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