Illustration by a fellow prisoner. The text in this volume is based on the original translation from the French by Preston Rambo.

A multilayered social and cultural analysis that focuses upon the will of civil society and the will of those who actually lived and worked in the bagne, or penal colony.

The guillotine is a most potent image of revolutionary France, the tool whereby a whole society was 'redesigned'. Tracing the development of the guillotine, this book recounts the stories of famous executions, the lives of the executioners, and the research into whether the head retained consciousness after it was separated from the body.

Chronicles the author's childhood, the commission of two non-violent and minor thefts from employers, his capture, conviction and transportation to a prison in French Guiana.