Paul Chambers' writing credits include books on subjects as diverse as elephants, dinosaurs, the natural history of the giant tortoise, medieval genealogy and an 18th-century scandal. He has written for television and radio, and has produced numerous articles on a diverse range of subjects as well as being the ghostwriter behind several children's factual books.

‘Paul Chambers has illuminated some very murky places. His portraits of those in power in the world of Bedlam, and some of their pitiful charges, give a welcome human scale to this fascinating and wide-ranging survey, from monasteries to madhouses, lunatic asylums to the NHS. I am profoundly glad that my sanity was not questioned between 1728 and 1855.’