The Play’s the Thing
Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens visit Knebworth House in Hertfordshire as guests of playwright and author Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton in August, 1856. Other invited guests include literary figures and actresses, all of whom have roles, on or off stage, in one of Bulwer-Lytton’s plays to be performed as a charity event in the manor house. Uninvited is Bulwer-Lytton’s wife Lady Rosina, recently released from a lunatic asylum.
While actors are reciting their lines in dress rehearsal of the play, a shot rings out, and a man is killed. Bearing the costume assigned to Bulwer-Lytton, the dead body at first is thought to be the lord himself. But it turns out to be his secretary, Tom Maguire. (For the rest of this author’s review for the Historical Novel Society, see: Summer of Secrets (A Gaslight Mystery 3) - Historical Novel Society.)
https://www.amazon.com/Summer-Secrets-Gaslight-Mystery-Book-ebook/dp/B08T1W6BGB
Summer of Secrets is the third (and the first read by this author) in the Gaslight Mysteries series by Cora Harrison that follows Dickens and Collins as amateur sleuths who gather together and analyze clues to crimes. The most recent in the five-book series appears this November; the first was published in 2019. (THE GASLIGHT MYSTERIES – Cora Harrison).
Harrison has authored other mystery series: Reverend Mother, set in 1920s Cork; Burren Mysteries, in medieval Ireland; and the Victorian-era London Murder Mysteries for children. (http://coraharrison.com/tag/irish-fiction/)
The Gaslight series builds on historical and literary fact. Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins not only were writing associates, they were close friends. After the two were introduced by a mutual friend in 1851, Collins began to contribute to Dickens’ weekly magazine Household Words, formally joining the staff in 1856. From 1959 to 1861, he wrote regularly for Dickens’ subsequent periodical All the Year Round. (Wilkie Collins - Wikipedia)
Dickens supported Collins and his work, publishing Collins’ first story, A Terribly Strange Bed, for Household Words in 1852, collaborating with Collins and other writers on the story A House to Let in 1858, and serializing the novel that would make Collins famous--The Woman in White-- from November 1859 to August 1860 in All the Year Round. Dickens also may have been inspired to write A Tale of Two Cities by the Collins’ 1855 story Sister Rose set during the French Revolution. (WILKIE COLLINS AND CHARLES DICKENS (wilkie-collins.info)
The two most often collaborated on theatrical productions.
Dickens’ Amateur Theatrical Productions
From the time he was presented with a toy theater as a young boy, Charles Dickens was captivated by the theatrical world. While attending Wellington House Academy at age 12, Dickens and other boys staged several plays, including The Dog of Montargis, Cherry and Fair Star, and The Miller and His Men, a production that so realistically crashed the onstage mill to pieces with firecrackers police were once called to the schoolhouse door. (Charles Dickens, His Tragedy and Triumph, Edgar Johnson, 1952, https://archive.org/details/charlesdickenshi01john/page/26/mode/2up. )
Dickens’ formal amateur theatrical productions began in 1842 after the success of three productions he led in Montreal. Dickens’ portrayal of Captain Bobadill in Ben Johnson’s Every Man in His Humour in London that same year led to one, perhaps apocryphal, anecdote: "Ah, what an actor you would have made, Mr. Dickens, if it just hadn't been for them books." (http://web-static.nypl.org/exhibitions/dickens/)
Soon after Dickens and Collins met, they began acting in or co-writing high-end plays. In May, 1851, the two acted in Not So Bad as We Seem, written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton and staged before Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
Dickens and Collins collaborated on The Frozen Deep, a play based on the expedition by Sir John Franklin that was last seen in the Arctic in July, 1845. In addition to serving as manager of the production, Dickens assumed the role of Richard Wardour, one of a small crew of shipmates sent in search of help after their sailing ship was immobilized by ice. Also on that crew was Frank Aldersley, played by Collins, a romantic rival and object of Wardour’s revenge.
The Frozen Deep was a hit. Dickens got rave reviews for his performance; the run of the play was extended for six months; and Queen Victoria requested a private performance for the royal family on July 4, 1857. Three benefit performances were staged at New Free Trade Hall in Manchester with professional actors, including the actress Ellen Ternan, the woman Dickens is said to have loved for the rest of his life. (Charles Dickens on Stage: Amateur Acting and Public Readings (charlesdickenspage.com)
Collins’ own first play, The Lighthouse, was enthusiastically received by Dickens and produced by his Tavistock House theatrical company in 1855. Based on the 1853 short story Gabriel’s Marriage, the play was set in December, 1748 at Eddystone Lighthouse and starred Dickens as head light keeper. After running for four nights at Tavistock House, the play was then staged at Royal Olympic Theatre. An American version opened in New York in January, 1858. Revivals were performed at Boscombe Theatre in the 1870s and 1880s. The play also was translated into French.
