Letters for the Ages Behind Bars

Edward Smyth is a writer and speaker in criminal justice. His first book is called Doing Time: A Spiritual Survival Guide. Edward served 18 weeks in prison in 2015.James Drake is an entrepreneur, philanthropist and Founder at Of Lost Time, an innovative literary unit which uncovers the past’s hidden stories through the power of correspondence.Jonathan Aitken is an ex-MP, ex-Minister and author. Ordained in 2018, he is a prison chaplain at Pentonville. He served 18 months in Belmarsh Prison.

• AcknowledgementsEditorial ConventionsForeword: Jonathan AitkenCHAPTER ONE: CONFESSION AND CONDEMNATION‘Whoever comes into the witch prison must become a witch or be tortured until he invents something out of his head’Johannes Junius’s false confession, 1628‘We justly fear that we were sadly deluded and mistaken’Too little too late: the Salem witch trial jurors apologize, 1697‘Either kill me or accept me as I am, for may hell freeze over if I ever change’The Marquis de Sade refuses to change, 1783‘The people, one day disillusioned, will rejoice in being delivered from a tyrant’The Angel of Assassination, 1793‘The only thing that lies heavily on my heart is your sorrow’The assassination of Alexander II, 1881‘I do know I shal [sic] have to answer before my Maker in Heaven for the awful crimes I have committed’The Baby Farmer, 1896‘It’s too late now to rake over ashes in the hope of finding some live coal’Edith Thompson accepts her fate, 1922‘I felt excitement, a thrill. I was going to kill a person’Richard Hickock admits to the Clutter murders, 1961'We all made it that night but barely!’The great escape: an Alcatraz escapee comes forward, 2013CHAPTER TWO: INJUSTICE‘If I am a monster, God be merciful to me’The trial of Rebecca Lemp, 1590‘I want to do justice to myself and to others’Escaping slavery: Anthony Chase’s harrowing story, 1827‘I do worry about customers’ watches left in the empty house’Corrie ten Boom’s clock code, 1944‘One day Mummy and Daddy will return and you will no longer be orphans without a home’Nelson Mandela comforts his daughters from afar, 1969‘He was free for a while. I guess that’s more than most of us can expect’A Soledad Brother, 1970‘It would not be right to return him to prison’The Maguire Seven and the Guildford Four, 1980‘I did my best to fight the injustices I found in my society’The Ogoni Nine, 1994‘I demand that we be treated like human beings, not slaves’Nadya Tolokonnikova’s hunger strike, 2013‘No one knew where I’d fallen; I was entirely cut off from the outside world’Ai Weiwei’s house arrest, 2016CHAPTER THREE: NEGOTIATION‘An old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus’Paul the Apostle urges Philemon to forgive, 57–62 CE‘Try me, good King, but let me have a Lawful Trial’Anne Boleyn’s final plea, 1536‘The frail flesh incites me continually to call to your Grace for mercy’Thomas Cromwell’s fall from grace, 1540‘He esteemed it to be of greater value than all else that he left at Gardiner’s Island’Captain Kidd’s lost treasure, 1699‘Do not force me to be my own executioner’Written in blood: a letter from the Bastille, 1761‘Your petitioner therefore prays that … his sentence of transportation across the seas, may be carried into effect, with as little delay’Prison in pastures new: George Hey transportation request, 1845‘It will be to your interest to come and see me’Billy the Kid strikes a deal, 1881‘I have consequently resolved to escape’Winston Churchill’s prison break, 1899‘I was not a responsible leader, and as such do not feel myself guilty’Adolf Eichmann refuses to accept responsibility, 1962CHAPTER FOUR: LIFE BEHIND BARS‘Our longest day coincides exactly with your shortest; and vice versa’An exile in Botany Bay, 1791‘Never before have I witnessed [sic] such disgraceful proceedings’Christmas in the workhouse, 1868‘Suicides are as common as picnics here’Ohio Penitentiary’s night druggist, 1898‘I took the drama, the most objective form known to art, and made it as personal a mode of expression as the lyric or the sonnet’Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis, 1897‘I hope to be home this year unless this blessed war never finishes or we get blown off the map’William A. Alldritt’s secret code, 1916‘I saw myself, for the first time for over three months, the other day, and it is quite amusing to meet yourself as a stranger’Constance Markievicz keeps her spirits high, 1916‘Being prisoner of [war] does not agree with me’John Alcock finds himself in enemy waters, 1917‘I have given up the bad habit of imagining the war may be over some