- Hardcover: 300 pages
- Publisher: Law Book Co of Australasia (17 Oct 1985)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0416347703
- ISBN-13: 978-0416347708
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16 x 2.5 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 770,840 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Victorian Prison Lives: English Prison Biography, 1830-1914
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
You would not have enjoyed spending time in a Victorian prison, as Philip Priestley's beautifully written and genuinely terrifying study demonstrates. Synthesising a wide range of actual individual experiences, Priestley takes us through all the stages of incarceration, from 'The Cell' and 'The Daily Round' to 'Discipline', 'The Scaffold' (gulp) and, for those lucky enough to make it, 'Release'. The accounts he builds on range from the prison autobiographies of celebrated forgers like Austin Bidwell to accounts written under shamefaced pseudonyms (so potent was the stigma) such as 'One-Who-Has-Suffered'. And suffer they did, a suffering made worse by the fact that it was inflicted by the self-righteous in the name of justice. There is a point to Priestley's meticulously gathered, vividly presented material: an anti-prison point. He is never preachy about this, but in an elegant preface he points out how ineffective prisons are at reducing criminal behaviour. He thinks that the prison as idea and reality could vanish in the near future. This is an arresting thought: as he says, "the lunatic asylum and the workhouse, institutional contemporaries of the penitentiary, have both disappeared into historical oblivion. They sprang from the same sources of Enlightenment thought, were found not to work, and have been abandoned". Could prisons go the same way? --Adam Roberts
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Glimpse behing bars
28 July 2006
Format:Hardcover
Priestly shows the workings of prisons in the nineteenth century through the letters, diaries, and memoirs of the people actually involved. While the facts are not revolutionary, he brings such a personal connection to the details that make them alive and memorable in ways that others do not.
Book Nitty-Gritty
20 Oct 2010
Format:Hardcover
Hardback first published in the UK by Methuen in 1985.
Bound in black linen cloth with silver type. Dustjacket. 311 pp on heavy stock with b&w illustrations.
Notes at the end of each chapter, 2 appendices, index, and a 9 p Bibliography.
Bound in black linen cloth with silver type. Dustjacket. 311 pp on heavy stock with b&w illustrations.
Notes at the end of each chapter, 2 appendices, index, and a 9 p Bibliography.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
