Britain's bookshelves bulge with "misery memoirs"

LONDON (Reuters) - In theory, modern Britons have it all. They've never been as healthy or prosperous, but they have been happier -- as testified by a rash of first-hand accounts of depression that have hit the shelves this year.

Following on from the great plays of the 16th and 17th centuries and the novels of the 18th and 19th, 21st century Britain's gift to literature just might be the misery memoir, as the more flippant media have dubbed the genre.

One of the latest is "The Devil Within" by Stephanie Merritt, an extremely high-achieving journalist and prize-winning novelist. After years of turbulent emotions, she was diagnosed at the age of 32 as suffering from a form of bipolar disorder, an illness that took her to the brink of suicide.

Merritt's natural instinct was to follow a venerable tradition of women's writing and project her emotions on to invented characters, but a publisher who had read an article of hers thought fact would be stronger than fiction.

"In my ideal world, I would have incorporated some of these personal stories into fictional characters," Merritt said.

She felt protective of her privacy and that of her family, who has yet to read her latest work, published in Britain, Australia and South Africa in May. She hopes they will "read it with equanimity" when they do.

For all her hesitations, she saw the value of sharing her experience.

"There is an appetite for personal stories ... that can reach people in a way that fiction does not," she told Reuters. "People read these books in order to be reassured they are not the only person who has felt that and been in that situation."

The article that alerted Vermilion, an imprint of Random House, was published in 2006 in Britain's Observer newspaper.

"I was quite angry about the way I'd been treated in terms of trying to get help," said Merritt, who was given drugs that had unpleasant side effects and struggled to find information on alternative therapies.

"Because I felt very strongly about it, I offered to write about it for the Observer."