"This first history of prison literature, featuring the first extensive bibliography of works by American convicts, presents a revealing view of America as seen from the bottom. Franklin redefines American literature, its history, and literary criteria. Arguing that Afro-American culture is central rather than peripheral to our literature, Franklin traces the influence of slave songs and narratives from the convict work song through I am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang to the Autobiography of Malcolm X to the poetry of the Attica rebels. In addition to rediscovering dozens of first-rate unknown or forgotten authors, Franklin shows the impact of imprisonment on such major writers as Jack London, Chester Himes, Malcolm Braly, Julian Hawthorne, Agnes Smedley, and especially Herman Melville, whose fiction is given a striking reinterpretation. Here is a landmark work for anyone interested in American literature, Afro-American culture, Marxist theory, penology, and the relations between crime and art"--Jacket.