Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Foulds’ novel is grounded in fact. Its setting is High Beach, a licensed lunatic asylum run along enlightened principles by Dr. Matthew Allen. One way Allen intersects with literary history is through the delusional laboring-class poet John Clare, who was his patient for several years. Another intersection is through Alfred Tennyson, whose family had a history of mental illness and who took up residence nearby. Allen’s boundless energy was not confined to the treatment of the insane. He became involved in a scheme for the mass production of ecclesiastical wood carvings, and his need for investors led to the Tennyson family’s ruin. More focus on one or two characters would have given the reader something to hold on to; instead we get multiple points of view—those of not just Allen, but several of his daughters; not just John Clare, but other patients—resulting in episodes rather than sustained narrative. Still, Foulds fashions his intriguing premise into fiction with a sure sense of time and place and often lyrical prose.