Description

Hardcover, cloth spine over red paper covered boards, in original dust-jacket. 596pp., Index. Illustrated with facsimile engravings after the original nineteenth-century edition. First edition thus, first printing with full number line, by this publisher. “A histroy of England’s most notorious goal, its famous criminals and their infamous crimes, and the tortures, executuons and punishments practiced there.” Written by one of H.M. Inspector’s of Prisons, one of a myriad of reformers who finally, in 1881, succeeded in getting Newgate shut down. An excellent commentary on the historical practices and practical consequences of of early penology. Parenthetically, Griffith’s book was written 119 years after Cesare Beccaria’s landmark treatise on penal reform, published in Italy in 1764. No previous ownership marks. A very clean, square, unmarked copy, near as new. Very fine in a very fine dust-jacket.