This essay, which is intended as an introductory chapter for the essays on Godwin, Bulwer-Lytton, Dickens, and Thackeray which I have already published, explores the social and historical context in which the so-called Newgate Novel of mainly the 1830's and 40's should be read. My conclusions are as follows: There are two categories of popular literature which were read even by half-illiterate English people and which seem to have contributed greatly to the conception of the protagonists of the Newgate novels. One consisted of crime news, ranging from penny broadside to The Newgate Calendar, the first standard edition of which was published in 1771. This Calendar was a voluminous collection of the accounts of lives, crimes, trials, and executions of notorious criminals. The numerous editions that followed made The Newgate Calendar a best seller throughout the nineteenth century. The other category is represented by Foxe's Book of Martyrs which, first published in the sixteenth century and used as a sort of companion volume to the Bible in English churches, became one of the most influential books of its time. To this category also belong sensational stories of the Inquisition and martyrdom which appeared in various Methodist magazines at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The two types of stories presented by these two genres (one dealing with criminals, the other, with martyrs), always told in an impersonal, matter-of-fact style and illustrated by crude engravings, seem to have overlapped in the imagination of English people and imprinted there one archetypal image of the martyr-criminal or the scapegoat-criminal. It is this image that seems to have inspired the heroes of the Newgate novels, and it is worthwhile to inquire in each Newgate novel in what way this archetypal image is modified, distorted, or intensified by the idiosyncrasies of its author. What triggered the emergence of such progagonists in the specific period of the 1830 was a heightened awareness of the social evils which were generally

making themselves felt in the England of the post Industrial Revolution, but which were particularly manifest in the irrational criminal laws, which functioned to the advantage of the rich and the oppression of the poor. The criticism which was directed at most of the Newgate novels, that they idealized, or showed too much sympathy towards, criminals, should also be understood against the same social background. While the reading public was rapidly increasing in number, and while journalism championing the rights of the working class was thriving, there was a deep-rooted fear among the ruling classes that the spread of literacy and education would result in social disturbances; from that point of view, the crimes and violence described in novels were thought to have most vicious effects upon people. This criticism was all the more harsh because the Newgate novels actually exerted much influence upon what is called Salisbury Square Fiction, or "penny dreadfuls," when they came into being in the 1840's. Looking back now, however, it seems that this criticism was based on a groundless fear, for the sensationalism of the crime literature tended to shift people's interest from politics to fiction, serving as a kind of shock absorber between opposing classes. At any rate, though, we find the social atmosphere of early-nineteenth-century England epitomized in the Newgate Novel and the controversy over it.