Tag Archives: Charles Dickens

August 22, 2025 · 3:23 pm

George W. M. Reynolds’ French Hero Alfred

As I work my way through the works of George W. M. Reynolds, I repeatedly am amazed by his ability to create engaging plots full of exciting twists and turns while also offering social criticism. Alfred, The Adventures of a French Gentleman (1838) is no disappointment in this regard, even though it is well into the novel before we meet the titular character. One of Reynolds’ earliest novels, it has all the signs of a precursor to his masterpiece The Mysteries of London (1844-1846). There is even a minor villain named Markham in it—the surname of the two brothers, one good, one evil, Reynolds would use in The Mysteries of London.

Although not a true Gothic novel, Alfred is full of interest, and because it is a little-known work, I’ll summarize the plot before mentioning a few of its interesting elements.

The novel begins when a French family escapes from The Reign of Terror to England in 1793. The father is the Marquis de Denneville, but he hides his identity in England to protect his family. Soon after arriving, his wife dies. His daughter, Eloise, is left under the guardianship of the Clayton family, which includes two brothers, William and Harry, who treat the marquis’ daughter like a sister. When he believes it safe, the marquis returns to France to try to regain his property, but he never returns. In time, his daughter grows up to marry Harry, never knowing the truth about her parents’ identity, though she believes her father was a French nobleman.

Harry and Eloise have a daughter named after her. (To eliminate confusion, I’ll refer to the daughter as Eloise below while Harry’s wife will be Mrs. Clayton.) Harry soon after dies, leaving Mrs. Clayton and Eloise under the care of Mrs. Clayton’s brother-in-law, William. When Eloise is a teenager, they travel to France to try to learn more about Mrs. Clayton’s parentage. There they encounter Alfred de Rosann, a young businessman, who immediately falls in love with Eloise. Alfred has inherited his father’s business, but he does not give it the attention it deserves, causing him eventually to get advice from LaMotte, a man who helps turn around the business, resulting in Alfred agreeing to make him his partner. But LaMotte only wishes to take advantage of Alfred. He dupes Alfred into signing certain papers for a fake loan, then flees to the Netherlands with Alfred’s money, leaving Alfred to be arrested when his business fails and he can’t pay the fake loan. Eloise pledges her love for Alfred and agrees to wait for him when he is sentenced to prison.

LaMotte tricks Alfred into signing the bills of exchange.

In prison, Alfred meets Belle-Rose, a hardened criminal, and Champignon, a restaurant owner who went to prison for crimes committed in an effort to destroy his competition. Eventually, Alfred and Belle-Rose escape from the prison with the help of LeBlond, an old acquaintance of Belle-Rose. LeBlond gives them two passports for when they escape. In exchange, he expects them to carry out services for a secret society when called upon. Later, we learn this society seeks to bring about a new government in France and possibly the world.

Before they escape from prison, Alfred and Belle-Rose learn the story of a prisoner who murdered a wealthy man and hid his papers in a farmhouse. Alfred and Belle-Rose, in their flight, happen to arrive at that very farmhouse, and in the night, Alfred discovers the papers and hides them on his person. He does this just before the farmhouse catches on fire. In the melee that follows, he helps rescue the farmer’s other guests, discovering them to be Eloise, Mrs. Clayton, and William. Eloise and Alfred again pledge their love for one another, and William Clayton supports their engagement, but Mrs. Clayton does not want her daughter to marry a penniless ex-convict. She vows she will never relent unless Alfred learns who her father was. Of course, the papers Alfred found belonged to the marquis, who had been murdered, and the reader guesses this when they are found, but the novel has to play itself out before Alfred can read the papers and make sufficient inquiries to realize Mrs. Clayton is the marquis’ daughter and restore the marquis’ property to her.

Alfred and Eloise meeting during the farmhouse fire

Alfred travels to England with the papers, thinking from what little he has read of them that he will be able to learn about the murdered marquis’ family there. Belle-Rose also travels there separately from him. Belle-Rose was awake when Alfred found the papers and saw him hide them. He is now determined to have them to use to receive some type of reward. He presents himself at the marquis’ banker in England before Alfred does, but the banker, Robson, trusts Alfred and not Belle-Rose. Robson is especially grateful to Alfred after he invites Alfred to dinner along with his future business partner, who turns out to be LaMotte, the very man who had cheated Alfred out of his business and framed him to go to prison. Robson is grateful to Alfred when he denounces LaMotte because it saves him from having LaMotte ruin him also. Belle-Rose fails to gain the papers, and in time, Alfred realizes Mrs. Clayton is the marquis’ daughter.

More twists and turns happen as Alfred tries to return to France, including a highway robbery scene, and Robson’s daughter, Selena, falling in love with Alfred, but Alfred remains true to Eloise. Alfred also secretly carries a small fortune back to Paris for LeBlond.

Alfred returns in time to be caught up in the July 1830 revolution, in which Belle-Rose dies. These scenes reminded me of Les Misérables (1862), a similarity also noted by Reynolds’ biographer, Stephen Basdeo (p. 30, Victorian England’s Bestselling Author: The Revolutionary Life of G. W. M. Reynolds). I think it a stretch to argue Hugo could have been influenced by the novel, plus he treats the 1832 Revolution instead. Still, I think Reynolds captures the feel of the period. He was himself a Francophile and lived in France from about 1832-1836, so he understood the French character and political situation of the time. That he chooses a Frenchman for his hero shows how sympathetic he was to the French people.

Belle-Rose wounded during the 1830 Revolution. The image depicts him dying in Alfred’s arms, but Alfred actually takes him to a nearby house where he dies later.

To make a long story short, in the end, Alfred reveals Mrs. Clayton is the marquis’ daughter, and he and Eloise are wed. LaMotte also asks Alfred’s forgiveness before he dies. He leaves Alfred his fortune as well as proof Alfred was innocent, which clears Alfred of all criminal charges.

This plot summary cannot convey the interest with which I read the novel. The main plot of how Mrs. Clayton will learn her true identity and regain her inheritance is largely predictable, but much of the novel is both sensational and surprising. Plenty of humor is also included in the novel, especially in the depiction of Champignon, who is obsessed with food.

As far as Gothic elements go, the most notable is the finding of the marquis’ manuscript in the farmhouse. Manuscripts that reveal family secrets are a staple of the Gothic. Notably, the farmer knows the marquis was murdered in that room, and when he offers the room to Belle-Rose and Alfred to sleep in, he warns them it is believed to be haunted, causing Belle-Rose to make jokes and reference the works of Mrs. Radcliffe.

Reynolds also has fun playing intertextual games. In one scene, a character sings a song Reynolds had previously published in Pickwick Abroad (1837-8), a novel in which he appropriated Dickens’ characters and sent them to France.

Alfred’s fighting in the 1830 Revolution and his helping the invisible secret society seem like precursors to how Richard Markham in The Mysteries of London will aid in bringing about a revolution in an Italian dukedom.

The peasants in the novel continue to revere Napoleon, even though the main action takes place in the late 1820s, but Reynolds says the ignorant peasants always will revere Napoleon, a sign Reynolds was not himself a fan of the man who was largely France’s national hero, but he ends the novel on a note of hope that France will know peace and prosperity now that the 1830 revolution is over.

Overall, the novel is a vital document, along with some of Reynolds’ other works, including The Modern Literature of France (1839), Pickwick Abroad, and Robert Macaire (1839), for our understanding of Reynolds’ favoritism toward French culture and literature. (See my book Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides for more on how Reynolds was influenced by French literature.) Alfred also shows mastery of complex and multiple plots and the weaving together of all the threads to a satisfying conclusion. Best of all, the reader’s interest never lags. The same year Alfred was being serialized, Dickens was serializing Nicholas Nickleby, a novel that is better known and still read today, yet Nicholas Nickleby largely wanders about without any clear purpose as if Dickens is just making it up as he goes along. From the beginning of Alfred, we know the purpose of the entire book is to find out what happened to the marquis and to have Eloise and her mother restored to their rightful property. Dickens is known to have hated Reynolds, and you can’t blame him after Reynolds’ appropriated his characters for Pickwick Abroad, but at the same time, Dickens could have learned a lot from Reynolds. As much as I admire Dickens, at times, he can easily put a reader to sleep, especially in his early novels. I can’t imagine falling asleep while reading anything by Reynolds.

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Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City, and The Mysteries of Marquette: A Novel, plus many other fiction and nonfiction titles. Visit Tyler at http://www.GothicWanderer.com, http://www.ChildrenofArthur.com, and http://www.MarquetteFiction.com.

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Filed under Charles Dickens, Classic Gothic Novels, George W.M. Reynolds

Tagged as 1793 Reign of Terror, Alfred, Alfred or The Adventures of a French Gentleman, Charles Dickens, George W. M. Reynolds, July 1830 Revolution, secret societies in 19th century France, The Modern Literature of France, The Mysteries of London

April 1, 2025 · 4:19 pm

Walt Whitman’s Lost “City Mysteries” Novel

I first heard of Walt Whitman’s lost novel, The Life and Adventures of Jack Engle, when I was writing my book Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides, which contained a chapter on City Mystery novels. It was then I discovered that Wikipedia had an entry listing City Mysteries novels, including this novel by Walt Whitman. I’ve been trying to read all the City Mystery novels (and even wrote one of my own, The Mysteries of Marquette), so I was curious about Walt Whitman’s novel, especially since I had never heard of him writing any novels. It turns out he wrote several stories and novels besides his famous poetry collection, Leaves of Grass. I am no Whitman scholar, but I am a City Mysteries scholar, so I had to read his lost novel.

