It was a period of political unrest and fears about Chartist violence, so the sudden popularity of an underclass hero was bound to concern authorities, and as Sheppard-mania took hold, so did a form of moral panic. Much to his disgust, he had seen vendors of 'Sheppard-bags' outside the theaters, selling pick-locks and crowbars as a kind of merchandising joke, and there were already dozens of reported copy-cat 'Jack Sheppard' crimes, in which young offenders either claimed inspiration from the cheeky thief’s career, or had the link made for them by magistrates and journalists.

Wood during a nocturnal burglary.ĭickens and his fellow writer William Makepeace Thackeray (both still in their early 20s) certainly envied Ainsworth’s huge readership, though Thackeray had strong moral qualms about books that glamorized vice and was unwilling to follow the trend. The scene where Bill Sikes murdered Nancy was almost as gruesome as the scene in Jack Sheppard where Blueskin slits the throat of Mrs. There was serious money to be made in these pre-copyright days when a craze as strong as this took hold, and Ainsworth’s ingenious, sexy thriller certainly hit a chord both with conventional literary audiences and a growing mass market hungry for thrills.Īinsworth had been well aware of what he was doing, telling a friend that 'to write for the mob, we must not write too well.' He thought that his young protégée, Charles Dickens, would be wise to follow this formula, and that the new boy’s second novel, Oliver Twist, was looking promisingly violent and sensational. Eight major theaters and dozens of 'penny-gaffs' were showing versions of the story, based on William Harrison Ainsworth’s bestselling novel of that year, Jack Sheppard, a romantic re-telling of the true-life crimes of Jack the Lad. ' Jack Sheppard-have you been to see Jack Sheppard?' This was the cry all over London in the winter of 1839, as people gathered to discuss the season’s most sensational novel and play.

Murder by the book by claire harman