AbeBooks: Books Behind Bars: The Best Prison Literature

20,000 Years in Sing Sing by Lewis E. Lawes

With notorious rare book thief William Jacques jailed once again, AbeBooks is showcasing some of the finest prison literature ever published.

Call it the Slammer, the Big House, the Pokey or the Clink, prison remains a place no-one wishes to go but everyone wants to read about. The vast majority of people will never step inside one but everyone can imagine what jailbird life must be like.

Authors, both fiction and non-fiction writers, have considered almost every aspect of imprisonment – the solitude of a life sentence, the culture and the contraband, the escapes, the torture, the miscarriages of justice and the innocent souls, the warders, the political and war-time prison camps, and the letters and visits. Even the slang, the tattoos and the last meals of those on Death Row have been documented.

Countless books, from The Count of Monte Cristo to Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun, have touched upon prison life but our selection of 25 books highlights novels and real-life accounts where doing time is at the absolute heart of the story.