The 2017 reprint by Iowa University Press of Whitman’s lost novel

The Life and Adventures of Jack Engle has a curious history. It was published in 1852 in the New York Sunday Dispatch in six installments. A relatively short novel of twenty-two chapters that runs just over a hundred pages in print, its short period of serialization is not surprising. What is surprising is that critics have labeled it a City Mysteries novel since most City Mysteries novels run 400 pages or more and were serialized for about a year or longer. The novel was serialized anonymously, and Whitman’s authorship was kept a secret and then forgotten until a graduate student, Zachary Turpin, saw an old advertisement for the novel and recalled references to Jack Engle in Whitman’s notebooks. Turpin’s introduction to the 2017 University of Iowa Press edition—the first time the novel was reprinted in 165 years—discusses his discovery in more detail.

Here, I will focus solely on the novel’s plot and discuss whether it is a true “City Mysteries” novel, a term Turpin doesn’t use in his introduction, although he notes it’s more a novel about social reform and compares it to works by Dickens—truly it feels like it was mainly inspired by David Copperfield, as I’ll discuss below. I’m not sure who first labeled Jack Engle as a City Mysteries novel, but it may be David S. Reynolds, a Whitman expert at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, who was quoted in The New York Times (February 20, 2017) when the novel was republished, as stating, “This is Whitman’s take on the city mystery novel, a popular genre of the day that pitted the ‘upper 10 thousand’—what we would call the 1 percent —against the lower million.” This remark references a novel by George Lippard, who wrote The Quaker City (1845), America’s first City Mysteries novel. Lippard later wrote New York: Its Upper Ten and Lower Million, published in 1854, two years after Whitman’s novel was published. I wouldn’t fully agree with Reynolds’ definition of a City Mystery novel, but he is correct that such novels usually did depict the very rich and the very poor and the unfair class distance between them. Whitman’s novel is somewhat lacking in this respect, but it does contain the typical secrets and revelations common in most Victorian fiction and not limited to the City Mysteries’ genre. The novel’s short length, however, does not have multiple plots that allow for the larger overview of society and its classes.

The main character, Jack Engle, is an orphaned boy who doesn’t really remember his past. One day he wanders into the store of a milkman, Ephraim Foster, and ends up being adopted by Foster and his wife. When Jack is grown, Ephraim Foster brings Jack to Covert, a lawyer, to serve as an apprentice. There Jack meets Wigglesworth, the elderly office clerk, who hints to Jack he knows the truth about his origins.

In time, we learn Covert is the guardian to a young girl named Martha whose parents died when she was just one or two. Covert’s wife is a Quaker, which means she is kind, but Covert ironically turns out to be a villain. His name suggests he engages in covert behavior, keeping secrets concealed. By the end of the novel, Jack learns from Wigglesworth that Covert has kept quite a few secrets he has profited from.

Like all good Gothic and City Mysteries novels, a manuscript surfaces that tells the whole story, written in the hand of Martha’s late father. It turns out that Martha’s father (we are never told his name) was friends in his youth with Jack’s father. But Martha’s father prospered while Jack’s father remained a workman. As Martha’s father began to put on airs, Jack’s father started to make sarcastic and mocking remarks about him. This behavior continued when Martha’s father built a new house and hired a contractor. The contractor employed Jack’s father as one of the workers. One day, Martha’s father heard Jack’s father mocking him in front of the other workers. In anger, he hit Jack’s father over the head, killing him instantly. Martha’s father then went to prison where he wrote his confession—the manuscript Wigglesworth gives to Jack Engle to read. Martha’s father’s grief is so great that he dies the day of his trial. He has in the meantime altered his will to leave two-thirds of his estate to Martha and one-third to Jack to compensate Jack for the loss of his father.

Once Jack learns these secrets, he manages to get papers away from Covert that show how Covert has been withholding their inheritances from him and Martha. He and Martha flee New York to escape pursuit by Covert. After Covert realizes he’s in trouble since the papers are lost, he seeks refuge in Canada and is never heard from again. (A rather anticlimactic resolution to the plot in which no real justice is done.) Meanwhile, Jack and Martha have fallen in love, and at the end of the novel, they are married.

A series of other characters are involved in the plot, though they are of little real consequence. They include Inez, a dancing girl, who gives Martha shelter when she flees; Tom Peterson, who helps Martha and Jack escape; Calvin Peterson, a religious fanatic and Tom’s father; and two Jewish characters, Madame Seligny and her daughter Rebecca. Madame Seligny claims to be an émigré of the French Revolution, but she is actually Jewish and runs a gambling parlor. There’s a touch of anti-Semitism here, as is typical in Gothic novels of the time; gambling was deeply frowned upon by the Victorians as a transgression against God, so it’s not surprising a Jewess is the one involved in it rather than a Christian. (For more on gambling as a Gothic transgression, see my book The Gothic Wanderer.)

Does The Life and Adventures of Jack Engle qualify as a City Mysteries novel? I would have to say it is a wannabe City Mysteries novel that doesn’t quite make the cut. Nor am I convinced Whitman set out to write a City Mysteries novel. As I stated above, the novel feels more akin to Dickens’ David Copperfield than Eugene Sue’s The Mysteries of Paris, George W. M. Reynolds’ The Mysteries of London, or even the American George Lippard’s The Quaker City. Yes, we have a secret to be revealed, but that is the case in most Gothic novels. And while the novel is set in New York, it hardly gives us a representation of a large overview of society with characters from all the classes. Nor is there much sense of a criminal element or criminal underground other than Covert and a firm that seems to help him in his crimes. It is not a novel concerned with the poor, other than the brief time Jack is a poor child at the beginning. Nor does it have any sense of Gothic atmosphere. The city is not depicted as a scary place full of mystery. In City Mysteries novels, usually strange events occur that other characters don’t understand and they may even attribute to supernatural causes. Jack Engle fails to have this sense of mystery and suspense, which is akin to the more modern film noir.

What we do have is a first-person narrator, unusual in City Mysteries novels because of the multiple plots, who is our title character and narrates the story of his life. In fact, the novel’s subtitle is “An Autobiography: in which the reader will find some familiar characters.” Why the characters are thought to be familiar isn’t clear unless Whitman believes he’s depicting typical character types. The plot is similar to that of David Copperfield in that the main character ends up revealing crimes committed at the office where he works, only in David Copperfield, David works for Mr. Wickfield, and Wickfield’s employee, Uriah Heep, is the villain robbing the company and its customers; in Jack Engle, the employer, Covert is the villain. In David Copperfield, the villain Heep is romantically interested in Agnes, the daughter of his employer. In Jack Engle, Covert is not romantically interested in anyone—he’s married—but he’s willing to rob his ward like Heep robs Agnes’ father. In both novels, the title character/narrator helps reveal the crimes. In both novels, that same character also marries the young lady being wronged. Both novels are also “autobiographies” and tell the entire history of the narrator up to his marriage. The similarities are not exact parallels, and David Copperfield, being about eight times as long, has a much more complicated plot, but there are enough similarities for me to believe David Copperfield, published in 1850, just two years before Jack Engle, was a major influence on Whitman’s novel.

As is typical of Gothic novels, in Jack Engle, a crime has been committed that has been kept secret. As is also typical of the Gothic, the plot concerns family, revealing secrets about both Jack and Martha’s parentage. That Jack marries the daughter of the man who killed his father is a sort of generational healing and redemption for their parents, and while it doesn’t really resemble the plot of Wuthering Heights (1847), it has that sense of healing the past and restoring the status quo that occurs when the Linton and Earnshaw heirs, Hareton and Cathy, marry at the end of Wuthering Heights, while no one of the villainous Heathcliff’s lineage remains alive.

Overall, The Adventures of Jack Engle is a second-rate novel that fails to have a complicated enough plot to keep the reader in suspense. The secrets are presented in a way that does not invite the reader to be curious about the mysteries because they are laid bare too easily. Only after Wigglesworth tells Jack everything does he present the manuscript to Jack that reveals the secrets, but the manuscript is a dull read for the reader since we already know the secret. Whitman’s construction is consequently rather clumsy. A philosophical chapter of Jack wandering in a graveyard is also pointless and doesn’t advance the plot or develop the characters. Perhaps clumsiest of all, Whitman names the dog Jack, the same name he gives to his main character.

Nothing of genius or originality exists in Jack Engle. It is highly derivative of David Copperfield and other Victorian fiction while failing to be genre-specific enough to be considered a true City Mysteries novel or even an early detective novel. In short, it reveals that Whitman’s talents did not lie in fiction but rather in poetry. Still, it highlights what an influence Victorian Gothic fiction had on writers of the day since Whitman would try his pen at writing such a book—though probably more for money than a desire to write a great piece of literary fiction. The novel also adds to our understanding of Whitman as a man of various literary interests beyond just the poetry that has made him famous. Despite Jack Engle’s faults, it makes me curious to read Whitman’s earlier fiction works, Franklin Evans; or The Inebriate: A Tale of the Times (1842), which is a temperance novel, and The Half-Breed; A Tale of the Western Frontier (1846), a novel published more than half-a-century before Owen Wister’s The Virginian (1902), considered the first true Western novel.

While The Adventures of Jack Engle holds no significant place in the history of Gothic fiction or the City Mysteries genre, it does provide insight into the publishing world of Whitman’s time and how he worked at his craft before he became, in the words of Allen Ginsberg, America’s “lonely old courage teacher.”

