortured, strange and surprising mind of the Victorian painter Richard Dadd, painter of fairies and murderer of his father.
The debut novel from one of our most acclaimed art critics takes us into the tortured, strange and surprising mind of the Victorian painter Richard Dadd, painter of fairies and murderer of his father.
Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and
still learning, it may not be perfect - your
feedback is welcome!
Description
Bedlam is inspired by a year in the life of Richard Dadd, a great Victorian painter and inmate of London’s Bethlem Hospital. It's a poetic and considered portrait of an artist, as well as an intriguing mystery about how, and why, a mind can go so swiftly and dangerously awry.
In 1842 Dadd took a Grand Tour of Europe and the Middle East. Within a year he had become a devotee of the god Osiris, and then become a killer, acting under the assumed direction of the Egyptian divinity.
Series: Verso Fiction
View all-
Bluebeard's Castle
Judith is a successful novelist, but she's a little sensitive. She's from a good family, even if that family favours her more beautiful sister. She loves a drink (or three) but isn't sure if she loves the handsome doctor who is courting her. She yearns for a romance to yield to but remains a virgin. Judith receives visions from the...Paperback$2999Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Happy Hour
With the verve and bite of Ottessa Moshfegh and the barbed charm of Nancy Mitford, Marlowe Granados’s stunning début brilliantly captures a summer of striving in New York City. Refreshing and wry in equal measure, Happy Hour is an intoxicating novel of youth well spent. Isa Epley is all of twenty-one years old, and already wise enough to understand that...Paperback$2799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
How to Be a Revolutionary
Fleeing her moribund marriage in Cape Town, Beth accepts a diplomatic posting to Shanghai. In this anonymous city, she hopes to lose herself in books, wine, and solitude, and to dodge whatever pangs of conscience she feels for her fealty to a South African regime that, by the 21st century, has betrayed its early promises. At night, she hears the...Paperback$2799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
If Only
A relatively young woman, aged thirty. She married in her early twenties, had two children. It is winter. January and minus 14°C, white, frosty mist around the parked car, around the spruces, the mailbox on its post, but higher up the sky is blue, clear, the sun has come back. She has written in her diary that she is waiting...Paperback$2699Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Is Mother Dead
"To mother is to murder, or close enough," thinks Johanna as she looks at the spelling of the two words in Norwegian. Recently widowed and back in Oslo after a long absence, she is preparing for a retrospective of her art. The subject of her work is motherhood, and some of her more controversial paintings have brought about a dramatic...Hardback$3999Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Is Mother Dead
To mother is to murder, or close enough, thinks Johanna, as she looks at the spelling of the two words in Norwegian. She's recently widowed and back in Oslo after a long absence as she prepares for a retrospective of her art. The subject of her work is motherhood and some of her more controversial paintings have brought about a...Paperback$2999Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
The Last Sane Woman
"I want to read about women who can't make things." Nicola is a few years out of a fine arts degree, listless and unenthusiastically employed in London. She begins to spend her hours at a university archive dedicated to women's art, because she "wants to read about women who can't make things." There she discovers one side of a correspondence...Paperback$2499Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Paradise Rot
Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval follows Jo, who finds herself in a strange new country for university, experiencing a more peculiar time than most. In a house with no walls, shared with a woman who has no boundaries, Jo discovers her odd home coming to life in unimaginable ways. Her sensitivity and senses become increasingly heightened and fraught, as the...Paperback$2499Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Faraway the Southern Sky
The young man arrived in Paris, a refugee from political repression, just as World War I was raging to a close. He came with just a few coins in his pocket, a painfully shy twentysomething who stammered when he spoke in public, though he had sailed the world as a lowly deckhand. He moved into a dingy hotel on a...Paperback$2499Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
I Fear My Pain Interests You
Margot is the child of renowned musicians and the product of a particularly punky upbringing. Burnt out from the burden of expectation and the bad end of the worst relationship yet, she leaves New York and heads to the Pacific Northwest. She's seeking to escape both the eyes of the world and the echoing voice of that last bad man....Paperback$2799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Terminal Boredom
On a planet where men are contained in ghettoised isolation, women enjoy the fruits of a queer matriarchal utopia—until a boy escapes and a young woman's perception of the world is violently interrupted. Two old friends enjoy cocktails on a holiday resort planet where all is not as it seems. A bickering couple emigrate to a world that has worked...Paperback$2499Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Is Mother Dead
"To mother is to murder, or close enough," thinks Johanna, as she looks at the spelling of the two words in Norwegian. She's recently widowed and back in Oslo after a long absence as she prepares for a retrospective of her art. The subject of her work is motherhood and some of her more controversial paintings have brought about a...Paperback$2499Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781836742043
Publisher: Verso Books
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 14 July 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Verso Books
Edition: Paperback original
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 15.0mm
Width: 129.0mm
Height: 198.0mm
Weight: 204g
Pages: 240
About the Author
Jennifer Higgie is an Australian writer who lives in London. Previously the editor of frieze magazine, and the presenter of Bow Down, a podcast about women in art history, she is the author and illustrator of the children’s book There’s Not One; the editor of The Artist’s Joke and the author of The Mirror & The Palette: Rebellion, Revolution & Resistance, 500 Years of Women's Self Portraits, and The Other Side: Women, Art and the Spirit World.
