Newgate novel

…be classed as a “Newgate novel” (named after Newgate Prison in London). While critics often condemned such novels as immoral, the public usually enjoyed them. Because the novel was also published serially, the anticipation of waiting for the next installment (and its many cliffhangers) also likely contributed to its…

…up fierce reaction against the “Newgate” school of novel writing—of which Ainsworth and Edward Bulwer-Lytton were considered exemplars—for its supposed glamorization of crime. Thereafter Ainsworth switched to historical novels based on places rather than criminals, including The Tower of London (1840), Old St. Paul’s, a Tale of the Plague and…