Writing a biography is a delicate—not a reckless—process, where the end result, if done properly, is simply the truth revealed. This delicate and intricate research process has never before been done — Carol M. Ford, Bob Crane The Definitive Biography

If history is written by the victors, conspiracy theory is typically written by the losers, and there were few greater l — Mike Jay, A Visionary Madness: The Case of James Tilly Matthews and the Influencing Machine

James Tilly Matthews was not a prophet. He was a gifted, perhaps fragile individual who suffered intensely, and for litt — Mike Jay, A Visionary Madness: The Case of James Tilly Matthews and the Influencing Machine

The French army had crowned a campaign of extraordinary successes by defeating the Austrians at Jemappes and pressing on — Mike Jay, A Visionary Madness: The Case of James Tilly Matthews and the Influencing Machine

We think of 1789 as the date of the French Revolution, and the storming of the Bastille as its defining event. Yet as la — Mike Jay, A Visionary Madness: The Case of James Tilly Matthews and the Influencing Machine

It was Matthews, of course, for whom the verdict was the greatest disaster. Not only had he failed to escape from Bedlam — Mike Jay, A Visionary Madness: The Case of James Tilly Matthews and the Influencing Machine

The Bedlam that greeted James Tilly Matthews, then, was not so much a baroque spectacle of depravity as an exhausted and — Mike Jay, A Visionary Madness: The Case of James Tilly Matthews and the Influencing Machine

Up to this point, it was rare for the mad to be distinguished from the poor, the homeless, the indigent, beggars, vagabo — Mike Jay, A Visionary Madness: The Case of James Tilly Matthews and the Influencing Machine

$To look back before 1800 is to enter another world, one where the number of institutions for the mad was a tiny fraction — Mike Jay, A Visionary Madness: The Case of James Tilly Matthews and the Influencing Machine$

The Air Loom, if Matthews revealed its existence under questioning, would now be recognised immediately as a classic par — Mike Jay, A Visionary Madness: The Case of James Tilly Matthews and the Influencing Machine

As a pauper, the obvious destination for James Tilly Matthews was the Bethlem Hospital, already long known in popular sl — Mike Jay, A Visionary Madness: The Case of James Tilly Matthews and the Influencing Machine

Matthews' shout of treason in the House was no random outburst of lunacy, but the last act in an astonishing adventure: — Mike Jay, A Visionary Madness: The Case of James Tilly Matthews and the Influencing Machine

At Bow Street Magistrates' Court the essential facts were established. The man's name was James Tilly Matthews. He was a — Mike Jay, A Visionary Madness: The Case of James Tilly Matthews and the Influencing Machine

Writing a biography is a delicate—not a reckless—process, where the end result, if done properly, is simply the truth revealed. This delicate and intricate research process has never before been done for Bob Crane, a man with a story worth telling.

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