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Tyler Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition, Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City, and The Mysteries of Marquette: A Novel, plus many other fiction and nonfiction titles. Visit Tyler at http://www.GothicWanderer.com, http://www.ChildrenofArthur.com, and http://www.MarquetteFiction.com.

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Filed under Charles Dickens, City Mystery Novels

Tagged as Charles Dickens, City Mysteries Novels, David Copperfield, The Life and Adventures of Jack Engle, Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman's lost novel, Zachary Turpin

January 5, 2025 · 3:06 pm

Long Overdue Biography of George W. M. Reynolds a Must-Read

Thank you, Stephen Basdeo and Mya Driver, for writing Victorian England’s Bestselling Author: The Revolutionary Life of G. W. M. Reynolds. This book, published in 2022, provides the first full-length biography of the man who may have been more popular than any other Victorian author, including Charles Dickens and William Harrison Ainsworth. While critics have long been dismissive of Reynolds and many literary scholars do not even know his name, a growing body of Reynolds scholars has been reviving his reputation. I have myself written numerous blog posts about his novels (links to some of them are included below), and I also wrote extensively about many of them in my book Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Literature, 1789-1897 (2023). Unfortunately, this new biography came out too late for me to use it as a resource in writing my own book, but I have read it with great pleasure, and it only makes me want to read more of Reynolds. Unfortunately, few of Reynolds’ novels have been printed in readable editions, so I have only so far read a dozen of his fifty-eight novels.

This biography fills in a lot of blanks about Reynolds’ life and even clarifies some misconceptions and fanciful stories about him, such as that he employed Thackeray while living in France or that he became a church alderman at the end of his life. More importantly, it shows how Reynolds developed and refined his views on the social problems of his day and how he was a true champion of the people in ways not even Charles Dickens could claim.

One aspect of the biography that particularly interested me was the discussion of Reynolds’ early life, his short stint in the military, and his life in France. The authors seem to have read almost everything Reynolds wrote, and they quote him frequently. In fact, Basdeo is a collector of first editions of Reynolds’ novels. Passages of Reynolds’ first book, The Errors of the Christian Religion Exposed, are quoted. His time spent in France is discussed, which led to his interest in French literature, his writing The Modern Literature of France, his translating several French novels, and his being inspired by French literature in writing his own fiction, such as his novel Robert Macaire.

While Reynolds’ fiction has always been my chief interest, I was also impressed by how Basdeo discusses why Reynolds was willing to change his views on important topics. Initially, Reynolds was pro-British imperialism, but in time, he became a champion for those oppressed by the British Empire. He was also against being a teetotaler, but after engaging in a public debate on the matter, he changed his mind and even went on to publish a magazine called the Teetotaler.

Reynolds’ role in the Chartist movement will especially be of interest to readers. We learn about his public speeches, his contemporaries’ opinions of him, including Charles Dickens and Karl Marx, and how he used his nonfiction publications to further the causes he believed in, such as bettering the situation of the working class and giving the vote to all men regardless of how much property they owned.

Basdeo discusses the significance of many of Reynolds’ novels, including The Mysteries of London, The Seamstress, and The Soldier’s Wife. I would have liked more discussion on some of the novels, especially my favorites like Wagner the Wehr-Wolf, Faust: A Romance of the Secret Tribunals, and The Parricide, but they are all mentioned. I should mention here that another wonderful book on Reynolds appeared recently—G. W. M. Reynolds Reimagined (2023) edited by Jenifer Conary and Mary L. Shannon. It includes essays discussing many of the novels, as well as Reynolds’ popularity in India, and his role as an employer with his workers. Those wanting more literary criticism beyond what Basdeo includes would do well to consult it because I feel every essay in it is excellent and it is one of the best books I have read in the last year. That said, Basdeo could not possibly discuss in detail every Reynolds’ novel and his discussions made me want to read all of those I have not read.

As an employer, Reynolds was also ahead of his time. Basdeo includes some information also mentioned in an essay in G. W. M. Reynolds Reimagined about how Reynolds annually hosted a mini-vacation for his employees including taking them on a picnic, a sort of employee appreciation day. As Basdeo notes, Reynolds used these events as a way to promote his own generosity in his magazines, but they still show he was ahead of his time in how he treated his employees.

Details of Reynolds’ family life are also discussed, including his marriage with his wife Susannah who was an author herself, and the growth of his large family, both children and grandchildren and what became of some of them.

A few special treats in the book worth mentioning include the large number of photographs in the center insert that show many of the illustrations and covers of Reynolds’ novels. The complete texts of all of Reynolds’ editorials for the Political Instructor (1849-50), transcribed by Mya Driver, are included in the back; they provide Reynolds’ opinions on politics, the Chartist movement, and European politics, especially in France. Dr. Rebecca Nesvet, a scholar of penny dreadfuls, provides the foreword, advocating for why Reynolds deserves serious attention from scholars. I could not agree more and join with Basdeo in wishing a publisher would come out with a scholarly series of Reynolds’ novels. So far, only Valancourt Books has republished a few of them, and most are difficult to find. Finally, a useful timeline of Reynolds’ life is provided.

No book is perfect, and I admit this biography has a few flaws, but they are insignificant beside the fact that it is the first biography about an author who deserves to be a household name along with Dickens. Among the shortcomings is no mention of French author Paul Féval, who wrote his own The Mysteries of London before Reynolds and may have inspired Reynolds to do the same. After all, Féval was the first to capitalize upon the popularity of Eugene Sue’s The Mysteries of Paris, which would go on to have many imitations (including The Mysteries of Lisbon, which Basdeo is currently translating into English). The book also has numerous typos and some awkward sentences, but hopefully as more information about Reynolds becomes available, the authors will come out with a second edition and correct these errors, which did not distract from my keen interest and pleasure in reading the book. Such faults are small compared to the significant undertaking and achievement it is to have written the first full-length biography of George W. M. Reynolds, who literally wrote circles around Dickens. I believe everyone, scholar or reader, interested in Reynolds will embrace this biography.

You can learn more about Stephen Basdeo and his work at his website: Reynolds’s News and Miscellany.

Victorian England’s Bestselling Author: The Revolutionary Life of G. W. M. Reynolds is available from Pen and Sword Books and most online bookstores.

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Filed under Charles Dickens, City Mystery Novels, Classic Gothic Novels, George W.M. Reynolds

Tagged as Charles Dickens, Chartist movement, City Mysteries, French literature, George W. M. Reynolds, Karl Marx, Mya Driver, penny dreadful, Rebecca Nesvet, Stephen Basdeo, Teetotaler, The Mysteries of London, Victorian England's Bestselling Author, Victorian Fiction, Victorian politics

June 21, 2024 · 2:53 pm

A Cry for Military Reform: George W. M. Reynolds’ The Soldier’s Wife

George W. M. Reynolds has received a lot of attention at this blog for the Gothic elements in many of his novels. While The Soldier’s Wife is not Gothic but realistic, it retains the sensationalism that marked Reynolds’ work, complete with manipulative villains and family secrets. While the novel, like most of Reynolds’ works, has received little critical attention, it is noteworthy as having been popular enough that soldiers in 1853 were banned from buying Reynolds’s Newspaper in which it was serialized from 1852-1853 (Knight p. 87). Because it is not well known, I will mostly offer a plot summary of the novel here and then some commentary on a few points of interest.

Plot Summary

The Soldier’s Wife begins in the year 1826 in the village of Oakleigh, which is owned by Sir Archie Redburn. We are introduced to Frederick Lonsdale, an orphan whose parentage is not known. He was raised by Mrs. Grant, who receives money from an unknown source to care for him. When the novel opens, Lonsdale is now a young man, and we learn Mrs. Grant has died in a fire in her cottage, thus erasing any chance that Lonsdale, who is a day laborer, will ever know the mystery of his birth.

Lonsdale is in love with Lucy Davis. Her father is bailiff for Sir Archie. Mr. Davis wants Lucy to marry Sir Archie’s son, Gerald. After Lonsdale has a run-in with Gerald, Gerald tells him he’ll never work for his father or any of his tenants again. Lonsdale is also disliked for spreading seditious ideas about how the poor are oppressed by the rich. As a result, Lonsdale has to leave town to find work, and he has difficulty finding it. Lucy promises to love him regardless.

Sergeant Langley now comes to town looking for recruits. He embellishes the joys of a soldier’s life and recruits the local barber, Mr. Bates, to help recruit men, giving Mr. Bates a referral fee for each new enlistee. In time, Lonsdale decides his best hope to support himself is also to enlist. He does so but has a forty-eight-hour period in which he can renege on the decision. When he tells Lucy he has enlisted, she convinces him to change his mind, believing they can run away and live on her savings. However, when Lonsdale tells Sergeant Langley his decision, he is arrested until he can pay the fine for reneging on his decision. Lonsdale, who thinks the barber Bates is his friend, asks him to collect money from his friends, but because Bates is getting paid by Langley, he arranges that the money doesn’t arrive in time; Lonsdale is then forced to stay in the army.

Meanwhile, Gerald Redburn has also decided to join the army. He is a weak, sickly, and immoral youth, but he will become an officer because his father can buy him the position. Before Gerald leaves, with Lonsdale now out of the picture, Mr. Davis invites Gerald to his home and encourages his interest in Lucy. Later, Mr. Davis forcefully tries to persuade Lucy to marry Gerald, despite her wanting to stay true to Lonsdale. Gerald goes to join the army but continues to correspond with Mr. Davis about arranging the marriage.

