The Newgate novels (or Old Bailey novels) were novels published in England from the late 1820s until the 1840s that were thought to glamorise the lives of the criminals they portrayed. Most drew their inspiration from the Newgate Calendar, a biography of famous criminals published at various times during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but usually rearranged or embellished the original tale for melodramatic effect. The novels caused great controversy and notably drew criticism from William Makepeace Thackeray, who satirised them in several of his novels and attacked the authors openly. A novel (from French nouvelle Italian novella, new) is an extended, generally fictional narrative, typically in prose. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London (de facto) Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2006 est. ... The Newgate Calendar, subtitled The Malefactors Bloody Register, was a popular work of improving literature in the 18th and 19th centuries. ... A melodrama, in the broadest sense, is a serious drama that can be distinguished from tragedy by the fact that it is open to having a happy ending. ... William Makepeace Thackeray William Makepeace Thackeray (18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was an English novelist of the 19th century. ...

Among the earliest Newgate novels were Thomas Gaspey's Richmond (1827) and History of George Godfrey (1828), Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Paul Clifford (1830) and Eugene Aram (1832), and William Harrison Ainsworth's Rookwood (1834), which featured Dick Turpin as its hero. Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist (1837) is often also considered to be a Newgate novel. The genre reached its peak with Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard published in 1839, a novel based on the life and exploits of Jack Sheppard, a thief and renowned escape artist who was hanged in 1724. Thackeray, a great opponent of the Newgate novel, reported that vendors sold "Jack Sheppard bags", filled with burglary tools, in the lobbies of the the theatres where dramatisation of Ainsworth's story were playing and "one or two young gentlemen have already confessed how much they were indebted to Jack Sheppard who gave them ideas of pocket-picking and thieving [which] they never would have had but for the play." George Godfrey (II) The Leiperville Shadow (b. ... The Lord Lytton Novelist and politician Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (May 25, 1803–January 18, 1873) was an English novelist, playwright, and politician. ... Paul Clifford is a novel published in 1830 by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton. ... Eugene Aram (1704 - August 6, 1759), English philologist, but also infamous as the murderer celebrated by Hood in his ballad, The Dream of Eugene Aram, and by Bulwer Lytton in his romance of Eugene Aram, was born of humble parents at Ramsgill, Yorkshire. ... Caricature from Punch, 1881: TO THE GREATEST AXE-AND-NECK-ROMANCER OF OUR TIME, WHO IS QUITE AT THE HEAD OF HIS PROFESSION, WE DEDICATE THIS BLOCK AD MULTOS ANNOS! William Harrison Ainsworth (1805 - 1882) was a British writer. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Dickens redirects here. ... Oliver Twist (1838) is Charles Dickens second novel. ... Jack Sheppard in Newgate Prison Jack Sheppard (December 1702 – 16 November 1724) was a notorious English robber, burglar and thief of early 18th century London. ...

Thackeray's Catherine (1839) was intended as satire of the Newgate novel, based on the life and execution of Catherine Hayes, one of the more gruesome cases in the Newgate Calendar: she conspired to murder her husband and he was dismembered; she was burnt at the stake in 1726. The satirical nature of Thackeray's story was lost on many, and it is often characterised as a Newgate novel itself. 1867 edition of the satirical magazine Punch, a British satirical magazine, ground-breaking on popular literature satire. ... Burning of two sodomites at the stake (execution of individuals by fire. ...

The publication of Catherine coincided with the serialization of Ainsworth's novel, but it was the murder in 1840 of Lord William Russell by his valet, Benjamin Courvoisier, that spurred the authorities to act. Courvoisier was reported to have been inspired to the act by a dramatisation of Ainsworth's story. Although Courvoisier later denied that the play had influenced him, the furore surrounding his case led the Lord Chamberlain to ban the performance of plays based on Jack Sheppard's life, and sparked off a press campaign which attacked the writers of Newgate novels for irresponsible behaviour. Courvoisier's execution led to further controversy. It was one of the best attended hangings of the era, and Thackeray and Dickens both witnessed the execution, Thackeray using it for the basis of his attack on capital punishment, On Going to See a Man Hanged. His most vigorous attack in the piece was reserved for Dickens, specifically for Oliver Twist, which Thackeray regarded as glorifying the criminal characters it depicted:^[1] This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The Lord Chamberlain or Lord Chamberlain of the Household is one of the chief officers of the Royal Household in the United Kingdom, and is to be distinguished from the Lord Great Chamberlain, one of the Great Officers of State. ... Oliver Twist (1838) is Charles Dickens second novel. ...

