Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England

The first book-length literary history of some of early modern Europe’s most influential carceral institutions, including England’s Bridewell

More than 250 years before the rise of the modern penitentiary, houses of correction pioneered the use of forced labor and individualized sentences within institutions of confinement, promoting reform and the “hope of amendment” for every individual. Yet these earlier carceral institutions faced many of the problems that remain familiar today: corrupti...