Bates now convinces Sir Archie to let him be in charge of the mail by moving the postal box to his barbershop. As the novel’s most interesting villain, Bates is completely unscrupulous, secretly reading the letters that pass through the postal box. In this way, he learns of Redburn’s interest in Lucy, and because he stays in touch with Langley, he tells him about the situation. Langley then taunts Lonsdale with news that Lucy will soon marry someone better than him. In despair, Lonsdale deserts and returns to Oakleigh.

Mr. Davis continues to coerce Lucy into marrying Gerald. After an emotional scene in which he warns her if she doesn’t do so, he will disinherit her and she will be a parricide because her disobedience will kill him, Lucy flees from the house only to find Lonsdale approaching it.

Lonsdale and Lucy leave Oakleigh, are secretly married, and then live under assumed names. He teaches school and she does needlework. A year passes and they also have a child, named Fred after his father. All is well until Lonsdale accidentally meets Bates in Carlisle. Bates is there supposedly investigating what happened to fifty pounds lost in the mail via his post office. (Of course, he stole and spent it.) Because he needs to come up with the money, Bates blackmails Lonsdale into giving him fifty pounds in exchange for his silence. After Lonsdale does so, Bates still tells Langley where Lonsdale is.

Lonsdale is arrested and court-martialed. He receives 500 lashes. Lucy goes to Colonel Wyndham to beg that Lonsdale be shown mercy, but when the colonel tries to seduce her, she leaves. The flogging scene in Chapter 19 is excruciating, and Reynolds clearly objects to the practice. Lucy remarks that England is not a Christian nation, its religion a mockery, and that the flogging is a Satanic deed. Lonsdale barely survives the experience, but he insists on receiving the full punishment in one bout, despite pieces of flesh flying off him and the onlookers feeling sickened. He then spends six weeks recovering in the hospital before resuming his soldierly duties.

Lucy finds lodgings near the military barracks and continues to take in needlework. Meanwhile, Gerald begins to harass Lucy and taunt Lonsdale. When the couple can no longer stand the abuse, Lonsdale deserts again. This time the couple and their child flee to Calais. However, via letters from Mr. Davis’ new wife, Kitty, Lucy learns her father is ill, so they return to England to see him. Lonsdale is instantly arrested and endures another flogging, but this time he is also branded. Reynolds, in Chapter 24, refers to the brand as a “Mark of Cain,” although Lonsdale is not a murderer like the biblical character, nor has he committed any real sin.

Meanwhile, Bates is accused by the villagers of reading the mail. Lonsdale, who realizes Bates must have read Lucy and her father’s correspondence, which allowed him to arrange for Lonsdale’s arrest, now seeks revenge by turning the authorities on to his illegal practices. Sir Archie has hired someone to investigate the mail situation, and they trap Bates in a manner that proves his guilt. When Bates is arrested and sentenced to being transported for fourteen years, Lonsdale gleefully sends him a letter stating he has now received his revenge. However, Bates ends up escaping and sends a letter to Lucy stating that he will never quit tormenting them. He then reveals to Lucy that Lonsdale has been branded under his right arm, which Lonsdale has kept from her (obviously Lucy is a Victorian who does not see even her husband’s naked arms).

As for Gerald, he decides since he couldn’t have Lucy, he will now seduce Mr. Davis’ young second wife, Kitty. What Gerald doesn’t know is that Mr. Davis has decided to let Gerald seduce her so he can divorce her because she is a spendthrift; then he can sue Gerald and receive money. While Gerald is flirting with Kitty, his parents are trying to arrange for him to marry Lady Adela, who is visiting them. When Davis begins legal proceedings against Gerald and resigns as Sir Archie’s bailiff, Lady Adela ends the relationship. Besides, she is in love with another, Reginald Herbert. Her mother opposes the marriage until Reginald inherits a relative’s property, and then they are married later in the book.

At this point, a mysterious stranger enters the novel who offers to help Gerald hurt Lucy. This stranger is the most Gothic figure in the novel because he looks like a monster. Reynolds takes great delight in sharing the character’s hideous looks, and each time he is reintroduced into the story, Reynold reminds us who he is but says he will spare the reader the grotesqueness of a description since they have read the description before. I won’t spare the reader. Here is the description in Chapter 30:

“Heavens, what a countenance! It was of a deep livid hue, marked with immense seams, as if it had been shockingly burnt in a fire, or had been seared with a red-hot iron. One eye was extinguished—that is to say, the sight was evidently gone, and the orb looked of a dull leaden hue like that of a fish that has been a long time out of the water. The other possessed the power of vision, but was all in flamed and red—the lashes were burnt off—and it seemed as if the pupil were set in a mass of congealed gore. A part of the nose appeared to be eaten away: the lips were swollen and puffed out to three times their natural size, looking larger than the mouth of any negro; and their hue was that of the slips of liver that are exposed for sale in cat’s meat shops. As before stated, this horrible object was clothed in the coarsest and most poverty-stricken manner; and his entire appearance was too disgusting—too loathsome—even to inspire pity.”

The man tells Gerald to call him Smith and he claims his appearance is the result of his being caught in a fire.

Lonsdale by this point has started drinking to cope with his miserable situation as a soldier. He begins coercing Lucy into giving him her money from needlework so he can buy liquor. She implores him to stop drinking, but he only drinks more. When he learns Gerald has tricked Lucy into going to a place where she will be ravaged by him, Lonsdale rescues her in time, but by striking Gerald, he gets into more trouble. Colonel Wyndham tries to hush up the matter since he’s had to borrow money from Gerald. Smith actually has manipulated this entire scene and seems like he is trying to hurt both the Lonsdales and Gerald.

Mr. Davis continues his suit against Gerald, which results in his wife returning to her family, the Colycinths. The court awards Davis 1,500 pounds.

Next, Lonsdale drinks away the money for his family’s Christmas dinner. He then tricks Lucy’s employers into returning the deposit she had to pay to receive needlework from them; of course, he drinks away that money also. Lucy is now unemployed. Lonsdale then gets into a fight in the barracks with Gerald, and when Sergeant Langley intercedes, Lonsdale accidentally rams a bayonet into Langley’s arm. At this point, Lonsdale is arrested. Because of his past desertions and current behavior, the court sentences him to execution.

Earlier in the novel, we were introduced to Gerald’s Aunt Jane, Sir Archie’s sister. She has repeatedly been nasty to Gerald, mocking him. Now she becomes so belligerent that the family thinks her insane. When Gerald tells the family that Lonsdale has been sentenced to death, Aunt Jane shrieks and faints. Mr. Colycinth, the village apothecary, is called in to see to her.

And now comes the revelation of the novel’s big secret. Mr. Colycinth is not the Redburns’ regular family physician, so he is not familiar with their home. He also has a grudge against the Redburns because Gerald’s attempted seduction of his daughter, Kitty Davis, has ruined her reputation. Now, upon seeing Aunt Jane, Mr. Colycinth realizes he has been in her room before. He then acts in an eccentric manner, counting his steps downstairs and out of the house as he leaves Aunt Jane’s room. He then asks to speak to Gerald, to whom he reveals his secret.

Years before, when Mr. Colycinth was a struggling young man starting out, he was called upon to attend secretly to a young lady who was ill. He was blindfolded and then driven about in a roundabout way in a carriage before arriving at the house. He then counted his steps as he was led up the stairs. He delivered a baby for a young woman who was veiled at the time. Upon seeing Aunt Jane’s room, and counting the steps again, Mr. Colycinth realizes he delivered Aunt Jane’s baby. It turns out Lonsdale is Aunt Jane’s son. The father is the Rev. Arden. Aunt Jane and the reverend did not stay lovers after that, but Rev. Arden arranged for the financial care of Lonsdale until Mrs. Grant died.

When Sir Archie learns that Lonsdale is his nephew, he feels great remorse for how Lonsdale has suffered at the Redburn family’s hands. He goes to London to try to obtain a reprieve of Lonsdale’s sentence. Even Gerald, with threats from his father, agrees to help Lonsdale. Sir Archie gets the reprieve and then gives it to Gerald, who hurries to stop the execution. However, later, Gerald’s corpse is found dead on the road. Reginald Herbert, the lover of Lady Adela, also finds the monster-faced Smith on the road, unconscious, and the reprieve on his person. Smith apparently murdered Gerald to stop Lonsdale from being saved. Reginald hurries to the place of execution with the reprieve but arrives too late.

Smith is now revealed to be the barber Bates. Because Bates swore revenge on Lonsdale, he stopped the reprieve from reaching him. We learn when Bates escaped before he could be transported, he intentionally changed his appearance by using vitriol on his face, only the results were worse than he had expected. Although now sentenced to the gallows, Bates shows no remorse, only gloating that Lonsdale is dead.

Sir Archie offers Lucy and her child a home since the child is his sister’s grandson, but Lucy refuses. Reginald and Lady Adela then offer Lucy a home, which she accepts.

The novel ends with a summary of what became of the characters. Lucy’s father dies in jail after his servant Sarah turns on him by revealing she gave false evidence at the trial. Mr. Colycinth is then able to get his daughter’s name cleared. Colonel Wyndham becomes a peer after a relative dies; he enters the House of Lords and continues to support flogging in the army. Sergeant Langley gets an inheritance, buys a public house, and becomes a drunk. Lucy inherits her father’s property but dies within three years. After her death, Reginald and Adela care for little Fred Lonsdale, but being a sickly child, he also dies in three years. Oddly, the novel tells us nothing of who inherits the Redburn property. Although Aunt Jane is full of remorse for the past, she outlives all of the rest of the family, so we can assume she is the last of the Redburn line.

