The Forbidden Experiment

“Roger Shattuck’s The Forbidden Experiment is a marvelous book. I am delighted to learn it is being revived; it should never have been out of print.” —Oliver Sacks“A beautiful story … we feel grateful to Shattuck for telling it so well.” —Robert Darnton, The New York Review of Books“Beautiful … a resonant story … the mystery will always be there, but on it Shattuck shines a warm and clarifying light.” —The Boston Globe“Roger Shattuck has done a beautiful job of recreating the story, skillfully using a wealth of known documents and discovering a few new ones. Although there have been other good books about the wild child, Mr. Shattuck’s has the merits of conciseness, humanity, and just enough detachment.” —H. E. Gruber, The New York Times Book Review“Nature versus nurture, Descartes contra Locke, Hobbes against Rousseau: much that vexed the Enlightenment is contained in the tale of this inexplicable child.” —Brian Dillon, 4Columns“A touching story, told with insight and compassion … evokes the theme and myth, the fantasy of the flight from society, not only to the woods but deeper into the self.” —Los Angeles Times“Shattuck’s sensitive, balanced, and reflective study … bring[s] exactly before us what was before Itard—the unnerving claim of Victor’s human face.” —Clifford Geertz, The New Republic“The doctor considered the experiment a failure; yet he was a pioneer in what is today called special education, and many of his techniques were adopted by Maria Montessori… . The detailed discussions of Victor’s behavior and training are fascinating.” —H. H. Flowers, The Horn Book“Erudite, but never showy, [Shattuck] pieces the full story together, places it in scientific and social contexts and animates his narrative with lively asides… . Its appeal lies in the universal dream of escape from the responsibilities of civilized life to a simpler, freer existence… . Shattuck’s careful reconstruction of the experience—with the twentieth century’s perspective on psychology, history, philosophy, and linguistics—adds a rich new chapter to the endlessly interesting debate about nature versus nuture.” —Jean Strouse, Newsweek

Roger Shattuck (1923-2005) was born in New York City, studied at Yale, and taught at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Virginia, and Boston University. A frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, he was the author of The Banquet Years, The Innocent Eye, Forbidden Knowledge- From Prometheus to Pornography, and Marcel Proust, which was awarded the National Book Award in 1975. His book The Forbidden Experiment (2025) and his edition of Helen Keller’s The World I Live In (2004) are published by NYRB Classics.

Jed Perl is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. His books include Paris Without End, New Art City, Magicians and Charlatans, Antoine’s Alphabet, a two-volume biography of Alexander Calder, and, most recently, Authority and Freedom- A Defense of the Arts. Perl was a contributing editor at Vogue for a decade and the art critic at The New Republic for twenty years.

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