Also by Jennifer Higgie
View all-
Swedish Ecstasy
This book explores the works of one of Sweden’s most esteemed artists, Hilma af Klint, alongside others in her artistic circle – and examines their inspirational influence on contemporary artists working today. Swedish Ecstasy tells the story of renowned Swedish artist Hilma af Klint and her artistic circle as the country sought to reconcile religious beliefs with scientific advances at...Paperback$10799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
There's Not One
The perfect early picture book for the curious kid! This joyous debut from Jennifer Higgie celebrates the details and diversity of the world around us. In kaleidoscopic colour, Higgie takes young readers on a journey from some of life's most important things (baked beans!) to some of life's biggest wonders (stars!). The perfect early picture book for the curious kid!Hardback$3000Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
The Other Side
'Endlessly intriguing . . . I was enchanted' - DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Illuminating in every sense of the word' - John Higgs In an illuminating blend of memoir and art history, The Other Side explores the lives and work of a group of extraordinary women artists. From the twelfth-century mystic Hildegard of Bingen and the nineteenth-century spiritualist Georgiana Houghton to the...PaperbackSold Out -
Tracey Emin Paintings
Tracey Emin Paintings by Jennifer Higgie and David Dawson provides a captivating exploration of the renowned artist, Tracey Emin CBE. Emin is celebrated for her frank, confessional style, transforming her inner world into intimate works of art. As one of the most celebrated artists globally and a notable figure in the Art establishment, her influence is undeniable. Emin's diverse practice...HardbackSold Out -
Thin Skin
Thin Skin is an exhibition of contemporary and historical paintings by Australian and international artists who explore the liminal space between figuration and abstraction. Guest curated by Australian, London-based writer, curator, and former editor of frieze magazine, Jennifer Higgie, it features works by thirty-six artists. As a term, 'thin skin' is joyfully ambiguous. Thin Skin refers not only to the...HardbackSold Out -
The Mirror and the Palette
Reveals an until-now hidden history of women's self-portraiture. A gift that keeps on giving ALI SMITH, NEW STATESMAN, Books of the Year A fascinating survey... Extraordinary DAILY MAIL A bewitching, invigorating history OLIVIA LAING Grips from the opening pages FINANCIAL TIMES Important and brilliantly accessible VOGUE Until the twentieth century, art history was, in the main, written by white men...PaperbackSold Out
More from Historical Fiction
View all-
The Parisian Chapter
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Library and The Librarians of Rue de Picardie comes a charming and cinematic novel following a young woman from Montana who lands a job in the American Library in Paris, where she discovers the power of storytelling and writes her own Parisian chapter.'Stirring and rich with detail' New York Times...Paperback$2999Elsewhere:$3499Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Inferno
AD 60. Nero Claudius Caesar is Emperor. He is feared for his temper. He is known to be intoxicated by the power he wields. And why not? The Roman Empire stretches from the wilds of Britain to the deserts of Parthia. Nero is god of all he surveys. Yet dangerous traitors lie close at hand. Generals commanding legions. Senators whispering...Paperback$3100Elsewhere:$3800Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Circle of Days
From the master of epic fiction comes the deeply human story of one of the world's greatest mysteries: the building of Stonehenge. A FLINT MINER WITH A GIFT Seft, a talented flint miner, walks the Great Plain in the high summer heat, to witness the rituals that signal the start of a new year. He is there to trade his...Hardback$4499Elsewhere:$6000Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
The Soldier's Daughter
The heart-stopping new blockbuster by the bestselling author of The Fallen Woman. Violet Nash has grown up in the shadows of her father Charlie's shattered dreams. It's been years since he walked away from the battlefields of France, a WWI hero but his heart in tatters, only to see it broken all over again in the worst way possible. In...Paperback$2999Elsewhere:$3800Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