The Soldier’s Wife is a rather depressing novel, and while realistic in the sense of it not having a nicely wrapped up happy ending, it is one of Reynolds’s less satisfying novels because the hero ends in misery. We want to see Lonsdale triumph in the end, but instead, we have a tale of how evil people destroy good people, though the evil mostly suffer from the repercussions of their actions in the end. Like in Hamlet, we are left with almost all of our main characters dead. That said, the novel never bores the reader, constantly keeping us wanting to learn what happens next, even if there is no overarching plot that drives the action forward.

Literary Devices and Influence

A few interesting literary devices and influences are worth discussing.

The first is the big revelation toward the end of the novel that Frederick Lonsdale is really Jane Redburn’s son. Doubtless, Reynolds was familiar with Henry Fielding’s novel Tom Jones (1749) and was inspired by the plot in creating the backstory for his main character. In Tom Jones, the titular character is the illegitimate son of Squire Allworthy’s sister, Bridget. The squire, like Sir Archie in relation to Lonsdale, is unaware of Tom’s origins because his sister never reveals the truth of Tom’s parentage. However, unlike Lonsdale, Tom grows up with his family, competing with Blifil, Bridget’s legitimate son and thus his half-brother (though he doesn’t know they are related). Lonsdale has to compete with his cousin Gerald in a sense for Lucy’s affections and respect in the military. Only late in the novel is Tom’s parentage revealed, and the same is true for Lonsdale in The Soldier’s Wife. Reynolds, however, transforms Fielding’s comic plot into a tale of misery.

Another interesting plot device is the role of letters in the novel, specifically how they are read by those who have no right to read them. This plot device goes back to Samuel Richardson’s epistolary novels in which letters are stolen by some characters to learn secrets about other characters. Reynolds used the device previously in The Mysteries of London where the London postal system cannot be trusted and postal employees read letters before sending them on to the addressees. Notably, Reynolds in this instance was inspired by the real-life scandal that broke when the Italian patriot Giuseppe Mazzini’s letters were steamed open by the British Post Office under the direction of Home Secretary Sir James Graham. Vital intelligence about an imminent uprising in Calabria was then communicated to the Austrian authorities that were occupying Italy, resulting in the arrest and execution of the rebel Bandiera brothers, which caused public outrage in Great Britain (Haywood p. 183). Given that Reynolds named his second son after Mazzini (Hackenberg p. 215), he clearly was inspired by this incident. Here in The Soldier’s Wife, Reynolds uses the letter device to allow one criminal character, Bates, to profit.

Bates is also partly inspired by a character in Eugene Sue’s The Mysteries of Paris (1842-3). When Reynolds has Bates uses vitriol to disguise himself and the result is worse than expected, he is borrowing from Sue’s character of The Schoolmaster who also uses vitriol to disguise himself with the same result (Hackenberg p. 214).

The novel was clearly written not only for entertainment but to try to enact reform in the military, especially in terms of flogging. Consequently, soldiers were banned from reading Reynolds’s Newspaper, in which the novel was serialized. That said, it did not seem to lead to any reform in the military that has been traced unlike some of the reform efforts that were inspired by Dickens’ novels. Beyond the efforts for military reform, the novel contains plenty of other social criticism. Most notably, in Chapter 35, when a political meeting is held in the town of Middleton, the soldiers are called in to keep the peace. Lonsdale feels guilty over having bayoneted one of the starving workers because they are protesting. The meeting itself has been called to protest what Reynolds refers to as the “fraud” perpetrated by the Reform Bill of 1832. That he does not clarify what the fraud was makes it clear his readers probably already knew why the Reform Bill was problematic from his perspective. Stephen Basdeo has argued that Reynolds believed the Reform Bill gave control of parliament to the aristocracy and moneyocracy (Basdeo p. 151).

One final point of interest I’ll raise may be a bit of a stretch, but for me, Mr. Colycinth’s secret mission to deliver Aunt Jane’s child recalls for me the scene in Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities (1859) where Dr. Manette is called to treat two wounded people. Since Dickens’ novel was published six years after Reynolds’ novel, it is possible Dickens read The Soldier’s Wife and might have been consciously or subconsciously inspired by it, though Dickens would have never admitted it; comments Dickens made about Reynolds show he clearly disliked him and had his reasons for doing so. (See my previous blog posts on how Reynolds appropriated Dickens’ work by writing Pickwick Abroad and Master Timothy’s Book-Case.) That said, literary critics have hypothesized that Dickens probably read Reynolds and may have been influenced by his plot structure to change his own novel structure from Dombey and Son (1848) onward (Knight, p. 97, see below).

I have written extensively elsewhere about Dickens’ sources in writing A Tale of Two Cities. (See my books The Gothic Wanderer and Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides). I think the possibility exists that in The Soldier’s Wife, we have another source that scholars have ignored. Mr. Colycinth’s description in Chapter 39 of how he was led blindfolded to a secret location to deliver Jane Redburn’s child and rendered unable to reveal the secret because he was blindfolded recalls to me the scene in A Tale of Two Cities (Book the Third, Chapter 10) where Dr. Manette reveals how he was taken to a mysterious location to treat some people who were wounded.

Dr. Manette is not blindfolded, but he is not told who his clients are, only that they are people of quality. He ends up treating a man and his sister who have been mistreated by the Evremonde brothers, one of whom is a marquis. They try to pay him for his services, but he refuses. Later, under a false ruse, the Evremondes arrange to have Dr. Manette kidnapped and imprisoned in the Bastille. The scenes are not overly similar, but the secrecy of the situation and the fact that both include a medical man makes one wonder if there could be an influence.

Overall, The Soldier’s Wife is a fascinating contribution to Reynolds’ overall oeuvre. I wish it were better known and a scholarly edition would be produced of it and of all of Reynolds’ many amazing novels. Reynolds’ studies are still in their infancy, so I look forward to reading more of his novels, blogging about them, and reading other critics’ commentary on them. I will add that the recent excellent collection of essays, G.W.M. Reynolds Reimagined (2023) (two of the essays are sources for this blog post), is worth reading to learn more about Reynolds and his amazing body of work. One of the authors, Stephen Basdeo, has also written his own excellent post on The Soldier’s Wife at https://reynolds-news.com/2021/07/01/g-w-m-reynolds-soldiers-wife-stephen-basdeo/

Sources:

Basdeo, Stephen. “‘One of the Bastards of the Mountain’: George W. M. Reynolds’s Red Republican and Socialist Ideology.” G.W.M. Reynolds Reimagined: Studies in Authorship, Radicalism, and Genre, 1830-1870. Eds. Jennifer Conary and Mary L. Shannon. New York, NY: Routledge, 2023. p. 146-64.

Hackenberg, Sara. “Sisterhoods, Doppelgangers, Republicans: Reynolds’s Radical Mysteries.” G.W.M. Reynolds Reimagined: Studies in Authorship, Radicalism, and Genre, 1830-1870. Eds. Jennifer Conary and Mary L. Shannon. New York, NY: Routledge, 2023. p. 205-27.

Haywood, Ian. “George W.M. Reynolds and the Republic of Europe.” G.W.M. Reynolds Reimagined: Studies in Authorship, Radicalism, and Genre, 1830-1870. Eds. Jennifer Conary and Mary L. Shannon. New York, NY: Routledge, 2023. p. 181-202.

Knight, Stephen. “Two Mid-Nineteenth Century Popular Radical Novelists: G.W.M. Reynolds and Wilkie Collins.” G.W.M. Reynolds Reimagined: Studies in Authorship, Radicalism, and Genre, 1830-1870. Eds. Jennifer Conary and Mary L. Shannon. New York, NY: Routledge, 2023. p. 82-100.

Reynolds, George W.M. The Soldier’s Wife. Philadelphia, PA: T. B. Peterson and Brothers, n.d. Reprinted by Legare Street Press.

Tichelaar, Tyler R. The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, 1794-Present. Ann Arbor, MI: Modern History Press, 2012.

Tichelaar, Tyler R. Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, 1789-1897. Marquette, MI: Marquette Fiction, 2023.

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Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition, Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City, and many other fiction and nonfiction titles. Visit Tyler at www.GothicWanderer.com, www.ChildrenofArthur.com, and www.MarquetteFiction.com.

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Filed under City Mystery Novels, Classic Gothic Novels, George W.M. Reynolds

Tagged as A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens, flogging in the military, George W.M. Reynolds, Henry Fielding, military reform in Victorian England, stolen letters, The Reform Bill of 1832, The Soldier's Wife, Tom Jones

February 1, 2023 · 10:21 am

New Book Reveals Dracula’s French and British Gothic Ancestors

Dr. Tyler. R. Tichelaar’s new literary history, Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides, reveals how nineteenth-century French and British Gothic novelists were continually inspired by each other to create some of the most memorable characters in literature, from Quasimodo to Dracula.

Marquette, MI, January 2, 2023—Gothic literature studies usually focus on one nation’s tradition. Dr. Tyler R. Tichelaar, however, argues that the Gothic crossed the English Channel regularly, providing blood transfusions of new life into the Gothic corpus as revealed in detail in his new book Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, 1789-1897.

