Download or read book From Mission to Madness written by Valeen Tippetts Avery and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Avery draws on a large body of correspondence for details of David's life and on his poetry to reveal his personality and emotional struggles. She tells of his mental deterioration, starting with a probable breakdown early in 1870 and ending with his death in 1904 in the Northern Illinois Hospital and Asylum for the Insane in Elgin, where he had been confined for twenty-seven years.