Newgate Calendar

''The Newgate Calendar'', subtitled ''The Malefactors' Bloody Register'', was a popular work of improving literature in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Originally a monthly bulletin of executions, produced by the Keeper of Newgate Prison in London, the Calendar's title was appropriated by other publishers, who put out biographical chapbooks about notorious criminals such as Sawney Bean, Dick Turpin, John Wilkes and Moll Cutpurse.

Collected editions of these stories began to appear in the mid-18th century, and in 1774 a five-volume bound edition became the standard version. While many of its accounts are highly embellished and/or drawn uncritically from other sources, they are lively and full of incident, and often refer to contemporary events and social issues. Along with the Bible and John Bunyan's ''The Pilgrim's Progress'', the ''Calendar'' was famously in the top three works most likely to be found in the average home.

The entries editorialise strongly against their subjects, Catholicism, The Protectorate and Commonwealth, any political enemies of Britain (such as the French), drunkenness, prostitution ("Women of abandoned character"), gambling, "dissipation" in general and other "vices" generally while eulogising Protestantism, the Church of England, the English monarchy and legal system, the Common Law and Bloody Code, with some rare exceptions. One edition contained an introduction suggesting that swindling be made (another) capital offence.

A new edition was published in 1824 by Andrew Knapp and William Baldwin, two lawyers, and a further edition in 1826, under the title, ''The New Newgate Calendar''.

A penny dreadful edition of The New Newgate Calendar appeared between 1863 and 1866. The name ''Newgate Calendar'' was also used as a term expressing all crime;

In literature

Tom Cringle in Michael Scott's novel Tom Cringle's Log apologises for interrupting the pirate smuggler Obed's confessional story, saying "It was not quite the thing to cut you short in the middle of your Newgate Calendar, Obed--beg pardon, your story I mean; no offence now, none in the world--eh?"

Thomas Carlyle wrote, in his ''Life of Friedrich Schiller'': "Look at the biography of authors! Except the Newgate Calendar, it is the most sickening chapter in the history of man."

References

External links

The Newgate Calendar
Online reading and multiple ebook formats at Ex-classics.

Versions from the
Internet Archive
*

Searchable database of the ''Calendar''

Penal system in England
1774 non-fiction books
1774 in England
Books about England
Crime books
Newgate Prison
British biographies
Chapbooks

{{crime-book-stub