Jack Sheppard is a novel by William Harrison Ainsworth

William Harrison Ainsworth

William Harrison Ainsworth was an English historical novelist born in Manchester. He trained as a lawyer, but the legal profession held no attraction for him. While completing his legal studies in London he met the publisher John Ebers, at that time manager of the King's Theatre, Haymarket...

 serially published in Bentley's Miscellany

Bentley's Miscellany

Bentley's Miscellany was an English literary magazine started by Richard Bentley. It was published between 1836 and 1868.-Contributors:Already a successful publisher of novels, Bentley began the journal in 1836 and invited Charles Dickens to be its first editor...

from 1839 to 1840, with illustrations by George Cruikshank

George Cruikshank

George Cruikshank was a British caricaturist and book illustrator, praised as the "modern Hogarth" during his life. His book illustrations for his friend Charles Dickens, and many other authors, reached an international audience.-Early life:Cruikshank was born in London...

. It is a historical romance

Historical romance

Historical romance is a subgenre of two literary genres, the romance novel and the historical novel.-Definition:Historical romance is set before World War II...

 and a Newgate novel

Newgate novel

The Newgate novels were novels published in England from the late 1820s until the 1840s that were thought to glamorise the lives of the criminals they portrayed...

 based on the real life of the 18th-century criminal Jack Sheppard

Jack Sheppard

Jack Sheppard was a notorious English robber, burglar and thief of early 18th-century London. Born into a poor family, he was apprenticed as a carpenter but took to theft and burglary in 1723, with little more than a year of his training to complete...

.

Background

Jack Sheppard was serially published in Bentley's Miscellany from January 1839 until February 1840. The novel was intertwined with the history of Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

's Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens, published by Richard Bentley in 1838. The story is about an orphan Oliver Twist, who endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes and travels to...

which ran at the same time in Bentley's Miscellany. Dickens, previously a friend of Ainsworth's, became distant from Ainsworth as a controversy brewed over the scandalous nature around both Jack Sheppard, Oliver Twist, and other novels describing criminal life. When the relationship between the two dissolved, Dickens retired from the magazine as its editor and made way for Ainsworth to replace him as editor at the end of 1839.

A three volume edition of the work was published by Bentley in October 1839. The novel was adapted to the stage and 8 different theatrical versions were produced in autumn 1839.

Plot summary

The story is divided into three parts, called "epochs". The "Jonathan Wild" epoch comes first. The events of the story begins with the notorious criminal and thief-catcher Jonathan Wild

Jonathan Wild

Jonathan Wild was perhaps the most infamous criminal of London — and possibly Great Britain — during the 18th century, both because of his own actions and the uses novelists, playwrights, and political satirists made of them...

 encouraging Jack Sheppard's father to a life of crime. Wild, who once pursues Sheppard's mother, eventually turns Sheppard's father into the authorities and he is soon after executed. Sheppard's mother is left to raise Sheppard, a mere infant at the time, alone.

Paralleling these events is the story of Thames Darrell. On 26 November 1703, the date of the first section, Darrell is removed separated from his immoral uncle, Sir Rowland Trenchard, and is given to Mr. Wood to be raised.

The third epoch takes place in 1724 and spans six months. Sheppard is a thief that spends his time robbing various people. While he and Blueskin rob the Wood's household, Blueskin murders Mrs. Woods. This upsets Sheppard and results in his separation from Wild's group. Sheppard befriends Thames again and spends his time trying to correct Blueskin's wrong.

Characters

• Jack Sheppard
• Jonathan Wild
• Thames Darrell
• Mr. Wood
• Mrs. Wood
• Winifred Wood
• Blueskin – Joseph Blake
• Thomas Sheppard

Themes

Ainsworth's two novels Rookwood and Jack Sheppard were fundamental in popularizing the "rogue novel" or "Newgate novel

Newgate novel

The Newgate novels were novels published in England from the late 1820s until the 1840s that were thought to glamorise the lives of the criminals they portrayed...

" tradition, a combination of the historical and Gothic novel traditions. The tradition itself stems from a Renaissance literary tradition of emphasizing the actions of well-known criminals. Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard is connected to another work within the same tradition that ran alongside it for many months in the Bentley's Miscellany: Dickens' Oliver Twist. The plots are similar, in that both deal with an individual attempting to corrupt a boy. Ainsworth's boy is corrupted, whereas Dickens' is not. Both authors also cast Jews as their villains; they are similar in appearance, though Ainsworth's is less powerful.

