Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/619

 10 8. XL JUNE 26, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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labour. If he will condescend to look at my volumes of 'A Register of National Bibliography ' under the word ' Prisons,' he will see some references which may help him to begin the undertaking for himself ; but he will find it easier to begin than to end the task. W. P. COURTNEY.

Ovid might be classed as the first of prison authors, for it was during his exile by the Black Sea that he wrote his ' Tristia ' and ' Pontic Epistles.' Authors who have been more literally prisoners are fairly numerous. MR. McGovERN may add to his list Lovelace, whose prison-song ' To Althea from Prison ' is famous ; George Wither, who composed ' The Shepherds' Hunting ' while confined in the Marshalsea about 1614, and much later in life wrote a variety of poems and satires while once more incarcerated ; Wil- liam Prynne issued a catalogue of his books, classed as written before, during and since his imprisonment ; Voltaire sketched part of the ' Henriade ' while in the Bastille ; Leigh Hunt wrote part of the ' Story of Rimini ' and other things while in prison ; nor must Thomas Cooper's ' Purga- tory of Suicides ' be forgotten, written in prison. For many other examples see 1 N. & Q.,' 7 S. ix. 147, 256, 412 ; x. 96, 454 ; xi. 176, 457, 513. G. L. APPERSON.

Usher Gahagan, ex. 20 Feb., 1749, wrote a poem in Newgate, ' To his Royal Highness Prince George ' afterwards George III. (vide Knapp and Baldwin's ' Newgate Calen- dar,' 1824, ii. 29-30).

Mary Blandy, ex. 6 April, 1752, wrote 'Miss Mary Blandy's Own Account of the Affair between Her and Captain Cranstoun,' in Oxford Castle.

Eugene Aram, ex. 6 Aug., 1759, wrote a short poem in York Castle~(rafe Knapp and Baldwin's 'Newgate Calendar,' 1824, ii. 255).

Daniel Perreau, ex. 17 Jan., 1776, wrote in Newgate ' Mr. Daniel Perreau' s Narrative of His Unhappy Case' (1775), and 'A Solemn Declaration of Mr. Daniel Perreau addressed to the Public ' (1776).

William Wynne Ryland, ex. 29 Aug., 1783, finished a couple of engravings while await- ing his execution in Newgate prison.

A careful search through the various 'Newgate Calendars,' compiled by William Jackson, Wilkinson, and Knapp and Baldwin, would no doubt discover many other ex- amples of gaol literature. See also the British Museum Catalogue.

HORACE BLEACKLEY.

The REV. J. B. McGovERN must not include the ' Ballad of Reading Gaol ' in his list of works " produced in prison." This was written in France after the author's release (see my ' Bibliography of the Poems of Oscar Wilde,' 1907). ' De Profundis,' on the other hand, was written entirely within prison walls, and Wilde never saw the manuscript from the day of his release, when it was handed by the Governor to Mr. Robert Ross. STUART MASON.

To the list already given may be added :

Balfpur (Jabez), ' My Prison Life,' 1907.

Davitt (Michael), 'Leaves from a Prison Diary,' 1884.

' Five Years' Penal Servitude.' By one who has endured it, 1877. Reprinted 1878.

Gordon (Peter), 'Narrative of Imprisonment,' 1816.

Maybrick (Florence E.), ' Mrs. Maybrick's Own Story,' 1908.

Maybrick (F. E.), 'My Fifteen Lost Years,' 1908.

[Neyill (Lord W. B.)], 'Penal Servitude,' 1903.

Pellico (Silvio), ' Le mie prigioni,' 1834.

Pellieo (Silvio), 'Le mie prigioni,' edited by Rampini, 1852. Reprinted 1858.

Pellico (Silvio), 'Ten Years' Imprisonment,' 1850.

Pellico (Silvio), ' Ten Years Imprisonment,' edited by Walker, 1845.

Pellico (Silvio), ' Prison Diary,' translated by Charles Findlater, 1834. MS. 194 pp. Fo.

The editor's unpublished manuscript is in the writer's possession.

' Prison Characters, drawn from Life,' by a Prison Matron, 1866, 2 vols.

' Prison Life and Prison Poetry,' by " Bill Sykes," vol. i. published in 1881.

I have no record of its continuation.

'Twenty-five Years in Prisons,' by "No. 7," 1903. Reprinted in 1906.

While few of these were actually penned in prison, most, if not all, were probably first prepared there, mentally or otherwise. WILLIAM JAGGARD.

Luther and Huss come readily to mind, though with the thought that such examples as their lives afford of literary work performed while the writers were in confinement are hardly what are asked for. But in gaol literature proper must be included Leigh Hunt's ' Descent of Liberty,' ' The Story of Rimini,' and ' The Feast of Poets ' ; Prior's ' Alma ' ; and Lovelace's ' Odes and Songs,' collected during his imprisonment. Richard Savage's ' London and Bristol Delineated ' was one of the exercises referred to when, from Newgate, he wrote :

" I am now more conversant with the Nine than ever, and if, instead of a Newgate-bird, 1 may be allowed to be a bird of the Muses, I assure you, Sir, I sing very freely in my cage."

F. JARRATT.