Mike Jay is currently finishing a book on the Pneumatic Institution, the experimental gas laboratory in 1790s Bristol where the radical doctor Thomas Beddoes explored the medical use of gases in collaboration with a circle that included the chemist Humphry Davy and the poets Coleridge and Southey. When they discovered the unexpected effects of inhaling nitrous oxide, the experiments devolved into a pioneering exploration of consciousness. The working title for the book is Wild Gas, and it’s due from Yale University Press in Spring 2009.

He is also editing Medical London: City of Diseases, City of Cures, to be published in October by Strange Attractor Press in association with Wellcome Collection.

The film rights for The Air Loom Gang are under option with Lloyd Levin, who is currently filming Watchmen.