In 2009, Alistair Campbell and Nigel Jones wrote A World Without: The Fantastic Five, asking what the world would be like if ‘five giants of history’ had been prevented by prejudice from making their enormous contributions. Winston Churchill, Florence Nightingale, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin and Marie Curie: all brilliant, all shapers of the modern world, all lived with significant mental health problems. Lincoln’s law partner, William Herndon, said “His melancholy dripped from him as he walked”.

But could their illnesses actually have helped them in their work? Continue reading →