Bandits and Bibles

Now a highly politicised medium, this book of prison literature collects a lively array of selections from the earliest recorded convict autobiographies, examining crimes, arrests and convictions, punishments inflicted, survival techniques and spiritual awakenings. Hard labour in coal mines, whippings, solitary confinement in bare unheated cells, water torture and iron maidens were just a few of the punishments meted out to these prisoners and vividly recounted in these selections.