Description
Book SynopsisThe collected essays explore the lives of several writers in Georgian and Victorian Britain, in terms of their knowledge and experience of prison life. This book focuses on the lives of the writers themselves, or on the prison stretches endured by their relatives or acquaintances. Some of these writers were locked up for debt, while others were deprived of liberty for sedition or treason. Here the reader will find, amongst many other stories, accounts of Dickens’s father in debtors’ prison, of Leigh Hunt living with his whole family in The Surrey House of Correction and of Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol.
Table of ContentsIntroduction; The Context: Crime and Punishment 1700–1900; 1. Defoe in Newgate and the Clink; 2. Dr Johnson’s Day in Court; 3. A Free Pardon for Savage; 4. The Macaroni Parson; 5. Another Writer in Newgate; 6. Jane Austen’s Aunt Behind Bars; 7. William Combe and His Friends; 8. Murder at the Lambs’ House; 9. George Gissing’s Dangerous Love; 10. Dickens’ Father in Gaol; 11. Samuel Bamford, Thomas Cooper and Other Chartists; 12. Brothers Inside; 13. The Crimes Club: Conan Doyle and Churton Collins; 14. Irish Writer Meets Wife Killer; 15. Oscar Wilde, Wilde Senior and Reading Gaol; 16. Three Literary Enthusiasts; Some Conclusions; Acknowledgements; Bibliography and Sources