Bah! what figments these novelists tell us! Boz, who knows life well, knows that his Miss Nancy is the most unreal fantastical personage possible; no more like a thief's mistress than one of Gesner's shepherdesses resembles a real country wench. He dare not tell the truth concerning such young ladies. Nancy Sikes is the sympathetic lover of Bill Sikes in the novel Oliver Twist, in its film versions, and in the stage and film version of the musical Oliver!. She was corrupted at the age of six by Fagin, the seemingly lovable (but heartless) villain who persuades otherwise innocent youths... Solomon Gessner (April 1, 1730 - March 2, 1788), Swiss painter and poet, was born at Zürich. ...

It was believed that the character of Fagin was based on the real pickpocket Ikey Solomon, but while Dickens did nothing to discourage this perceived connection, he was at pains not to glorify the criminals he created: Bill Sikes is without redeeming features, and Fagin seems pleasant only in comparison to the other grotesques Oliver meets as his story unfolds. Fagin is a fictional character in the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. ... Cover of The First Fagin by Judith Sackville-ODonnell featuring an image of Mr. ... Bill Sykes is a fictional character in the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens He is one of Dickenss most menacing characters and a very strong force in the novel when it comes to having control over somebody or harming others. ...

The Newgate novel was also attacked in the literary press, with Jack Sheppard described as a "one of a class of bad books, got up for a bad public" in the Athenaeum, and Punch published a satirical "Literary Recipe" for a startling romance, which began "Take a small boy, charity, factory, carpenter's apprentice, or otherwise, as occasion may serve - stew him down in vice - garnish largely with oaths and flash songs - Boil him in a cauldron of crime and improbabilities. Season equally with good and bad qualities...".^[2] The attacks were enough to make Ainsworth and Lytton turn to other subjects; Dickens was made of sterner stuff and continued to use criminals as the central characters in many of his stories. The Athenaeum was a literary magazine published in London from 1828 to 1921. ... Punch was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire published from 1841 to 1992 and from 1996 to 2002. ...

Among the last of the pure Newgate novels was T.P. Prest's 1847 story of love among criminals, Newgate: A Romance. The form melded into the sensation novels and early detective fiction of the 1850s and 1860s. The former included transgressions outside the purely criminal, such as Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White (1859); an early example of the latter is The Moonstone (1868), again by Collins. All were often serialised in a form that gave rise to the penny dreadful magazines. The sensation novel was a literary genre of fiction popular in Great Britain in the 1860s and 1870s. ... Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes Detective fiction is a branch of crime fiction that centers upon the investigation of a crime, usually murder, by a detective, either professional or amateur. ... Wilkie Collins William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and writer of short stories. ... The Woman in White is an epistolary novel written by Wilkie Collins and published in 1859. ... The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century epistolary novel, generally considered the first detective novel in the English language. ... It has been suggested that this article be split into multiple articles accessible from a disambiguation page. ... Penny Dreadful can refer to: The 19th century British penny dreadful publications. ...

Notes

References

• Why Thackeray went to see a man hanged. Collected Essays of Albert Borowitz 1966-2005. Legal Studies Forum. Retrieved on 4 February 2007.
• Newgate Novel. Bloomsbury.com. Retrieved on 4 February 2007.
• Simon Joyce (1995). "Resisting arrest/arresting resistance: crime fiction, cultural studies, and the "turn to history."". Criticism. Retrieved on 4 February 2007. 

February 4 is the 35th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the Anno Domini (common) era. ... February 4 is the 35th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the Anno Domini (common) era. ... February 4 is the 35th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the Anno Domini (common) era. ...

Further Reading

• Keith Hollingsworth (1963). The Newgate Novel, 1830-1847: Bulwer, Ainsworth, Dickens & Thackeray. Wayne State University Press.