THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO
by Alexandre Dumas
* * *
Falsely accused of treason, Edmond Dantés is arrested on his wedding day and imprisoned in the imposing island fortress of If. After staging a dramatic escape he sets out to discover the fabulous treasure of Monte Cristo and revenge himself on those responsible for his imprisonment. Based on a true story, The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the great literary adventure novels and a masterpiece about one man’s obsession with escape and vengeance.
“Discipline & Punish is a tour de force that draws from history, philosophy, and social science to establish why societies choose to imprison their citizens.”
“HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL: RITA HAYWORTH AND THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION”
by Stephen King
* * *
Winning movie fame as The Shawshank Redemption by Frank Darabont, Stephen King’s fairy tale of confinement and hope originally appeared in King’s 1982 collection Different Seasons alongside “The Body,” which would later be brought to film as Stand by Me. “Hope Springs Eternal: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” follows the story of terribly abused prisoner Andy Dufresne, who—both metaphorically and in reality—escapes into dreams of the movies. As the movie poster said: “Fear can hold you prisoner.... Hope can set you free.”
DISCIPLINE & PUNISH: THE BIRTH OF THE PRISON
by Michel Foucault
* * *
Both an in-depth history of the French penal system in particular and a peerless dissection of the rationale behind Western punishment systems in general, Discipline & Punish is a tour de force that draws from history, philosophy, and social science to establish why societies choose to imprison their citizens. It also contains fascinating insight into the interplay between prisoner and state—and why even the most brutal criminals are capable of being seen as heroes.
Further Reading
LES QUATRE VÉRITÉS DE PAPILLON
by Georges Ménager
* * *
Only available in French, this book looks into details of the police investigations into the murder that led to Papillon’s imprisonment.
SPACE IN THE TROPICS: FROM CONVICTS TO ROCKETS IN FRENCH GUIANA
by Peter Redfield
* * *
A gripping book that compares the Franco-European Ariane rocket program with the penal experiments on Devil’s Island.
Also Consider
MR. NICE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
by Howard Marks (Canongate Books, 2002)
* * *
During the mid-1980s Howard Marks had forty-three aliases, eighty-nine phone lines, and owned twenty-five companies trading throughout the world. Bars, recording studios, offshore banks—all were money laundering vehicles serving his core business: dope dealing. At the height of Marks’s career he was smuggling consignments of up to thirty tons of marijuana and had contact with organizations as diverse as MI6, the CIA, the IRA, and the Mafia. He was busted following a worldwide operation by the DEA and sentenced to serve twenty-five years in prison at Terre Haute Penitentiary in Indiana. He was released in April 1995 after serving seven years of his sentence. Told with humor, charm, and candor and featuring pages of photographs, Mr. Nice is his own extraordinary story. Mr. Nice is one of the bestselling memoirs in Britain in recent memory, topping both The Sunday Times (London) hardcover and paperback bestseller lists. It’s been translated into eight languages, and this edition offers American readers their first-ever opportunity to read this riveting book.
“Frequently hilarious, occasionally sad, and often surreal.”
—GQ
“A folk legend … Howard Marks has huge charisma. He sounds like Richard Burton and looks like a Rolling Stone.”
—The Daily Mail (London)
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FOOTNOTES
* I wrote this introduction in May 1969. The book was published in France in June of that same year. By April of 1970 it had sold one million copies there. As is perhaps inevitable when a writer has sold so phenomenally and has been so lionized as M. Charrière, the authenticity of his work has recently been questioned in some quarters. On March 17, 1970, a press conference was held in Pans by Editions Laffont and the author for the purpose of answering such charges. Charrière reaffirmed, allowing for lapses of memory in some instances as to dates and minor facts, that the book was as accurate and true as he could make it. After all, as he said, he did not go into “that hell” with a typewriter.
* Worth about $1250 in 1970.
* Chief Executioner in 1932.
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