When Gothic novels are mentioned, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) quickly comes to mind, but Dracula was only one in a long tradition of vampire stories that stretches back to John Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819). Dracula scholars today focus on the handful of British vampire stories by John Polidori, James Malcolm Rymer, and J. S. Le Fanu, as sources for Dracula, but in Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides, Tichelaar looks to the plethora of vampire texts from France by Charles Nodier, Étienne-Léon de Lamothe-Langon, Alexandre Dumas, Paul Féval, and several other authors as influential in the creation of Stoker’s masterpiece. In fact, the female vampires in Dracula make far more sense within the context of the French vampire tradition.

Beyond Dracula, French literature inspired numerous British Gothic works and was inspired by them. Tichelaar explores how early British Gothic novelists like Radcliffe, Lewis, and Scott influenced French Gothic works by Hugo, Dumas, and Sue, and those works inspired British works by William Harrison Ainsworth, George W. M. Reynolds, Charles Dickens, and many others. Besides vampires, Tichelaar examines such literary archetypes as immortals, werewolves, cursed transgressors, and redeemed Gothic wanderers. Separate chapters include thorough discussions of the city mysteries genre and depictions of secret societies and the French Revolution in Gothic novels.

Tichelaar argues that by exploring how the French and British Gothic traditions influenced each other, a new understanding arises of many literary classics from The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Count of Monte Cristo to A Tale of Two Cities and Dracula. “To explore the French and British Gothic traditions together,” says Tichelaar, “is like performing an archeological dig that exposes the missing links in Gothic development. Reading Dracula and Carmilla in the context of early French Gothic literature allows us to understand better the continuity of the Gothic tradition. Today, Paul Féval is almost unknown and largely overlooked by scholars of British literature, yet his vampire and Irish novels probably influenced Bram Stoker. Even British novelists like Ainsworth and Reynolds, who have been ignored by literary critics, provide fascinating understandings of the Gothic’s cross-cultural influence. Dickens and Stoker regularly visited France, and French authors regularly read British works, so the two literatures deserve to be read together as one Gothic literary tradition.”

Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature includes in-depth discussions of a wide range of British and French Gothic novelists from 1789-1897, including Mrs. Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, Sir Walter Scott, John Polidori, Charles Nodier, Victor Hugo, William Harrison Ainsworth, George Croly, Edgar Quinet, Eugène Sue, Paul Féval, George W. M. Reynolds, Alexandre Dumas, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Charles Dickens, Marie Nizet, J. S. Le Fanu, Jules Verne, and Bram Stoker. The book’s cover art by Ukrainian artist Inna Vjuzhanina perfectly complements the title, suggesting not only the marriage of these two literary traditions but how the first literary vampires, including Polidori’s Lord Ruthven, continually tried to dupe unsuspecting women into marrying them so they could avoid eternal damnation. A comprehensive index, endnotes, and an extensive bibliography complete the study.

About the Author

Tyler Tichelaar with a statue of Bram Stoker in Romania.

Tyler R. Tichelaar has a PhD in Literature from Western Michigan University and Bachelor and Master’s Degrees in English from Northern Michigan University. He owns his own publishing company, Marquette Fiction, and Superior Book Productions, a professional editing, proofreading, and book layout company. The former president of the Upper Peninsula Publishers and Authors Association, Tichelaar has been a book reviewer for Reader Views, Marquette Monthly, and the UP Book Review, and regularly blogs about Gothic, Arthurian, and Michigan literature and history. Tichelaar is the award-winning author of thirteen novels and nine nonfiction books, including The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, When Teddy Came to Town: A Novel, and Kawbawgam: The Chief, The Legend, The Man.

Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, 1789-1897 (ISBN: 978-0-9962400-9-3 hardcover; 978-0-9962400-8-6 paperback; 979-8-9872692-0-6) is available through local and online bookstores.

For more information, visit www.GothicWanderer.com. Publicity contact: tyler@marquettefiction.com. Review copies available upon request.

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Filed under Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens, Classic Gothic Novels, Dracula, George W.M. Reynolds, Literary Criticism, Sir Walter Scott, The Wandering Jew

Tagged as A Tale of Two Cities, Alexandre Dumas, Bram Stoker, Charles Dickens, Dracula, Eugene Sue, George W. M. Reynolds, Mrs. Radcliffe, Sir Walter Scott, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tyler Tichelaar, Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, Victor Hugo, William Harrison Ainsworth

January 18, 2023 · 1:53 pm

Guest Post: Why I Love the Gothic Story “The Signal-Man” by Charles Dickens – by Rayne Hall

Today, we have a guest post by author and Gothic lover Rayne Hall. First, I’ll introduce her, then she’ll talk about Dickens’ “The Signal-Man” and then she has a special offer regarding her new book you won’t want to miss!

Rayne Hall MA is the author of over 100 books, mostly Dark Fantasy and Gothic Horror, e.g. The Bride’s Curse: Bulgarian Gothic Ghost and Horror Stories. She is also the acclaimed editor of Gothic, Fantasy and Horror anthologies (e.g. Among the Headstones: Creepy Tales from the Graveyard, and author of the bestselling Writer’s Craft series for advanced-level writers, including the bestselling Writer’s Craft series e.g. Writing Gothic Fiction.

Born and raised in Germany, Rayne Hall has lived in China, Mongolia, Nepal and Britain. Now she resides in a village in Bulgaria, where men perform the annual demon dance, ghosts and sirens beckon, and abandoned decaying houses hold memories of a glorious past.

Her lucky black rescue cat Sulu often accompanies her when she explores spooky derelict buildings. He delights in walking across shattered roof tiles, scratching charred timbers and sniffing at long-abandoned hearths. He even senses the presence of ghosts… but that’s another story.

Rayne has worked as an investigative journalist, development aid worker, museum guide, apple picker, tarot reader, adult education teacher, belly dancer, magazine editor, publishing manager and more, and now writes full time.

Why I Love the Gothic Story “The Signal-Man” by Charles Dickens

By Rayne Hall

(copyright Rayne Hall 2023)

Charles Dickens (1812 –1870) was a fiction writer, editor and social critic. Today, he is best known for his novels, including Oliver Twist and David Copperfield, depicting life in Victorian England. Few people realise that Dickens also wrote fine ghost and horror stories.

‘The Signal-Man’ is one of the stories which drew me to the horror genre – the kind of story I like best, Gothic, psychological, atmospheric, scary by implication rather than by gore. Each time I read it, it has the same disturbing effect, leaving me to wonder: what if the narrator had not interfered, had not tried to help the signal-man by calming him? Would the signal-man have paid attention to the call, heeded the warning, and averted the accident? How guilty is the narrator of the signal-man’s death? Does he feel the guilt? Should he?

Throughout the story, the narrator felt and acted compassionate and caring on the one hand, patronising and detached on the other. We don’t learn how he feels at the end, if his ‘superior’ attitude gives way to feeling foolish. As readers, we know only how we would feel in his place.

This is not the only question the author leaves for the readers to decide. Dickens doesn’t even reveal what the signal-man had really seen – or thought he had seen – and where the visions and premonitions had come from.

Although the ending is strong and leaves a powerful impact, it doesn’t answer all questions, and instead encourages the readers to think and draw their own conclusions.

Charles Dickens wrote this story a few months after he survived a horrific railway disaster, the 1865 Staplehurst Rail Crash. The train crossed a viaduct where a section of the rails had been removed for engineering works and derailed, with parts of the train tumbling into the dry riverbed below.

When his carriage hung at a steep angle off the viaduct into the river, Dickens escaped with his life. For hours, he aided injured fellow passengers, some of whom died in his arms. The directors of the railway company presented him with a piece of plate as a token of their appreciation for his assistance.

Dickens never got over this trauma. For two weeks after the accident, he lost his ability to speak, and for the rest of his life, he was terrified of trains and used alternative modes of transport where possible. According to his son, he never fully recovered from the terror of that day.

I know from experience how scary it can be to revisit personal traumas to weave them into fiction. Dickens wrote this story just a few months after the event, with the horrifying events fresh on his mind. This must have required great courage.

A second railway disaster, which happened a few years earlier and was still in the public mind at the time, also fed Dickens’ creative imagination for this tale: the Clayton Tunnel Crash of 1861. A series of human and technical errors, combined with misunderstandings and unfortunate coincidences, caused two trains to crash into each other in a tunnel, killing 23 and injuring 176 passengers.

One of the crucial factors in that train crash was a misunderstanding between two signal-men. An investigation revealed the horrifying conditions under which these men worked: one of them had been working a continuous 24-hour shift! His job required intense, non-stop concentration, and we can imagine how tired his brain was at the time of the accident. Even in his tired state, he did his best to avert the accident, but did not realise that his counterpart at the other end of the tunnel had misunderstood him. When the inquest revealed how these men, on whom the safety of trains and passengers depended, had worked without proper break, a public outcry ensued, and different rules and systems were put in place.

As well as an author and editor, Charles Dickens was a social reformer. Often, he combined these roles, using his fiction to expose intolerable living and working conditions, flagging up social injustices. He saw literature as a springboard to moral and social reform.

No doubt, he was moved by the plight of two signal-men involved in the Clayton Tunnel Crash who had been too tired to avert the disaster. In writing his story, Dickens exposed another aspect of the inhumane working conditions of signal-men.

The story’s titular character lives and works in total isolation, in a remote signal box where he has practically no human contact. As a result, his mental health suffers. Through the narrator’s perspective, Dickens presents it as a life that can descend into madness. Yet this man is in charge of the safety of trains. Dickens used his story to arouse pity for men working under such conditions, and alert the public to the resulting dangers.

