We Heathens have striven to enhance the text that you’re about to experience as much as possible, with the first enhancement being the upgrade of some hyphened words to their current equivalents to render them palatable for modern eyes: to-day is now today, to-morrow has become tomorrow, and so on.

We’ve also corrected a few errors that existed within the original text. One example is at the beginning of Chapters 8 and 9 where Osborne incorrectly identified Wednesday as October 2, when it was actually October 1.

Additionally, we have corrected some of the prisoner names after comparing the information Osborne supplies within the narrative against the original Auburn Prison registry entries. Two examples are Laflam was La Flam (two words, not one), and Joseph Matto was actually Joseph Russo (who was actually McNulty — you’ll understand soon enough).

To enhance your reading of the text, we’ve added nearly one hundred footnotes to define slang and literary or archaic terms, provide English translations for foreign words or phrases, and to supplement Osborne’s narrative with context, clarification, and commentary as needed.

The original text also featured 15 footnotes by Osborne which we have retained and set apart from our own.

To further enhance the story, we have interspersed the entire book with facsimile excerpts from over three dozen original newspaper articles extracted from newspapers all over the United States and specific to the week that Osborne was locked up in Auburn. We believe these add-ons lend authenticity to the narrative and contribute sometimes interesting, sometimes confounding insight into the media’s portrayal of Osborne and his week of voluntary incarceration as it unfolded.

To read our full thoughts, check out “It’s like Brubaker before Brubaker.”

“Within Prison Walls should be read by everyone interested in the proper study of mankind. It is one of the most humanizing books ever written.” —Frank Marshall White, The Outlook

“This unique record—vivid, detailed, telling what he ate and smelled and thought, recounting how he washed and slept and saddened—creates for the reader the very atmosphere of the prison. Mr. Osborne conveys to the penitentiary novice the penitentiary feel.” —The New York Times

“A human document full of pathos and humor, of unusual revelations, and suggestive of needed improvements. A volume every citizen should read.” —The Nation

“His book . . . is one that all persons interested in prison reform should read. From cover to cover it is apparent that Mr. Osborne has taken pains to be fair toward the officials, but his sympathies are undeniably with the convicts.” —The Los Angeles Times

“Osborne’s book shows a man who simply cannot regard prisoners through the cold medium of abstract theory. They are human beings to him—men.” —Frank Tanenbaum, The Masses

“Some have eulogized Osborne for conducting his Tom Brown experiment. Some have ridiculed, and some have reviled. What few seem to realize is that, regardless of results, Thomas Mott Osborne was probably the only man who could have conducted it at all . . . he did not act Tom Brown. He was Tom Brown.” —Rudolph W. Chamberlain, There is No Truce: A Life of Thomas Mott Osborne

“Mr. Osborne is no dilettante. Nowhere is the book sentimental, but in parts it is deeply emotional. The experience is too extraordinary to spoil by nibbling quotations.” —Mary Alden Hopkins, The Publishers’ Weekly

Within Prison Walls