According to Frank Chandler, the novel "was intended as a study in the Spanish style". Such influences appear in Jack's physical description and in the words of the characters, including John Gay

John Gay

John Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch...

 who states that his life is related to the stories of Guzman d'Alfarache, Lazarillo de Tormes

Lazarillo de Tormes

The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and of His Fortunes and Adversities is a Spanish novella, published anonymously because of its heretical content...

, Estevanillo Gonzalez, Meriton Latroon, and other Spanish rogues. However, there are differences between him and the Spanish characters. His personality is different, especially as he is alternately described as malicious and heroic. He is less sympathetic than his Spanish counterparts until Wild is introduced into the work, whereupon he is seen more favorably. The feud between Wild and Sheppard results in Sheppard giving up his roguish ways. When Sheppard is executed, his character has gained the status of a martyr.

The novel depicts Wild as vicious and cruel, a character who wants to control the London underworld, and, incidentally, to destroy Sheppard. Wild is not focused on the novel's main character, but finds an enemy in anyone whom he feels is no longer useful to him. This is particularly true of Sir Rowland Trenchard, whom Wild murders in a horrific manner. In addition to these actions, Wild is said to have kept a trophy case of items representing cruelty, including the skull of Sheppard's father. In his depictions of Wild's cruel nature and his grotesque murders, Ainsworth went further than his contemporaries would in their novels. As counter to Wild, no matter how depraved Sheppard acts, he is still good. He suffers anguish as a result of his actions, continuing until the very moment of his death at Tyburn

Tyburn

Tyburn is a former village just outside the then boundaries of London that was best known as a place of public execution.Tyburn may also refer to:* Tyburn , river and historical water source in London...

. This is not to suggest that his character is free from problems, but that he is depicted only as a thief and not a worse type of criminal.

Morality and moral lessons do play a part within Jack Sheppard. For instance, the second epoch begins with a reflection on the passing of twelve years and how people changed over that length of time. In particular, the narrator asks, "Where are the dreams of ambition in which, twelve years ago, we indulged? Where are the aspirations that fired us—the passions that consumed us then? Has our success in life been commensurate with our own desires—with the anticipations formed of us by others? Or, are we not blighted in heart, as in ambition? Has not the loved one been estranged by doubt, or snatched from us by the cold hand of death? Is not the goal, towards which we pressed, farther off than ever,—the prospect before us cheerless as the blank behind?"

Sources

Jack Sheppard was a well known criminal in 18th-century London. In terms of the Newgate tradition, those like Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...

 included references to Jack Sheppard in their works. Other figures, including William Hogarth

William Hogarth

William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...

, appear within the work because of their connection to the Newgate tradition. Hogarth is particularly involved because of his "Industry and Idleness

Industry and Idleness

Industry and Idleness is the title of a series of 12 plot-linked engravings created by William Hogarth in 1747, intending to illustrate to working children the possible rewards of hard work and diligent application and the sure disasters attending a lack of both...

" (1747), a series of illustrations that depict the London underworld. Sheppard's rival, Jonathan Wild, also a real criminal, is based on the same character that was used in fiction during the 18th-century, including Henry Fielding

Henry Fielding

Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....

 in his The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, the Great. Like Hogarth's prints, the novel pairs the descent of the "idle" apprentice into crime with the rise of a typical melodrama

Melodrama

The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...

tic character, Thomas Darrell, a foundling

Child abandonment

Child abandonment is the practice of relinquishing interests and claims over one's offspring with the intent of never again resuming or reasserting them. Causes include many social and cultural factors as well as mental illness. An abandoned child is called a foundling .-Causes:Poverty is often a...

 of aristocratic birth who defeats his evil uncle to recover his fortune. Cruikshank's images perfectly complemented Ainsworth's tale—Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.-Biography:...

 wrote that "Mr Cruickshank really created the tale, and that Mr Ainsworth, as it were, only put words to it."

In terms of knowledge of his subject matter and the criminal underworld, Ainsworth did not have any direct knowledge or experience. He admitted in 1878 that he "Never had anything to do with scoundrels in my life. I got my slang in a much easier way. I picked up the Memoirs of one James Hard Vaux a returned transport. The book was full of adventures, and had at the end a kind of slang dictionary. Out of this I got all of my 'patter'."

