Oneselves, by Louis Baldwin (history biography prose, 1984)

[lb_lee]

"There are more things in the human mind and heart, a twentieth-century Hamlet might remark, than are dreamt of in our psychology."

Blurb: Brief thumbnail life stories of overwhelmingly-American multiples from 1811 to 1981, including trance states, fugue folks, Spiritualist mediums, and the start of the MPD surge.

Why is it worth your time?: If you want a crash course and quick look-over of the historical progression of how multiples were seen and categorized in mostly-America over the course of 170 years, this book is invaluable! Dig into the citations in the back to find the original records; a lot of them are surprisingly findable.

Plural Tags: abuse intermediate-focus (depends on the case), fusion/integration, otherworld, children, relationships of enmity and friendship, medical, spiritual, switching

Content Warnings: Institutionalization, medical ableism, physical and sexual violence, self-harm, and serial rape. Despite this, the thumbnail-sketch format of the book means none of this hits too hard.

Access Notes: Still in print, improbably, and though never officially digitized, we and Orion Scribner joined forces to create a screen-readable PDF of LB's copy. (Sorry for the annotations.)