Leigh has undertaken research on the life
and works of Lady Caroline Lamb. Lamb is a case study of how reputation
can lead to the cultural construction of madness, and how the labels
of 'madness' and 'hysteria' have subsequently been used as a means to
discredit Lamb critically as a legitimate subject of study. She has
published several articles that focus upon this re-legitimising of Lamb
and is co-editing the forthcoming Pickering & Chatto three-volume
set of Lamb's works. For this project her research focuses upon autobiographical
accounts of depression with the objective of publishing a critical anthology
of these insights into a distressing state of mind that was more often
than not discounted, ignored or silenced.