In this, he was remarkably successful. Dickens was what we today would call an ‘influencer’. His stories helped shape public opinion influenced the decisions of the authorities, and contributed to several legal reforms.

I admire how Dickens manages to use the plight of fictional characters to expose real social injustices, and to inspire moral, ethical and political action without ever sounding preachy. This, I think, is literature at its noblest: inspiring readers to change their attitudes and bring about improvements, without preaching or dogma.

In tone, this story is decidedly Gothic. I’ve identified the following typical elements of Gothic literature:

The location is isolated, remote, difficult to reach and creepy: ‘The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It was made through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I went down.’

The building is dark, dilapidated, battered by the elements: ‘His post was in as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world.’

The means of communication with the outside world are limited. The signal-man can use the telegraph machine to contact his colleagues along the track, and when a train passes, he can exchange a hurried signal with the driver, that’s all – except when a wanderer happens to come to this spot and seek a conversation, like the narrator does, an extremely rare circumstance.

The story begins when an outsider enters the scene, disrupting the status quo. This happens with the first word, the narrator calling “Halloa!”

A growing sense of danger and impending doom pervades the story. We readers know that a disaster will unfold, and are as helpless as the characters to prevent it. ‘There is danger overhanging somewhere on the Line. Some dreadful calamity will happen.’

Darkness, light and shadows create mood and contribute to the plot – for example, the red warning light.

Part of the story unfolds at sunset, that special time of the day when day gives way to night and the sinking sun dyes the horizon. Dickens’ description of the twilight’s effect is sparse, but powerful. ‘… so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset, that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all.’

Windy weather contributes to the atmosphere. ‘The wind and the wires took up the story with a long lamenting wail.’

The tunnel represents the dangerous underground space so common in Gothic fiction. ‘…and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world.’

In typical Gothic fashion, the line between sanity and madness is blurred: The narrator believes that the inhumane isolation has affected the signal-man’s mental health. ‘When I saw him in this state, I saw that for the poor man’s sake, as well as for the public safety, what I had to do for the time was to compose his mind. Therefore, setting aside all question of reality or unreality between us…’

A character has a dark past that he prefers not to reveal. The signal-man mentions having wasted education opportunities in his youth, but does not elaborate. We readers are left to surmise what happened. Since he seems to bear his new life like a penalty for past deeds, it seems likely that he committed something worse than mere classroom truancy.

Paranormal elements are present, e.g. the ghost that appears and disappears. ‘I ran right up at it, and had my hand stretched out to pull the sleeve away, when it was gone.’

There are communications from the supernatural realm, e.g. the warning voice, and the warning bell ringing that only the signal-man can hear: ‘The ghost’s ring is a strange vibration in the bell that it derives from nothing else, and I have not asserted that the bell stirs to the eye. I don’t wonder that you failed to hear it. But I heard it.’

A death contributes to the unfolding story: the demise of the young lady in the train.

Guilt, one of the key elements of Gothic fiction, plays a role when we readers wonder if the narrator caused the signal-man’s death – even though the narrator himself doesn’t seem to feel this guilt.

Great Gothic fiction flag ups and deals with social issues. In this story, it’s the working condition of signal-men.

Of course, no single work of Gothic fiction contains all tropes of Gothic literature. ‘The Signal-Man’ features neither a disputed inheritance nor a forbidden love; those would simply not fit into this plot.

However, one crucial trope of Gothic fiction is conspicuous by its absence: passion.

Throughout the tale, the narrator remains strangely detached and analytical, even when he feels strongly about something. The signal-man, although conscientious, is not passionate about his job. Although he teaches himself in his spare time, he’s not passionate about learning either. While he is distressed and worried about the warnings, he is not passionate about finding out what they mean.

This absence of passion is strange in a work of Gothic fiction, and the sense of detached, analytical interest from the narrator’s point of view feels alien – but in my opinion, this makes this story all the more chilling.

To me, ‘The Signal-Man’ is Gothic fiction at its finest: creepy, thrilling, thought-provoking.

When I was editing the anthology The Haunted Train: Creepy Tales from the Railways and selected the stories, I was happy to include this masterpiece of Gothic fiction.

ABOUT THE BOOK THE HAUNTED TRAIN: CREEPY TALES FROM THE RAILWAYS

Come on board for a Gothic journey in a funicular railway in Victorian England, a freight train in the Carpathian mountains, a high tech sky train in Bangkok, an underground railway in Tokyo. Visit stations which lure with the promise of safe shelter but harbour unexpected dangers. Meet the people who work on the tracks – stationmasters, porters, signal-men – and those who travel – commuters, tourists, dead bodies, murderers and ghosts.

In this volume, editor Rayne Hall has collected twenty of the finest– and creepiest – railway tales. The book features the works of established writers, classic authors and fresh voices. Some stories are spooky, some downright scary, while others pose a puzzling mystery.

Are you prepared to come on board this train? Already, the steam engine is huffing in impatience. Listen to the chuff-chuff-chuff from the locomotive and tarattata-tarattata of the giant wheels. Press your face against the dust-streaked window, inhale the smells of coal smoke and old textiles, watch the landscape whoosh past as you leave the familiar behind and journey into the unknown.

But be careful: you can’t know the train’s real destination, nor your fellow travellers’ intentions. Once you’ve closed that door behind you and the wheels start rolling, you may not be able to get out.

The ebook is available for pre-order from Amazon at the special offer price of 99 cents until 31 January 2023. (After that date, the price will go up.) https://mybook.to/Train.

The paperback edition will be available soon.

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Filed under Charles Dickens, Classic Gothic Novels, Gothic Places

Tagged as Charles Dickens, Gothic, Rayne Hall, The Haunted Train, The Signal-Man, train hauntings

May 2, 2021 · 12:33 pm

Master Timothy’s Book-Case: George W. M. Reynolds’ Improvement on Dickens

George W. M. Reynolds (1814-1879) remains little known except by the most persistent readers of Victorian and Gothic Fiction. One reason he is ignored and even disparaged has to do with his rivalry with Charles Dickens, whom he outsold, and also because he tended to pirate ideas from others and then make them his own. I have written numerous blog posts here about many of Reynolds’ other novels, including Pickwick Abroad (1837-8), an unabashed sequel to The Pickwick Papers (1836-7). Most will likely not agree with me, but I frankly enjoyed Pickwick Abroad more than The Pickwick Papers, largely because Reynolds has much more of a plot to his novel.

This ebook edition from Travelyn Publishing is available at Amazon.

Master Timothy’s Bookcase is another example of how Reynolds was able to capitalize upon popular contemporary books and make them his own. In 1840-1, Dickens published Master Humphrey’s Clock, a work largely forgotten and seldom read today, known primarily because within its pages Dickens published The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) and Barnaby Rudge (1841). Dickens set out to write a serial centered around Master Humphrey, an old man with a longcase antique clock, in which he keeps his manuscripts. Master Humphrey gathers about him a group of friends who form a club consisting of them reading their manuscripts to each other. The manuscripts are the short stories in the book. Among the friends is Mr. Pickwick, so in some sense, the book is a sequel to The Pickwick Papers. Within Master Humphrey’s Clock, The Old Curiosity Shop was to be a short story, but Dickens then decided to develop it into a novel, and by the time Dickens got well into the novel, Master Humphrey’s Clock had become little more than a frame. When the novel was completed, Dickens briefly returned to the original format of Master Humphrey’s Clock before starting on Barnaby Rudge, and after Barnaby Rudge was concluded, he quickly wrapped up Master Humphrey’s Clock by having Master Humphrey die.

Honestly, there is little in Master Humphrey’s Clock of interest. The narrator is likeable but hardly fascinating and the short stories are forgettable. Even Dickens apparently realized the faults of the book, choosing that The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge would stand on their own in the future, as stated in the preface to the 1848 edition of The Old Curiosity Shop. Today, Master Humphrey’s Clock is usually published separately from the two novels it launched.

A cover page to the serial of *Master Humphrey’s Clock* at the time *Barnaby Rudge* was being serialized.

Reynolds clearly decided to capitalize on the popularity of Dickens’ work when he created the similarly titled Master Timothy’s Bookcase, which began circulating in July 1841, just a month or so before Master Humphrey’s Clock ended. However, in my opinion, Reynolds vastly improved upon Dickens’ format by tying the stories together far more tightly than Dickens. He also weaves in the supernatural to explain how all the stories become known to the main character, Sir Edmund Mortimer, through the supernatural agency of Master Timothy’s Bookcase.

The story begins with a brief history of the Mortimer family and the strange circumstances under which they have operated for centuries. Mortimer House is the family mansion in Canterbury. It has a wing that contains six special rooms. In each room, one of the past heads of the family has died. Each man is said to have learned the day of his death by dire warning and then gone to the appropriate room to die. On January 1, 1830, the sixth head of the family, Sir William Mortimer died, leaving his son Edmund to take up the title.

Sir Edmund does not know the full secret of the house until he inherits it. He does knows the family is watched over by a guardian genius. This genius, Master Timothy, soon appears and explains matters to him. Each past head of the family had been granted a gift as a means to find happiness. However, none of Sir Edmund’s ancestors succeeded in finding happiness with their choices. Most recently, Sir William had sought happiness in Wealth but failed to achieve it. Sir Edmund decides he will choose Universal Knowledge to help him make good decisions. (This is an interesting choice since it is similar to King Solomon choosing Wisdom; Solomon was known for his wise decisions, particularly in the case where two mothers claimed the same child was hers.)

