The 18th century of Britain had suffered from various issues. Most of these issues were results of the growth in population. The wealth wasn’t divided equally either, leading society to be divided into classes, which would be a fundamental issue for the next centuries.One of the most important issues of the period was crime, which took a highlighted role in the newly growing literature form: novel.

The Industrial Revolution changed the life of each single person forever. While some have lost their jobs to their rivals, machines, some grow richer thanks to the same machines. Now some works could be done much faster and professionally. The Industrial Revolution would also create a mass production culture and eventually lead to consumerism in the upcoming centuries.

Printing press, scientific journals, coffee houses and popular periodicals were a great help for novel to become so popular. People would gather in coffee houses, read journals and books, and get to have literary discussions with some of the important literary figures. While the society grew financial gaps, the ones between the literary and illiteracy shortened.

The British Empire was growing quickly and drastically with the reign of King George III. The colonies in India, America and South Africa were supporting the Empire drastically. The privileged people of the Britain had a showy, rich lifestyle while the poor suffered from many issues concerning hygiene, security, and health. There was a drastic gap between different parts of the society. The poor people thus had to consult fewer noble means of accessing food and goods. The crime rates were quickly rising. Alcohol was a favoured beverage that would be consumed excessively. The growing population forced multiple people to sleep in a single bed. Life qualities were dropping for the poor parts of the society.People did not have much security in general. Everyone was at all times at risk of facing threatening situations such as a robbery, murder, thievery, or rape. Prostitution was also a common way of crime practice, resulting from the need of money for essential goods and food.

As a solution for the idle, poor, sick and homeless people, workhouses were introduced in 1722. The aim was to give these people both a work and a home in return. If we look at the workhouses through a utilitarian perspective, we see that these places have done good for the society: The crime rates were lower and there were few people sleeping and stinking on the streets. However, the workhouses did not go as planned: the residents of these workhouses found no relief nor a hygienic and healthy living condition. The system was corrupted, allowing the authorized people to be as unjust as they would wish. Later in the early 19th century, we see Charles Dickens portraying these issues perfectly. He focuses on both workhouses and crimes in Britain heavily. One of his most favoured novels, Oliver Twist, follows its child protagonist who by a misfortune leads a life of misery, encounters a group of thieves in London streets.

An important figure of these period is  Jonathan Wild, who ran a criminal empire. He was involved with a wide range of crime activities during his lifetime. He was a gang leader who stole, blackmailed, loundered, and manipulated.

“There was nothing a man would not steal.” States the London Chronicle about the period, “William Pinkethman was indicted for stealing ten gallons of beer, ten gallons of ale, and three iron hoops. One stole in the same breath a camblet cloak, a Bermuda hat, forty-three guineas, a pair of stays, a thin flank of beef, and sixty-three yards of printed lawn. And of course there were such jolly things to steal-grogram and cambrick’d head clothes and Padusov Petticoats.” (24)

These crimes have affected the society severely and eventually found their places in the newly raising literary genre: novels. At first, novels had no such name, they were only referred as “non-fiction books”. This new type of literature became popular quickly and lead masses to follow this tradition. The common people who are literate likes to read novels as most of them demonstrated their likenesses. Reading about people like themselves gave them joy.

The earliest novels were moralistic and didactic. They aimed to give moral lessons to the reader. The characters were now had more dimensions than ever before. The reader was able to weight the positive and negative sides of characters and have a better moral understanding in mind.

Realism was an important issue, leading the novels to carry the qualifications of verisimilitude. Realism was crucial so that the reader can get better moral messages from the novels. Crime was depicted in a realist manner so that the society could be better informed and warned about it. People were found of crime biographies as well as they offered a realistic approach towards this issue.

Daniel Defoe was one of the leading authors of novels. He wrote many of the first novels of English literature. One of the themes he stressed on was crime in Britain. He successfully and unequally expressed crimes in Britain society and all the possible underlying issues. In his works “The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard”, “A Narrative of all the Robberies, Escapes &c. of John Sheppard”, and “The Trues and Genuine Account of the Life and Actions of the Late Jonathan Wild”, he examined this issue thoroughly.

Mall Flanders by Daniel Defoe is another important literary work that successfully epics the era and the crime rates and culture. The story revolves around its unfortunate protagonist, Mall Flanders who ultimately by force or by choice founds herself as a criminal. She steals from wealthy people and takes her chances with prostitution. The novel gives important moral lessons to the reader. These events were not much different than what the reader of the period was going through, which is one of the reasons behind the popularity of the novel.

Pamela by Samuel Richardson is also an important novel of the same period, depicting the similar crime themes. The story also has many important lessons to give about chastityand honesty.

When we take a closer look to the period and all the literary works produced within, we can come up with the conclusion that the social events and situations had a massive impact in the scenarios people most favoured reading, one of the leading themes of which being crime in Britain, which collected many liking from all parts of the society for its realistic views and common characters.

References

Emsley, Clive. Crime and Verein in England, 1750–1900. Routledge, 2018.

Rosewall, Kim. “Moll Flanders Plot Summary.” LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 12 Feb 2020. Web. 7 Aug 2021.

Sherwin, Oscar. “Crime and Punishment in England of the Eighteenth Century.” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, vol. 5, no. 2, [American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc., Wiley], 1946, pp. 169–99, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3483581.

Smith, Lacey Baldwin, et al. “United Kingdom”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 9 Jan. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/place/United-Kingdom. Accessed 13 January 2022.

Ward, Richard M. Print culture, crime and justice in 18th-century London. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.