day’Bertrand Russell’s pacifist protests, 1918‘Between Dev and freedom there is only this key’Éamon de Valera’s festive escape, 1918‘I was in prison … thirteen months in all’Adolf Hitler serves time for the Munich Putsch, 1925‘I play my music, until 3 P.M., and from 3 P.M. I write songs’Al Capone’s Alcatraz band, 1938‘My love, I’m not bored, I’m very cheerful’Jean-Paul Sartre sunbathes behind bars, 1940‘You must go on.. Be strong!’Charles Salvador’s words of support, 2017CHAPTER FIVE: TAKING A STAND‘The blood of the poor murdered people sits heavy on their heads’The Peterloo Massacre, 1819‘Society has used her ill and turned away from her, and she cannot be expected to take much heed of its rights or wrongs’Charles Dickens’ home for ‘fallen’ women, 1846‘A sight so inconceivably awful as the wickedness and levity of the immense crowd collected at that execution could be imagined by no man’Debating public executions, 1849‘You would at long last be able to breathe the air of liberty again, for over here the air is as free as it ever can be in a capitalist society’August Bebel becomes a socialist celebrity, 1887‘The terror of a child in prison is quite limitless’The plight of child convicts, 1897‘I am afraid they may be saying we don’t resist. Yet my shoulders are bruised with struggling whilst they hold the tube into my throat’Sylvia Pankhurst keeps fighting, 1913‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere’Martin Luther King Jr’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’, 1963‘If we’re supposed to become the nails in the coffin of a tyrant, I’d like to become one of those nails. Just know that this particular one will not bend’Oleg Sentsov makes a stand, 2016‘In my isolation I can only build a fragmented picture of what the world outside looks like’Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s absentee convention address, 2017‘When will I be able to fulfil my duties as a doctor in fighting the menace of Coronavirus?’Coping with COVID behind bars, 2020CHAPTER SIX: FROM THE SCAFFOLD‘I am to be executed like a criminal’The last words of Mary, Queen of Scots, 1587‘Thy mourning cannot avail me, I am but dust’Sir Walter Raleigh’s last will and testament, 1603‘I experience the tranquillity of mind ever attending a guiltless conscience’Marie Antoinette faces the guillotine, 1793‘The quick rattle and heavy fall of the axe’Byron and the Master of Justice, 1817‘The head which was creating, living with the highest life of art, which had realised and grown used to the highest needs of the spirit, that head has already been cut off’Dostoevsky avoids the firing squad, 1849‘The sentence of The Law shall be Carried out in Due Form by me as Executioner’William Marwood and the ‘Long Drop’, 1873‘It has allways [sic] been my one desire to become the Hangman’Applying to be an executioner, 1910‘I played my last … match last week and lost. Tomorrow I am to be shot’The Easter Rising, 1916‘Don’t let my body lie here – get me back to the green hill by Murlough’The man hanged for a comma, 1916‘20 years which quickly passes so they can come out, and do their slaughter again’In support of the death penalty, 1938‘The special moments keep me hopeful’The letter James Foley never wrote down, 2014CHAPTER SEVEN: SEEKING REDEMPTION‘Not by this path will I return to my native city’Dante in exile, 1315‘Come now and spend your last happy years in your homeland, surrounded by great peace and glory!’Benvenuto Cellini entices Michelangelo to return home, 1560‘I am a year and a half old in misery’Francis Bacon tries to save his reputation, 1621‘We have known each other now for more than four years. Half of the time we have been together: the other half I have had to spend in prison’Oscar Wilde: love and scandal, 1897‘I have tried to think of everything knowing this will be my last letter to you’The Crippen affair, 1910‘I can safely tell you that he will rob no banks, but it is his firm intention to travel in the path of righteousness’Public enemy number one: John Dillinger’s road to redemption, 1934‘Can you imagine how I feel – to be treated as a little boy and not as a man? And when I was a little boy, I was treated as a man’Growing up in the system: Jack Henry Abbott lends his life story to fiction, 1981‘I will stand in front of you and bleed my heart and mind for you to just try and grasp the realities, the effects and the damage of an abused child/woman’A victim’s appeal: Emma Humphreys seeks justice, 1994Copyright AcknowledgementsPrison Book AppendixAbout the Editors

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