Newgate Prison - in Literature

In Literature

  • A record of executions conducted at the prison, together with commentary, was published as The Newgate Calendar, which inspired a genre of Victorian literature known as the Newgate novel.
  • The prison appears in a number of novels by Charles Dickens, including Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty and Great Expectations, and is the subject of an entire essay in his work Sketches by Boz.
  • The prison is also depicted in:
    • Daniel Defoe's novel Moll Flanders
    • William Godwin's novel Caleb Williams
    • Michael Crichton's novel The Great Train Robbery
    • Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle
    • Leon Garfield's novel Smith
    • Joseph O'Connor's novel Star of the Sea – where one section concerns a character's imprisonment and subsequent escape from Newgate.
    • Louis L'Amour's novel To The Far Blue Mountains – where the main character Barnabas Sackett is first imprisoned and later escapes from Newgate.
    • Bernard Cornwell's novel Gallows Thief
    • David Liss's novel A Conspiracy of Paper and the sequel, A Spectacle of Corruption
    • John Gay's Ballad Opera The Beggar's Opera
    • Richard Zacks's novel The Pirate Hunter (The True Story of Captain Kidd)
    • Wachowski brothers' film V For Vendetta
    • George MacDonald Fraser's novel Flashman's Lady
    • Jonathan Barnes' The Somnambulist
    • Marguerite Henry's novel King of the Wind
    • C J Sansom's novel Dark Fire
    • Jackie French's novel Tom Appleby Convict Boy
    • Coventry Patmore's poem A London Fete
    • James Norman Hall and Charles Nordhoff's novel Botany Bay
    • Kathleen Winsor's novel Forever Amber
    • Donald Thomas's short story "The Execution of Sherlock Holmes."
    • Robert McCammon's novel Speaks The Nightbird Volume 2 – Evil Unveiled
    • T.C. Boyle's novel Water Music

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