Response

With its publication, Ainsworth told James Crossley

James Crossley (author)

James Crossley was an English author, bibliophile and literary scholar. By profession he was a lawyer.-Life:He was born in Halifax, and moved to Manchester in 1816...

 in an 8 October 1839 letter, "The success of Jack is pretty certain, they are bringing him out at half the theatres in London." He was correct and Jack Sheppard was a popular success and sold more books than Ainsworth's previous novels Rookwood and Crichton. It was published in book form in 1839, before the serialised version was completed, and even outsold early editions of Oliver Twist. Ainsworth's novel was adapted into a successful play by John Buckstone in October 1839 at the Adelphi Theatre

Adelphi Theatre

The Adelphi Theatre is a 1500-seat West End theatre, located on the Strand in the City of Westminster. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiving house for a variety of productions, including many musicals...

 starring (strangely enough) Mary Anne Keeley

Mary Anne Keeley

Mary Anne Keeley, née Goward was an English actress and actor-manager.She was born at Ipswich, her father being a brazier and tinman. After some experience in the provinces, she first appeared on the stage in London on July 2, 1825, in the opera Rosina...

; indeed, it seems likely that Cruikshank's illustrations were deliberately created in a form that were informed by, and would be easy to repeat as, tableaux

Tableau vivant

Tableau vivant is French for "living picture." The term describes a striking group of suitably costumed actors or artist's models, carefully posed and often theatrically lit. Throughout the duration of the display, the people shown do not speak or move...

 on stage. It has been described as the "exemplary climax" of "the pictorial novel dramatized pictorially". The novel was also adapted as a popular burlesque, Little Jack Sheppard

Little Jack Sheppard

Little Jack Sheppard is a burlesque melodrama written by Henry Pottinger Stephens and William Yardley, with music by Meyer Lutz, with songs contributed by Florian Pascal, Corney Grain, Arthur Cecil, Michael Watson, Henry J. Leslie, Alfred Cellier and Hamilton Clarke...

, in 1885.

The story generated a form of cultural mania, embellished by pamphlets, prints, cartoons, plays and souvenirs, not repeated until George du Maurier

George du Maurier

George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier was a French-born British cartoonist and author, known for his cartoons in Punch and also for his novel Trilby. He was the father of actor Gerald du Maurier and grandfather of the writers Angela du Maurier and Dame Daphne du Maurier...

's Trilby

Trilby (novel)

Trilby is a novel by George du Maurier and one of the most popular novels of its time, perhaps the second best selling novel of the Fin de siècle after Bram Stoker's Dracula. Published serially in Harper's Monthly in 1894, it was published in book form in 1895 and sold 200,000 copies in the United...

in 1895. While it spawned many imitations and parodies of the novel, it also, according to George Worth, "aroused a very different response: a vigorous outcry concerning its alleged glorification of crime and immorality and the baneful effect which it was bound to have on the young and impressionable." One such outcry came from Mary Russell Mitford

Mary Russell Mitford

Mary Russell Mitford , was an English author and dramatist. She was born at Alresford, Hampshire. Her place in English literature is as the author of Our Village...

 that claimed after the novel's publication that "all the Chartists in the land are less dangerous than this nightmare of a book". Public alarm at the possibility that young people would emulate Sheppard's behaviour led the Lord Chamberlain

Lord Chamberlain

The Lord Chamberlain or Lord Chamberlain of the Household is one of the chief officers of the Royal Household in the United Kingdom and is to be distinguished from the Lord Great Chamberlain, one of the Great Officers of State....

 to ban, at least in London, the licensing

Licensing Act 1737

The Licensing Act or Theatrical Licensing Act of 21 June 1737 was a landmark act of censorship of the British stage and one of the most determining factors in the development of Augustan drama...

 of any plays with "Jack Sheppard" in the title for forty years. The fear may not have been entirely unfounded: Courvousier, the valet of Lord William Russell

Lord William Russell (aristocrat)

Lord William Russell , a member of the British aristocratic family of Russell and longtime Member of Parliament, did little to attract public attention after the end of his political career until, in 1840, he was murdered in his sleep by his valet.-Life:Russell was the posthumous child of Francis...

