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  • The Quickening Maze

  • Written by: Adam Foulds
  • Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
  • Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (2 ratings)

Publisher's Summary

Based on real events, The Quickening Maze won over UK critics and readers alike with its rapturous prose and vivid exploration of poetry and madness. In 1837, after years of struggling with alcoholism and depression, the great nature poet John Clare finds himself in High Beach—a mental institution located in Epping Forest on the outskirts of London. It is not long before another famed writer, the young Alfred Tennyson, moves nearby and grows entwined in the catastrophic schemes of the hospital’s owner, the peculiar Dr. Matthew Allen, his lonely adolescent daughter, and a coterie of mysterious local characters. With lyrical grace, the cloistered world of High Beach and its residents are brought richly to life in this enchanting book.

©2009 Adam Foulds (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC

What the critics say

“Exceptional … earthy and true, but shifting, metamorphic—the word-perfect fruit of a poet’s sharp eye and novelist’s limber reach.” ( Times (London))

What listeners say about The Quickening Maze

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