What the Dickens!

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Jane Gallagher

It’s hard to believe that we’re coming to the end of another year, and what an exciting year it’s been! With events, anniversaries and commemorations, it feels like 2012 really has been a year to remember. Of course, it’s not over yet, but our series of Dickens exhibitions, celebrating the bicentenary of the author’s birth, is now coming to a close.

Cover of the first issue of Our Mutual Friend, May 1864

For the next six weeks, you can enjoy our fond farewell to our Dickensian celebration in our latest exhibition, “What the Dickens! Beyond the Books.” It’s on in the Templeman Gallery (accessible from the Library Cafe) and includes a cornucopia of the bizarre, banal and brilliant Dickens items in our archives.

Having examined Dickens on Stage in the nineteenth century and cartoonists’ use of Dickens’ characters in the twentieth, this time we’re investigating how Dickens’ fame and the popularity of his characters have survived and been transformed since their first success.

Do you know how Joseph Clayton Clarke made his living from Dickens’ characters? Or how Dickens became associated with music? Have you hear of Sir John Martin-Harvey, who played one of Dickens’ characters more than 4000 times on stage? What is the link between Dickens, Oliver Twist and chocolate?

Take a look at the exhibition to discover all this and more as we look ahead to the new academic year and plenty of new Special Collections discoveries.

“What the Dickens! Beyond the books” will be on display from 26 September until 6 November in the Templeman Gallery, next to the library cafe.

Nothing new under the sun?

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Jane Gallagher

Playbill from Theatre Royal, Hull, 1850

Hazel has recently been working on our Pettingell Collection of Victorian manuscript prompt copies, which includes the holograph of playwrights such as Dion Boucicault, Charles Hazlewood and G. D. Pitt. Many of these prompt copies, handwritten playscripts with multiple annotations relating to staging, scenery and production, came from the Britannia Theatre, Hoxton, and are annotated by Frederick Wilton, the Britannia’s stage manager during the latter half of the nineteenth century. These copies arguably offer more realistic evidence about what was being performed on the Britannia’s stage than the copies which were sent to the Lord Chamberlain to be passed as fit for the stage (censorship on the British stage was only abolished in 1968). These copes are now held by the British Library as the Lord Chamberlain’s Plays.

In the course of checking the status of these manuscripts, Hazel came across some overhead projector slides of playbills advertising ‘Varney the Vampire’, which led to investigation of where these should fit with the collection. As usual, in Special Collections, a straightforward task became something of a voyage of discovery; I’ve tried to summarise some of our findings here.

Illustration from 'Melmoth the Wanderer' playscript by B. West

Vampire literature became popular in the early eighteenth century, although the first real mention of a vampire in English fiction occurred in 1797 with Robert Southey’s poem Thalaba the Destroyer. During the nineteenth century, the popularity of vampire fiction was still strong; Varney the Vampire; or, the Feast of Blood first appeared as a serialised ‘penny dreadful’ in 1845 and is attributed to James Malcolm Rymer. It was of epic length; when published as a book in 1847 it had over 200 chapters and almost 667,000 words. It was this tale which provided some of the most iconic pieces of vampiric lore to later writers of Gothic fiction, for example Varney’s fangs, hypnotic powers and superhuman strength. However, Varney had no problems with sunlight, crosses or garlic. Varney also represents a creature who is a slave to his condition, finding his vampirism repellent but unable to escape it. This idea of the reluctant vampire has been echoed in fiction ever since.

Title page from Melmoth the Wanderer by C. Perkins

Varney was incredibly popular with his peers and was adapted for the stage (I can only assume in a shortened version). Another playscript which we hold (in manuscript prompt copy and printed text) is Melmoth the Wanderer, based upon Charles Robert Maturin’s 1820 novel. Although Maturin was commenting on contemporary society through this novel, it also contains some of the hallmarks of Gothic literature. In this novel, Melmoth makes a pact with the Devil to live for 150 years, and spends his life trying to find someone to make the payment for him. This, too, is an epically long tale, setting stories within stories and ranging between the New World and Europe. The connection between Melmoth and Varney? Well, it sounds a bit tenuous to me, but our manuscript copy of Melmoth has an alternative title handwritten on the cover: Varney the Vampire or the Unearthly Bridegroom.

Title page illustration from The Phantom by Dion Boucicault

The popularity of vampires in performance was closely linked to the rise of melodrama. The first staged vampire melodrama was adapted by Charles Nodier from an unauthorised sequel to John William Polidori’s The Vampyre. (Incidentally, Polidori’s tale was inspired by Byron’s entry into the now infamous 1816 ghost story writing competition which also spawned Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.) Nodier’s version was then reworked and produced at the Lyceum Theatre in 1820, as The Vampire; or, the Bride of the Isles. Dion Boucicault also wrote a contribution to the genre, first produced at the Princess’s Theatre in 1852, entitled The Vampire: a Phantasm (later renamed The Phantom).

