| Notes: Reprint. Lacks jacket, otherwise an excellent copy. 1935 Hard Cover. 693 pp. 8vo. Original grey-blue cloth, maroon titles. A biography of Lawes's time as the warden of Sing Sing Prison, one of several he wrote. The most famous, Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing, inspired the 1932 film starring Spencer Tracy as an inmate and Bette Davis as his girlfriend. Lawes originally took the position in 1920, and remained there until 1941, overseeing the executions of over 300 prisoners. He was also known as an advocate for the sort of prison reforms originally pioneered in New York State by Thomas Mott Osborne. Lawes's father worked as a prison guard at the correctional facility in his hometown of Elmira, New York. |