The Quickening Maze

Adam Foulds

From Shelf: The Booker Prize 2009 Shortlist

Shortlisted for the Man Booker PrizeAfter a lifetime's struggle with alcohol, critical neglect and depression, in 1840 the nature poet John Clare is incarcerated.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker PrizeAfter a lifetime's struggle with alcohol, critical neglect and depression, in 1840 the nature poet John Clare is incarcerated. The asylum, in London's Epping Forest, is run on the reformist principles of occupational therapy. At the same time, the young Alfred Tennyson, moves nearby and became entangled in the life of the asylum. This historically accurate, intensely lyrical novel, describes the asylum's closed world and Nature's paradise outside the walls: Clare's dream of home, of redemption, of escape.