Title page for Sweeney Todd by George Dibdin Pitt

This interest in Gothic horror and the supernatural did not go unmarked by those in authority. On Tuesday 13 November 1888, Mr Channing reported to the House of Commons on the case of ‘two boys’ awaiting their trial for murder in Maidstone Gaol and how they

had been addicted by their own confession to reading of such books as “Dick Turpin”, “Varney the Vampire: or, the Feast of Blood” and “Sweeney Todd”…and that there was an enormous circulation of criminal literature among the young…these stories attractively written were widely circulated and read by enormous numbers of children, and instigated many of them to the commission of crime

The Times, 14 November 1888, p.6

In the end, we housed the overhead projector slide with a set of negatives of a prompt copy, entitled The Feast of Blood, which looks close enough to Varney’s original incarnation to make sense. But this little bit of research has shed a whole new light, for us, on Gothic and vampiric fiction (which no-one can fail to notice has made something of a comeback in the last few years). So it seems that maybe there isn’t anything new in concerns about the effects of popular fiction/culture on young people or in popular vampires (however reluctant).

Another term over…

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Jane Gallagher

It feels like time is rushing by more and more quickly: suddenly we’ve come to the end of another term! In some ways, it’s been a long time since Christmas – one exhibition, one lecture, several seminars, a new microfilm service and new plans hatching for the next academic year. Looking back on it all, as ever, I begin to wonder how we managed to fit it all in!

Title page of a script for Barnaby Rudge by Charles Selby, 1841

Well, we’re very proud of the Dickens exhibition – if you haven’t been do make the effort and let us know what you think by writing in the comments book. Webpages for the Dickens Collection are still under construction – their progress is being slowed a little by other commitments, but they’re getting there! The Dickens display case in the entrance hall has now been refilled with Rudyard Kipling materials; do take a look at this if you get the chance. We have several first editions of Kipling’s work in our Modern First Editions Collection, including the pamphlet containing two previously unpublished Christmas letters from Kipling to young readers, generously donated by David Alan Richards through Dr. Kaori Nagai.

It was a great pleasure to welcome the University’s Melodrama Research Group into Special Collections this term and to discuss the possibilities of future research projects based on the Melville and Boucicault Collections. Lecture two in our three part series, given by Dr. Charlotte Sleigh at the Cathedral, was well attended and thoroughly enjoyed by all – we hope to purchase Dr. Sleigh’s new book ‘Frog‘ for the collection.

Image of a church porch from the W.B. Muggeridge Collection

Of course, the day-to-day work is continuing apace, with the invaluable support of our small team of volunteers who are investigating various collections in our care. One of these is the Hendrie Collection, research notes by Andrew Hendrie, who completed his PhD ‘Coastal Command, 1939-1945 : the Cinderella service‘ at the University in 2004 and later published this as a book. The collection is full of interesting and moving anecdotes from Second World War pilots across the world, and we have just begun to catalogue it. More news on this soon, we hope! Work on the Renfrew Collection is gradually edging towards public access, too and we hope to complete some cataloguing on the Donald Muggeridge Rural Collection in the next few months.

On top of that, there are some germs of ideas including colloqia, Twitter feeds and online payments which we will be investigating throughout the next year. Still to come, of course, are two more Dickens exhibitions and no doubt a summer getting involved in research while hopefully carrying on with our cataloguing and digitisation plans.

So that’s all for the next term, and the next year. For the time being, as we await the launch (in our very own reading room) of sixteen books self-published by the sixteen students of The Book Project module, we would like to wish you all a very happy, peaceful and relaxing Easter.

As ever, if you have any queries, please do get in touch.

Dramatic Dickens

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Jane Gallagher

Now that we’ve made it to the other side of the exhibition process, it’s time to look back on what we’ve achieved and where we go from here (and to breath a sigh of relief).

Programme for 'Little Em'ly' at the Adelphi Theatre, 1875

2012 was always going to be a year with plenty of Dickens, and our ambitious aim is to put on three exhibitions this year about the great author’s work. The first, Dramatic Dickens and nineteenth-century theatre is all about how Dickens’ contemporaries reacted to his works: with such enthusiasm that the author found himself swamped by pirate versions of his own stories. This features original nineteenth century playbills, books, programmes and other materials.

Dickens’ relationship with theatre in his own lifetime was rather ambiguous. In his youth, he had considered going on stage; there were plenty of opportunities for young men to pay in order to act in theatres. In the end, Dickens never reached professional theatre, although his interest in the stage is evident throughout his works. Pickwick, for example, has an actor as a major character, and Nicholas Nickleby has several episodes in which theatres, actors and plays are important (and ridiculed). However, within years of his first Sketches being published, Dickens’ writing was adapted for the stage and, for several decades, became a staple of Victorian theatre.

Illustration from 'The Cricket on the Hearth' adapted by Edward Stirling, firast performed at the Adelphi Theatre

While he may have been flattered by the attention, Dickens was soon angered by the liberties some playwrights took with his work. This was especially the case when dramatisations were produced before the serial publications were completed. Dickens put his anger into Nicholas Nickleby, ridiculing hack playwrights and adding ‘I would rather pay your tavern score for six months, large as it might be, than have a niche in the Temple of Fame with you for the humblest corner of my pedestal, through six hundred generations’.

