Why a Booktrail?
1793: What kind of person keeps a man underground for seven years? And who would agree to be part of such an experiment?
The Warlow Experiment
What you need to know before your trail
Herbert Powyss lives on a small estate in the Welsh Marches, with enough time and income to pursue a gentleman’s fashionable cultivation of exotic plants and trees. But he longs to make his mark in the field of science – something consequential enough to present to the Royal Society in London.
He hits on a radical experiment in isolation: for seven years a subject will inhabit three rooms in the cellar of the manor house, fitted out with books, paintings and even a chamber organ. Meals will arrive thrice daily via a dumbwaiter. The solitude will be totally unrelieved by any social contact; the subject will keep a diary of his daily thoughts and actions. The pay? Fifty pounds per annum, for life.
Only one man is desperate enough to apply for the job: John Warlow, a semi-literate labourer with a wife and six children to provide for. The experiment, a classic Enlightenment exercise gone more than a little mad, will have unforeseen consequences for all included.
Travel Guide
Travel BookTrail style to Wales
“A reward of £50 a year for life is offered to any man who will undertake to live for 7 years underground without seeing a human face: to let his toe and fingernails grow during the whole of his confinement, together with his beard. Commodious apartments are provided with cold bath, chamber organ, as many books as the occupier shall desire. Provisions will be served from Mr Powyss’s table. Every convenience desired will be provided.”
Herbert Powyss, Moreham House, January 1793.
This appears to have been inspired by a real life event – In the Author’s note at the end of the book, Alix Nathan mentions an entry from the Register fin 1797 which describes a very similar experience taking place: “it appears that an occupier offered himself for this singular residence, who is now in the fourth year of his probation, a labouring man, who has a large family, all of whom are maintained by Mr P.”
The real Mrs Powyss lived in Moreham close to Preston in Lancashire.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: The Warlow Experiment
Destination: Wales Authour/guide: Alix Nathan Departure Time: 1793
Back to ResultsWhere Next?
