Bondman Free: The Remarkable Adventures of a Gentleman Convict

Bondman Free: The Remarkable Adventures of a Gentleman Convict
By John Oxenham. A Modernized Edition, with an Introduction by Colin Heston.

John Bellenger is an honest bank cashier with a dying wife. When his employer refuses him a small advance on his salary, he takes the money anyway, gives his wife a last few happy months by the sea, and then comes home to give himself up. The judge who sentences him is the feared “Hanging Judge,” Sir James Alleyne.

Prison turns out to be the easy part. Back in the world, Bellenger loses one job after another to rumor, prejudice, and an anonymous enemy. Then, near despair, he walks up to the door of a lonely house among the sand dunes to ask for work. The house belongs to the man who sent him to prison.

What follows is shipwreck, kidnapping, a manhunt across the dunes, an escaped murderer bent on revenge, and a family secret buried in the sand. It is also an unlikely friendship between a convict and his judge, which becomes the heart of the book.

First published in 1902, Bondman Free asks questions that still matter: what punishment is for, what society owes people who have served their sentences, and how far loyalty can justify hiding the truth from the law.

Downlaod the original book here.

This edition presents Oxenham’s complete text in clear modern English, with nothing abridged. It includes:

• Louis F. Grant’s three original illustrations.

• A new introduction by Colin Heston on the novel’s ideas about crime, rehabilitation, and the lasting stigma of a criminal record.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026.175p.