Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament is the definitive work on the profound and surprising links between manic-depression and creativity. Written by the bestselling psychologist of bipolar disorders, Kay Redfield Jamison, who also authored An Unquiet Mind, this book explores the intricate relationship between art and madness.

Jamison, one of the foremost psychologists in America, offers a deep understanding of how the anguished and volatile intensity associated with the artistic temperament was once thought to be a symptom of genius or eccentricity peculiar to artists, writers, and musicians. Her work, based on her studies as a clinical psychologist and researcher in mood disorders, reveals that many artists subject to exalted highs and despairing lows were in fact engaged in a struggle with clinically identifiable manic-depressive illness.

Within this book, Jamison presents proof of the biological foundations of this disease and applies what is known about the illness to the lives and works of some of the world's greatest artists, including Lord Byron, Vincent Van Gogh, and Virginia Woolf.