The Newgate Calendar, subtitled The Malefactors' Bloody Register, was a popular collection of moralising stories about sin, crime, and criminals who commit them in England in the 18th and 19th centuries.Originally a monthly bulletin of executions, produced by the Keeper of Newgate Prison in London, the Calendar's title was appropriated by other publishers, who put out biographical chapbooks about notorious criminals such as Sawney Bean, Dick Turpin, and Moll Cutpurse.While many of its accounts are highly embellished and/or drawn uncritically from other sources, they are lively and full of incident, and often refer to contemporary events and social issues.Along with the Bible and John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, the Calendar was famously in the top three works most likely to be found in the average home[citation needed].The entries editorialise strongly against their subjects, including Catholicism, The Protectorate and Commonwealth, any political enemies of Britain (such as the French), drunkenness, prostitution ("Women of abandoned character"), gambling, "dissipation" in general and other "vices", while eulogising Protestantism, the Church of England, the English monarchy and legal system, the Common Law and Bloody Code, with some rare exceptions.
18th-century illustration of William York, age 10, murdering Susan Matthew, age 5, on 13 May 1748, from
The Newgate Calendar
. York was sentenced to hang but was eventually pardoned.