Ink and Incarceration: The Prison Letters of Joseph Alleine

• Published in: Bunyan studies no. 27; pp. 12 - 32
• Main Author: Stephenson, Annie J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newcastle Upon Tyne Northumbria University, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences 01.01.2023
• Subjects: Christianity; Historiography; Imprisonment; Prisons; Puritanism; Sermons
• ISSN: 0954-0970

[...]little has been written about him,2 and what exists relies heavily on his first biography, The Life and Death of Mr. Joseph Alleine,3 with the emphasis almost always placed on his seminal work An Alarme to Unconverted Sinners.· The scholarship regarding this often-overlooked Puritan 'influencer' has, as a result, often been largely repeated and recycled. Following this, attention will be directed towards an analysis of his prison letters alongside other Nonconformist prison literature. Additional primary sources document the adverse conditions prevalent in prisons during that era, as well as the resulting psychological distress experienced by inmates. A journal entry authored by George Fox, the prominent Quaker leader, during his imprisonment a mere decade prior to Alleine, serves as a testament to comparably challenging circumstances: 'The Place was so Noisom, [...] in some Places to the Top of the Shoes in Water and Piss; [...] the Gaoler [...] took the Pots of Excrements of the Thieves, and poured them down through a Hole upon our Heads'.12 In contrast, Alleine's experience differed significantly from that of Richard Baxter who, while potentially idealising his experience, wrote of his incarceration: T had an honest Jaylor, who shewed me all the Kindness he could; I had a large room, and the liberty of walking in a fair Garden; and my Wife was never so cheerful a companion to me as in Prison, [...] we kept House as contentedly and comfortably as at home.'13 Like many other first-person narratives by Dissenters such as Baxter, Fox, Bunyan, and Rutherford, Alleine's letters provide a glimpse into his subjective state of wellbeing during his period of confinement, or at the very least, shed light on the way he sought to present it.