Promotional Information

Perhaps the most revealing dispatch ever received from the far side of madness. Daniel Schreber was born in 1842, and was a distinguished German judge when he suffered his first mental breakdown in 1884. He was never released from hospital.

About the Author

Schreber was born in Germany in 1842. He became a lawyer and then a judge. His first breakdown came when he was forty-two and the Memoirs were written while he was in Sonnenstein Public Asylum, as an account of what he believed were his unique experiences and as a plea for release. He was subsequently released and spent two relatively happy years until his wife had a stroke. From then until his death in 1911 he remained in the asylum.