The Girl with the Suitcase
The enthralling new novel from the 10-million-copy, No. 1 bestselling author. London 1941 When Mary meets a glamorous stranger named Elizabeth, she realises their lives couldn't be more different. But when an air raid forces them to take shelter underground, Mary's life is set to change forever. After waking up in hospital, injured but alive, the nurse mistakes her for...Paperback$2999Elsewhere:$3800Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
The Lost Bookshop
Evie Woods' stunning new novel The Story Collector is available now. The Echo of Old Books meets The Lost Apothecary in this evocative and charming novel full of mystery and secrets. ‘The thing about books,’ she said ‘is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of.’ On a quiet street in...Paperback$2200Elsewhere:$2500Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
All the Diamonds in Paris
Kristin Harmel is firmly in the top echelon of WW2 storytellers - HEATHER MORRIS A master storyteller - SANTA MONTEFIORE The best at sweeping historical drama - KELLY HARMS A dazzling diamond of a novel - HAZEL GAYNOR * Paris, 1942: Anabel Martinet is a jewel thief, descended from a family that has spent centuries stealing from the unkind and...Paperback$2999Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
The Listeners
‘By turns a beautiful love story, a fascinating glimpse into the horrors of history and a haunting tale of loyalty and courage. A marvel of storytelling’ CHRIS WHITAKER, bestselling author of All the Colours of the Dark The Avallon Hotel offers unrivalled luxury in the wild Appalachian Mountains, its curative sweetwater washing away the troubles of high society. June 'Hoss'...Paperback$3600Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
The Song of Achilles
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller is a brilliantly crafted retelling of the ancient Greek epic of Achilles and Patroclus, transforming the classical myth into a profoundly moving love story. Set against the richly depicted backdrop of Greece during the heroically tumultuous age, the narrative follows Patroclus, an awkward and exiled young prince, who is taken to the court...Paperback$2100Elsewhere:$3999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Mythos
Mythos by Stephen Fry is a compelling retelling of the classic Greek myths, reimagined with a wit and elegance that only Fry can deliver. This volume transports the reader to a world where mortals intertwine with the divine, and the timeless tales unfold in a spellbinding narrative that captures the imagination. From the cosmogony—the birth of the cosmos—to the exploits...Paperback$2200Elsewhere:$3000Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
The Four Winds
Kristin Hannah is a classic storyteller and The Four Winds sees her at the top of her game - Matt Haig Powerful and compelling - Delia Owens, number one international bestselling author of Where the Crawdads Sing A story of love, family, unbreakable bonds, bravery and hope. I loved this book so much! - Christy Lefteri, bestselling author of The...Paperback$2000Elsewhere:$2499Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
The Lost Apothecary
Hidden in the depths of eighteenth-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to an unusual kind of clientele. Women across the city whisper of a mysterious figure named Nella who sells well-disguised poisons to use against the oppressive men in their lives. But the apothecary's fate is jeopardised when her newest patron, a precocious twelve-year-old, makes a fatal mistake, sparking...Paperback$2500Elsewhere:$2799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today
Why buy from us?
Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!
Service & Delivery
Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.
Auckland Bookstore
We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.
Our Gifting Service
Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.
Historical Fiction lists from the team
Explore our curated lists from our heroes to find your next read!
