Convict Labour: Masking and Interchangeability in Victorian Prison Scenes.

In this article I consider Victorian prison imagery. Punitive labour was conceived of as an idealized and abstract form of modem urban labour. Mayhew and Binney's Criminal Prisons of London of 1862 contians many compelling images of prisoners moving about the prison, or exercising, wearing masks or veils in conformity with the separate system. I suggest that there is the adoption of an anti-narrative mode in the depiction of masked or veiled figures and seek to establish the kinds of gratification experienced by viewers of these images. I explore the way that W. P. Frith brings together the ideas of speculation and punitive labour in The Race for Wealth (1877-80). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]