The play No Thoroughfare, written by both Collins and Dickens, was presented at the Adelphi Theatre in the West End in 1867. After 200 performances there, the play went on tour. (Wilkie Collins - Wikipedia, WILKIE COLLINS AND CHARLES DICKENS (wilkie-collins.info)Top of Form
·Merely Players
Joining Dickens and Collins on stage were many notable writers and artists, including:
Mark Lemon, known for launching and editing the satirical weekly Punch, was also a well-regarded actor who, with Dickens, performed Bulwer-Lytton’s Not So Bad as We Seem in 1851. (Mark Lemon - Wikipedia)
Augustus Egg, an actor and costume designer. He played ship’s cook John Want in Dickens’ 1857 production of The Frozen Deep. With Dickens, he formed the Guild of Literature and Art to support struggling artists and writers. He also filled the lead role in Bulwer-Lytton’s Not So Bad as We Seem. (Augustus Leopold Egg - Wikipedia)
John Leech, a caricaturist, most notable for Punch, and illustrator of Dickens 1843 A Christmas Carol. (John Leech (caricaturist) - Wikipedia)
Clarkson Frederick Stanfield, a prominent painter particularly of sea- and landscapes, and scene painter at the Royalty Theatre in London as well as the Colburg theatre in Lambeth, Theatre Royal at Drury Lane, and Charles Dickens’ theatrical playhouse at Tavistock. (Clarkson Frederick Stanfield - Wikipedia)
John Forster, literary and dramatic critic, friend and member of Dickens’ literary circle. (John Forster (biographer) - Wikipedia)
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, writer and politician who served as a Member of Parliament from 1831 to 1866 and Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1858 to 1859. As a writer, he is credited with such phrases as “the almighty dollar” and “the great unwashed” as well as convincing Dickens to change the original ending of Great Expectations. (Edward Bulwer-Lytton - Wikipedia)
Rosina Doyle Wheeler who married Bulwer-Lytton in 1827 and separated from him four years later. She later wrote and published Cheveley, or the Man of Honour (1839), a scandalous work of fiction that satirized her husband and what she considered to be his hypocrisy. She also wrote A Blighted Life, about her incarceration by her husband in an asylum for weeks. (A Blighted Life - Wikipedia)
Ellen Ternan, an English actress who, at the age of 18, became Dickens’ love interest as his marriage to his wife Catherine was disintegrating. Called by Dickens as his “magic circle of one,” she remained with Dickens until his death. (Ellen Ternan - Wikipedia)
Summer of Secrets: Folding Fact into Fiction
A week after arriving at grand Gothic Knebworth House with Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins is bored, at least until Lady Rosina Bulwer-Lytton bursts onto the scene.
knebworth house photos - Search (bing.com)
He has joined other Dickens’ friends--Punch editor Mark Lemon, journalist John Forster, and artists Clarkson Stanfield, Augustus Egg, and John Leech--and a mother-daughter pair of professional actresses at the home of Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton to present Bulwer-Lytton’s latest play, The Lady of Lyon, and raise money for the widow and children of an actor who recently died.
Lady Rosina storms into the library where the men have gathered, stage-whispering: “My goodness. What has he done to this library? Who, on earth, chose that carpet? And the books, the lovely books that belonged to his grandfather, they are smothered by all of those vulgar books.” Noting the volumes written by her husband, Lady Rosina, raises her voice: “What a lot of rubbish that man has written!” (page 5).
In the days that follow, Lady Rosina threatens her husband, brandishing a pistol; Bulwer-Lytton’s secretary, Tom Maguire, is assaulted by guests and later he assaults an actress, a play rehearsal is interrupted by the sound of a gunshot and the discovery of the secretary’s dead body on the dimly lit stage.
Summer of Secrets highlights the theatrical work of Dickens and Collins and friends. It also plants the seeds for Collins’ future works: The Moonstone, recognized as the first detective story and police procedural:
“It would be something quite unique, wouldn’t it?” Collins speaks about writing a fictional account of the murder at Knebworth. “Not just telling a story, but engaging with the reader, going hand in hand with him. Coaxing him to guess who did the deed” (page 78).
Author Harrison adds a twist on history, wondering whether Ellen Ternan was Dickens’ daughter, not his mistress. She notes that Dickens became incensed when hearing others impute that he was having an affair with Ellen. He also set up her as well as her mother in houses in England and France, and a biographer came to the conclusion that the relationship between Ellen and Dickens was not consummated.
Harrison also points to A Tale of Two Cities, which focuses on the love between a father and a daughter, a daughter and a heroine who physically resembles Ellen Ternan, and invites readers to weigh in at: www.coraharrison.com.