Joan Henry sentenced to 12 months imprisonment. She served eight months, the majority at Holloway prison, and also at Askham Grange open prison. Before her imprisonment, Henry earned a living writing romance novels. She came to prominence in 1952 with the publication of "Who Lie in Gaol" (the title was taken from a line in Oscar Wilde's "The Ballad of Reading Gaol"), based on her experiences in prison, which became a best-seller. Henry was critical of Holloway prison, giving accounts of brutal treatment and neglect she had witnessed. The book was the basis for the film "The Weak and the Wicked" (1953),
Oscar Wilde His discussion of the dismissal of Warder Martin for giving biscuits to an anaemic child prisoner, repeated the themes of the corruption and degeneration of punishment that he had earlier outlined in "The Soul of Man under Socialism". Wilde spent mid-1897 with Robert Ross in the seaside village of Berneval-le-Grand in northern France, where he wrote "The Ballad of Reading Gaol", narrating the execution of Charles Thomas Wooldridge, who murdered his wife in a rage at her infidelity. It moves from an objective story-telling to symbolic identification with the prisoners. No attempt is made to assess the justice of the