Masaryk university

2930 Priestman, Martin. The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2003. p.22. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.Lord Lytton. 12 November 2009

3132 Priestman, Martin. The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2003. p.24 Eugene Aram. Squashed writers. 14 December 2009. http://www.btinternet.com/~glynhughes/squashed/eugenearam.html

33 Priestman, Martin. The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2003. p.24. 34 Ousby, Ian. The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1992. p.13 35 Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.342-343 36 Priestman, Martin.: Op.cit.,p.15 Priestman, Martin.: Op.cit.,p.22

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in 1839, a novel about the life of Jack Shepperd, a thief who was hanged in 1724. 3738 The author also tended to highlight the story with his experience of lower life and underworld. Also Charl es Dic kens´ Oliver Twist can be considered as Newgate novel, because the plot is concerned with crime. Dickens ´ all writings, from the newspaper sketches of the 1830s (later as Sketches by Boz) over the unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870)39 were touched with the theme of crime and criminals. Dickens showed also his deep concern about social problems. 40 His stories focused on criminals and poor life and were determined to shock the middle-class re ader s with life´s re ality whic h t hey could normally not meet in their lives. “Dickens took his criminal types and criminal scenes partly from the Newgate literature, partly from his own observation, and partly from the contemporary newspaper police reports and articles on juvenile crime. Other Newgate elements include the depiction and description of the habitants and inhabitants of the criminal underworld. Like the other Newgate novelists Dickens was accused of re pre senting cr imina ls too sympat het icall y.”41 Also Dickens depicted and portrayed criminals too sympathetically and sometimes he identified himself or his relatives with them. Another of Dickens ´ novel with Newgate elements was his historical novel “ Barnaby Rudge where Dickens took a Paul´s Clif ford´s theme of oppressive laws as instrument of an unfair legal system” . Unlike Ainsworth or Bulwer, Dickens did not arouse and provoke the sympathy for his criminals. He tried to withdraw and distance the real lives of his charact er s from the sea my side´s histories of the Newgate Calendars. His fiction was based on the indictment of a cruel and oppressive society and at the same time he involved the elements of menace and mystery. By the start of the nineteenth century, crime fiction was not only focusing on the status of justice, but shaped a commercial literature which were intended for relaxation.

37 38 Jack Sheppard. Answers.com. 23 November 2009 http://www.answers.coom/topic/jack-sheppard-novel Priestman, Martin.: Op.cit.,p.29 Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.409

39 40 Collins, Philip. Dickens and Crime. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 1995. p.114-115 Priestman, Martin. The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2003. p.27-28.

41 Priestman, Martin. .: Op.cit.,p.28

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42Later in the midst of interest stood those who followed and captured the criminals, not the criminals themselves which led to the rise of a literature of detection. The first British literary detective novel, however, did not appear until Dickens´ novel Bleak House was created. 43 3.2 The Sensation Novel The Newgate novel and the sensational novel were genres of the literature of crime, which were probably relatively in great vogue of the public. The sensation novel was a literary genre of fiction, which also focused on tales based on criminal stories. The sensation novels included elements of gothic and romantic genres. In this way the sensation novel distinguished itself from other contemporaneous genres, including the gothic novel, by using these themes in ordinary, familiar and domestic setting. 44Events happening in sensation novels were something new and different from the contemporary comfortable middle-class.45 The sensational novel was not concerned with the criminal lower world but it examined the seamy side, weak point of creditable and respectable society. The plots and involutions involved criminal deeds. Sensational novels were as tales using nervous, psychological, sexual and social scares and shocks, which underlined the whole atmosphere of the story. 46 These novels mostly were distinguished with complicated “ plots involving bigamy, adultery, seduction, fraud, forgery, blackmail, kidnapping and, sometimes, murder.” The plots were taken and chosen from real life crime, as reported in contemporary newspapers rather than from the Newgate Calendars. Sensational novel tended to be connected with a secret and also contained an explicit degree of criminal activity. Though the criminal activity in the story was not central and significant to the narrative but it helped to make the story more sensational and interesting.

42 43 Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.390,402. 44 Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2000. p.438-439 45 The sensation novel. Wikipedia Free Encyklopedia.Web 10 October 2009 Priestman, Martin. .: Op.cit.,p. 33

46 Priestman, Martin. The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.2003. p.33

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47 “ Wil kie Colli ns´s The Woman in White is sometimes called as the first true sensational novel” . 48 It was the novel written in an epistolary form and tale which can be considered as an early example of detective fiction.49 “ Di ckens ´ Great Expectations50, published also in All the Year Round from December 1860, can be also reviewed as a sensational novel.”51 “ One of the most successful of all sensation novels was Mar y Eliz abet h Braddon´s Lady Audley´s S ecr et (1861), a tale of a bigamist and arsonist” 52. The controversy plot of bigamy and attempted murder was regarded fairly immoral at the time of publishing, but it was extremely best-sel ling”

53 3.3 The Main Differences between the Newgate and the Sensation Novel One of the main differences between the Newgate novel and the sensation novel is that the latter mostly dealt with upper- and middle-class society crime. 54 In the sensation novel the scene of the crime takes place at home than on the street or open spaces, in the living room rather than in pub or public rooms. The family became the base and place for crime, and the secrets of the family are responsible for most of troubles and problems, which happen in the story. Crime and punishment applied their force and influence within the family.55 “ Although the court of law was the source for many sensation plots, sensation novels do not end in the courtroom or the prison. Crime was dealt with in and by the family.” One of the more important differences between sensation fiction and the Newgate novel are the shift of focus from crime to its

47 48 Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.439. Priestman, Martin. .: Op.cit.,p. 33 49 The Woman in White. 4 December 2009.