Despite this anger, Dickens worked with theatres and playwrights to adapt his work and create new plays. He collaborated with various theatres to produce his Christmas stories, each written with the stage in mind. In collaboration with Wilkie Collins and others, he wrote plays such as A Message from the Sea. He also acted in amateur productions and performed dramatic readings to the public. Yet Dickens never achieved a professional acting career, nor did he succeed very frequently in making his own adaptation of his own work the most popular version on stage at any one time.

Sir Martin Harvey as Sidney Carton in 'The Only Way' c.1899

To experience the frenzied excitement and interest which followed Dickens on stage, come to the Library Gallery on level 1 of the Templeman Library to explore Dramatic Dickens and nineteenth-century theatre. The exhibition will run until mid-May, during normal library opening hours. Please do let us know what you think of the exhibition by writing in the Comments Book.

Two more exhibitions will follow on the theme of Dickens this year, one in the summer, looking at cartoons inspired by Dickens and one in the autumn, exploring the legacy of Dickens in the twentieth century. We’ll let you know more about these nearer the time.

So where next? Well, we still have some work to do on uncatalogued Dickens material, work on the Renfrew Collection and Hendrie Collection are ongoing and we’re hoping to get some more playbills digitised as well. And just to add some excitement to the mix, Chris and I investigated a small cache of collections this morning which had previously been unmarked and unsorted…more on that and all exciting developments shortly!

Happy Birthday Boz!

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Jane Gallagher

Today is the day that so many people have been looking forward to in 2012: the bicentenary of Charles Dickens’ birth.

Script for Oliver Twist, 1838

I’d just like to take this opportunity to say Happy Birthday Boz, if not quite as popular now as in his heyday, still standing the test of time remarkably well. Who would have thought that, two hundred years after his birth in 1812, many of Dickens’ characters and stories would be part of popular culture today? With adaptations, spoofs and much-loved inspiration, Dickens’ work continues to be as powerful and timely to us as any number of twentieth century authors.

Few people could have failed to notice that 2012 was going to bring a rush of Dickensian fans to the fore; don’t worry, I’m not going to make a stand for the literary merit or try to explain the enduring popularity of Dickens’ works. Instead, I’d like to update you about what we will be doing, here in Special Collections, to mark this year.

As you may have guessed, our 2012 will be heavily focused upon Dickens. Our Dickens Theatre Collection draws together elements of our extensive Victorian and Edwardian Theatre Collections with a small collection of Dickens ephemera, and will be the mainstay of our bicentenary celebrations. In fact, those of you who are regular visitors to the Templeman Library may have noticed that our new Welcome Hall display is already celebrating all things Dickens in the library. Do have a look, and try to guess the characters from the Kyd sketches. We’re working on pages for the website which will allow a virtual exploration of our Dickens holdings and hope that this will be up and running by May.

Playbill for 'No Thoroughfare', 1868

Currently Chris, Hazel and myself are working hard to prepare for our first exhibition of the year. Dickens Dramatised will focus on nineteenth century adaptations of Boz’s works for the theatre and explore the writer’s immense popularity on the stage. From the start, with Sketches by Boz, Dickens’ work was being transformed for the stage. While many of the playwrights reworked the novels into theatrical forms without consulting the writer, Dickens himself tried try, and on some occasions succeeded in, writing for the stage. He also acted, appearing on his own stage at Tavistock House, in 1855, under the stage name Mr Crummles in Wilkie Collins’ The Lighthouse. Dickens collaborated with Collins on several occasions to produce plays, but was rebuffed when attempting to adapt his own most popular work of Oliver Twist. Dickens Dramatised will explore the relationship between Dickens’ novels and the theatre during the height of his popularity.

More news on this coming soon, I hope!

Scene from 'The Only Way', 1899

We hope to produce two more exhibitions this year, one in the summer term, examining Dickens’ impact on visual art in the twentieth century through cartoons held by the British Cartoon Archive, and one in the autumn, looking at the Dickens craze as it moved beyond the author’s lifetime. As soon as we have dates for these exhibitions, I will let you know.

Just in case you feel that there is such a thing as too much Dickens, don’t despair; we’re also hoping to work on the Dion Boucicault Collection throughout the year, digitising playbills and cataloguing materials. Theatre is one of our key areas for development, but I am sure there will be plenty of exciting developments to the Collections during this year.

So as you’re munching on your special Dickens birthday cake, I hope that you’ll join with us in wishing Boz a very happy two hundredth birthday!

University of Kent Special Collections & Archives

News and views from the Special Collections & Archives team at the University of Kent.

Tag Archives: Theatre Collections

What the Dickens!

Nothing new under the sun?

Another term over…

Dramatic Dickens

Happy Birthday Boz!