And these are the recent Foucault project books received – all bought second-hand. Most of these connect in some way to the work of the Groupe Information Asiles or Groupe Information santé, with the exception of a copy of the original edition of Moi, Pierre Rivière and Peter Brown’s The Body and Society.

The real find was a copy of Foucault’s first book, from 1954, Maladie mentale et personnalité. He refused a reprint and eventually agreed to amend the first part and completely rewrite the second, as Maladie mentale et psychologie in 1962. That’s the version in English translation. I’d never before found a second-hand copy for anything less than £100, sometimes much more, or it was listed as the 1954 edition but was really the 1962 one or later reprints. It’s not even easy to find in libraries, though there is a pdf of the text alone (i.e. typed, not a scan) here.