… As Roy Porter observes, though, ‘Bethlem the institution was small; ‘ Bedlam ‘ the image loomed large in the public imagination’ ( p. 122). Bethlem was not only a sociable place to visit, it also had been known, since at least the … mad. This is Bethlem. But as Bedlam, the same situation was utilised by writers and artists, and within the wider public imagination, as a mirror, albeit a strange and distorted one, on what passed for a normal state of sociability. 6 . John …