The Gaoler - By Elsie Locke. [Signed First Edition]

The Gaoler by Elsie Locke. Publisher: Dunmore Press, 1978, first edition. SIGNED BY AUTHOR.

Very good hardback with jacket. Spine slightly cocked. Very light fading and rubbing to spine ends. No inscriptions. Jacket is chipped at top edge with some general rubbing, fading to spine area.

"Today we are still unsure whether prisons should be regarded as places of reform or as places of secure confinement. All too often the result is that they are places where prisoners are dehumanised and warders are faceless. "The Gaoler" tells of Dunedin's earliest prison, essentially a makeshift affair neither secure nor comfortable, but small enough for the prisoners to be regarded as human beings. The central character of the story, Henry Monson, strove constantly to improve prison conditions and his prisoner's moral outlook, struggling all the way with official indifference and miserliness. Elsie Locke draws on a store of contemporary records, newspapers, diaries and reminiscences to tell this story, and attempts to restore, by imagination, some of the elements that so often go missing in history."--Inside front cover. 233 pages with illustrations.