The student of Victorian literature is more likely to know of William Harrison Ainsworth as an influential editor and a famous dandy than to have read his novels. Ainsworth's conspicuous place in the social world of literary London in the 1830s and 1840s is no doubt part of his importance, for his life impinged upon the lives of many authors of his time, both minor and major. Yet several of his novels still deserve attention. In the brief but remarkable vogue for criminal romance or "Newgate novels," Rookwood (1834) and Jack Sheppard (1839) remain central works. And Ainsworth's early historical novels, despite the archaic style and the often wooden characterization, show by their vivid depiction of life in a turbulent past the salutary influence of Sir Walter Scott.

Born on 4 February 1805 in Manchester, the city he was later to celebrate in the partially autobiographical novel The Life and Adventures of...