Original sentence: During the 140 days of his imprisonment there he wrote the marvellous iambes (in alternate lines of 12 and 8 syllables), which, in the words of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, "hiss and stab like poisoned bullets," and which were transmitted to his family by a venal gaoler
Edited sentence: During the 140 days of his imprisonment there he wrote the marvellous iambes (in alternate lines of 12 and 8 syllables), which hiss and stab like poisoned bullets, and which were transmitted to his family by a venal gaoler