Women of Broadmoor

By: Alana Sanchez

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Behind the walls of Broadmoor were women history preferred to label, judge and forget.

Women of Broadmoor, traces seven pre-Edwardian lives shaped by crime, madness and confinement inside Britain’s most infamous criminal lunatic asylum. Some were mothers driven to acts Victorian society could scarcely bear to name. Some were daughters, wives or respectable women whose violence shattered every expectation placed upon them. Some became public spectacle. Others slipped quietly into the archive, leaving only fragments behind.

Drawing on the worlds of law, psychiatry, domestic life and social class, this book moves beyond sensational headlines to uncover the pressures that brought women to Broadmoor’s gates. It follows them from accusation and trial into the long, often forgotten reality of asylum life, where routine, surveillance and uncertainty replaced public scandal.

Dark, humane and deeply researched, Women of Broadmoor is a study of the women confined behind one of Victorian Britain’s most feared institutions — and of the society that created them, judged them and locked them away.

Perfect for readers of true crime, Victorian social history, women’s history and the hidden histories of crime and psychiatry.