CRIME #5: Wim Tigges on Crime & Dickens

Charles Dickens was fascinated with crime, and in particular with punishment. These are at least subsidiary themes in all of his novels and in many short stories, where petty and great criminals occur in plenty, from deceitful Mr. Jingle in The Pickwick Papers to the alleged murderer John Jasper in the uncompleted Mystery of Edwin Drood. Bleak House was one of the first novels in English to introduce a detective officer. In this lecture, however, the focus will be on Dickens’s acquaintance with Thomas Wainewright (1794-1847), who was suspected of murder and convicted for insurance fraud. Dickens met him on a visit to Newgate prison, where Wainwright was awaiting transportation to Tasmania, and he became an inspiration for one of his lesser-known short stories, ‘Hunted Down’.