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Description: First edition copy of Darrell Figgis' Chronicle of Jails
Date Item Created: 1917
Document Reference: n/a
More about this item
First edition copy of Darrell Figgis' Chronicle of Jails (1917), a record of his time spent in Irish, English, and Welsh prisons following the Easter Rising.
Figgis writes, 'Reading, being set in a dep valley at the confluence of two rivers, is an unhealthy town'. But he adds, 'The gaol is a handsome building, erected in red brick after the manner of an old castle, with battlements and towers'. He was astonished at the 'prodigality of flowers' within the Prison walls, noting that 'even the graves of hanged men could not be seen beneath the blooms that covered them'.
(Courtesy of University of Reading Special Collections)
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Avon Edward Foote
Posted on the : 1 Dec 2017
I have a special interest in this collection. My four great-grandfather was hung in Edgefield, South Carolina for stealing a gelding. His execution was reported in Columbia and an upcountry newspaper, The Pendleton Messenger. The founder of the paper had been a London editor before coming to South Carolina