, claimed in one of his several confessions that the book had inspired him to murder his master.

In the 1841 Chronicles of Crime, Camden Pelham claimed in regards to influence of Jack Sheppard: "The rage for housebreakers has become immense, and the fortunes of the most notorious and the most successful of thieves have been made the subject of entertainments at no fewer than six of the London theatres." The negative response against Jack Sheppard heightened when the novel was blamed for inspiring the murder of William Russell.

During the outcry, Jack Sheppard was able to become more popular than Dickens's Oliver Twist. This may have prompted Dickens's friend, John Forster, to review the work harshly in the Examiner

Examiner

The Examiner was a weekly paper founded by Leigh and John Hunt in 1808. For the first fifty years it was a leading intellectual journal expounding radical principles, but from 1865 it repeatedly changed hands and political allegiance, resulting in a rapid decline in readership and loss of...

following its publication. Also, Dickens wanted to separate himself from Ainsworth and Ainsworth's writing, especially that found in the Newgate tradition. In a February 1840 letter to Richard Hengist Horne, he wrote:

I am by some jolter-headed enemies most unjustly and untruly charged with having written a book after Mr. Ainsworth's fashion. Unto these jolter-heads and their intensely concentrated humbug, I shall take an early opportunity of temperately replying. If this opportunity had presented itself and I had made this vindication, I could have no objection to set my hand to what I know to be true concerning the late lamented John Sheppard, but I feel a great repugnance to do so now, lest it should seem an ungenerous and unmanly way of disavowing any sympathy with that school, and a means of shielding myself.

In 1844, Horne wrote that Jack Sheppard "was full of unredeemed crimes, but being told without any offensive language, did its evil work of popularity, and has now gone to its cradle in the cross-roads of literature, and should be henceforth hushed up by all who have—as so many have—a personal regard for its author."

There were many negative responses from other literary figures, including Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

 who wrote in a March 1841 review, "Such libels on humanity, such provocations to crime, such worthless, inane, disgraceful romances as 'Jack Sheppard' and its successors, are a blot on our literature and a curse to our land." Also, William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.-Biography:...

 was a harsh critic of the Newgate novel tradition and expressed his views through parodying aspects of Jack Sheppard in his novel Vanity Fair. Other influences of the novel appear in Bon Gaultier Ballads

Bon Gaultier

Bon Gaultier was a nom de plume assumed by the writers William Edmonstoune Aytoun and Sir Theodore Martin.The humorous Bon Gaultier Ballads remained popular for a long time; originally contributed to a magazine, they appeared in book form in 1845....

, especially when they stated:

Charles Mackay

Charles Mackay

Charles Mackay was a Scottish poet, journalist, and song writer.-Life:Charles Mackay was born in Perth, Scotland. His father was by turns a naval officer and a foot soldier; his mother died shortly after his birth. Charles was educated at the Caledonian Asylum, London, and at Brussels, but spent...

, in 1851, re-evaluated the 1841 negative response of the novel and determined that the novel did negatively affect people: "Since the publication of the first edition of this volume, Jack Sheppard's adventures have been revived. A novel upon the real or fabulous history of the burglar has afforded, by its extraordinary popularity, a further exemplification of the allegations in the text." In particular, Mackay declares, "The Inspector's Report on Juvenile Delinquency at Liverpool contains much matter of the same kind; but sufficient has been already quoted to shew the injurious effects of the deification of great thieves by thoughtless novelists." Stephen Carver, in 2003, mentions that "it should be noted that it was the theatrical adaptations consumed by the new urban working class that were considered the social problem [...] What is apparent again and again, as one reconstructs the critical annihilation of Ainsworth, is that the bourgeois establishment neither forgave nor forgot." Furthermore, Carver as argues, "The Newgate controversy invades the textual surface like a virus. After this, the critic has carte blanche to say anything, however vicious, ill-informed or downright libellous."

At the turn of the 20th-century, Chandler points out that the "forces of literature rose in revolt" against the novel. Later, Keith Hollingsworth declared Ainsworth's novel as "the high point of the Newgate novel as entertainment". Carver argues, "Had he not abandoned the form that he had effectively originated but rather moderated the moral message to suit the times as Dickens had done, Ainsworth would have likely remained at the cutting edge of Victorian literature for a little while longer."