Master Timothy tells Sir Edmund he will receive Universal Knowledge in the form of a supernatural bookcase that only he will be able to see and that will always be with him. Any time he wants to know anything about anyone or any situation, he can consult the bookcase and read the truth.

Master Timothy’s own story is then shared. In 1530, Sir Edmund’s ancestor, Henry Mortimer, was asked by a Mr. Musgrave to take a child to Lord Davenport and tell him it was his. Mr. Musgrave’s daughter, Mary, had apparently given birth to the child, fathered on her by the lord. However, Lord Davenport rejected the child, but when Henry tried to find Mr. Musgrave again, he had left the vicinity. Henry ended up raising the child himself. He named it Timothy after the relative who had raised him. After three years, Mary came to find Henry and Timothy. By then, her father, Mr. Musgrave, had died, and she was very wealthy. She decided to live near Henry and her child while pretending to be a widow. Unfortunately, Timothy died at age sixteen. Then Mary died, leaving all her wealth to Henry. Henry used the wealth to build Mortimer House. Then one night, Timothy’s apparition appeared to him and offered to reword his good deeds by granting him anything he wanted. Henry chose the gift of Glory, ultimately becoming a general and being knighted by King Edward VI. However, he did not find happiness.

Now having inherited the title and received his gift, Sir Edmund is not allowed to stay at Mortimer House. He can only return there to die, so he plans to live elsewhere. He is invited by Sir Ralph Lindsay to stay with him. From here, the plot becomes too complicated to easily summarize. Suffice to say, Sir Ralph’s family has its secrets, which eventually causes Sir Edmund to consult Master Timothy’s Bookcase. He continues to consult the bookcase throughout the novel in his various encounters with people until he begins to learn their secrets and begins to bemoan the gift of Universal Knowledge because it has revealed to him the hypocrisy of people.

While at first the knowledge is a mental burden to Sir Edmund, he never uses it to benefit himself or hurt others. However, he finally determines he can use the knowledge to help another, and so while in France, he tries to persuade a marquis to support his nephew’s wife, who is destitute. After Sir Edmund reveals to the marquis that he knows his secrets—secrets it is impossible anyone can know—the marquis agrees to aid his nephew’s wife. He gives Sir Edmund a box with valuables in it to bring to the widow, and Sir Edmund departs. However, the marquis is so upset that Sir Edmund knows his secret that he immediately cuts his throat with a razor. Sir Edmund is accused of murder and ends up in prison. He realizes his situation is the result of abusing the knowledge he received from the bookcase, and he wonders why the genius of his family would bestow gifts upon his family if they are only to bring misery to the Mortimers.

When Sir Edmund comes to trial, the judge decides he is a lunatic and sends him to an asylum in Paris. By this point, Sir Edmund himself wonders if he is a lunatic. He remains in the asylum until the Revolution of 1830 results in the inmates being freed. Sir Edmund now returns to England with plans to marry the woman he loves (who has her own secret, or rather she is keeping the secret of another, as Sir Edmund learned through the bookcase). But before the wedding can take place, Master Timothy summons Sir Edmund to return to Mortimer House, saying that upon his twenty-fifth birthday, he may peruse the family manuscripts. The servant at the house is alarmed when Sir Edmund arrives because he was not supposed to until the day before he is to die. Sir Edmund, however, assures him all is well. Sir Edmund is then granted the opportunity to read manuscripts that tell him the stories of all his ancestors and the various gifts they had chosen, each one of which brought misery.

Sir Edmund is now struck by the futility of seeking happiness. Then he sees an inscription suddenly appear over the door of the room he is in, making it clear this is the day he will die. Master Timothy appears and explains that man’s life comes to an end when he realizes the futility of the aim that influenced his career. Before he dies, Sir Edmund is allowed to see the largely miserable fates of all those he has known and whose stories he has learned through the bookcase. He remains skeptical he will himself die, waiting almost to the last second, thinking he is safe when an assassin breaks into the house and murders him, someone who bears him a grudge from earlier in the novel.

Sir Edmund dies as Master Timothy declares to him that the gift he should have chosen was Virtue—a curious choice since one can’t help recalling that the subtitle of Pamela (1740), considered the first novel, is “Virtue Rewarded.” This ending makes the novel far from perfect since Sir Edmund has never really done anything terribly unvirtuous or sought to hurt anyone, but apparently prying into people’s secrets is not virtuous. While Reynolds refers to Sir Edmund’s gift as Universal Knowledge, it is also clearly forbidden knowledge—the quest for which is a frequent Gothic plot that always results in disaster for those who seek it and stems back to the story of the Garden of Eden and eating the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. (For more on the quest for forbidden knowledge and its subsequent punishment in Gothic literature, see my book The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption.)

While Master Timothy’s Bookcase is not a perfect novel, the stories in it are more intricately weaved together than those in Master Humphrey’s Clock. No driving motive or goal strengthens the plot, but the number of stories, many of which concern crimes or at least secrets, makes the book read like a rehearsal for Reynolds’ much greater work, The Mysteries of London (1844-5), another book whose idea he stole from another author’s work, in this case French novelist Eugene Sue’s The Mysteries of Paris (1842-3). One reason Master Timothy’s Clock has received a little attention is that one of the stories offers a solution to who was the mysterious Man in the Iron Mask. (One is tempted to accuse Reynolds’ of trying to capitalize upon Dumas’ work here, but Dumas’ novel was not published until 1847-1850). Unfortunately, Reynolds’ story of the Man in the Iron Mask is probably the weakest and most predictable story in the novel, and it is the only one Sir Edmund does not learn from the bookcase but from another person he meets. I will not reveal who Reynolds claims the man was, but it is a real stretch that has nothing to do with French royalty. Despite the disappointing treatment of this mystery, I doubt most readers will be disappointed overall by Master Timothy’s Bookcase. In fact, I am surprised it is not one of Reynolds’ best-known works.

Is Master Timothy’s Bookcase great literature? No. Is it an entertaining novel that does reveal some truths about human nature? Yes. Is the morality a bit in your face, if not a little preachy? Yes, but so was the work of most of the Victorians. And if Sir Edmund had chosen Virtue over Universal Knowledge, what a dull novel it would have been. Fortunately, Reynolds was a masterful storyteller, as most of the novel reflects. Consequently, his place in Victorian and Gothic literature deserves far more assessment. After all, if he outsold Dickens, we are missing out on a real understanding of Victorian culture and literature if we overlook him. I look forward to the day when George W. M. Reynolds is hailed as a major author of the period alongside Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Eliot, and the Brontës.

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Tyler Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition, The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, The Children of Arthur novel series, Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City, and many other titles. Visit Tyler at www.GothicWanderer.com, www.ChildrenofArthur.com, and www.MarquetteFiction.com.

6 Comments

Filed under Classic Gothic Novels, George W.M. Reynolds

Tagged as Barnaby Rudge, Charles Dickens, George W.M. Reynolds, guardian genius, Master Humphrey's Clock, Master Timothy's Bookcase, supernatural, The Man in the Iron Mask, The Mysteries of London, the Old Curiosity Shop

February 15, 2021 · 8:33 pm

William Harrison Ainsworth: Father of the Second Gothic Golden Age

Stephen Carver’s new biography of William Harrison Ainsworth (1805-1882), The Man Who Outsold Dickens: The Life & Work of W. H. Ainsworth, is an eye-opening look at the man who helped to start what I consider the Second Gothic Golden Age. The first Gothic Golden Age I would define as from 1789-1820, beginning with the publication of Mrs. Radcliffe’s first novel, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne and ending with the publication of Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer. With the publication of Ainsworth’s Rookwood in 1834, the Gothic was heavily revived and a new Gothic age began that would extend into the 1850s, ending roughly with the publication of George W. M. Reynolds’ last Gothic novel The Necromancer (1852). That is not to say the Gothic did not remain popular during the interim—Scott himself used Gothic elements in his novels, most notably in Anne of Geierstein—but Rookwood created a new form of Gothic that combined historical detail with Gothic elements on a level not done previously. In its wake would be many more Gothic novels by Ainsworth, as well as Gothic works by George W. M. Reynolds, and other English novels that used Gothic elements, including the works of Bulwer-Lytton, Dickens, and the Brontës, as well as several French Gothic novels.

A front page of “Reynolds sMiscellany” depicts England’s three bestselling authors of the day, Dickens, Bulwer-Lytton, and Ainsworth. It is interesting that George W. M. Reynolds would pay such homage to these authors since Dickens particularly hated him for writing unauthorized sequels and spin-offs of his books.

Carver’s book is a straightforward biography that details the entire life of Ainsworth, while also taking time to give plot descriptions, literary criticism, and the reception history of the various books Ainsworth wrote. I will discuss here just some of the more interesting points Carver discusses, especially in relation to Ainsworth’s Gothic works.

Ainsworth’s life and career spanned most of the nineteenth century and the Romantic and Victorian periods. Ainsworth’s interest in the Gothic began early. In 1819, at age fourteen, he wrote the story “The Specter Bridegroom.” His early horror stories were influenced by Scott’s ballads, but this story also inverted Washington Irving’s “The Spectre Bride” by having the bridegroom not only be the specter but the Wandering Jew, showing Ainsworth was familiar with the Wandering Jew fiction of the period. (For more about the Wandering Jew in Gothic fiction, see my book The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption.) Carver says this story’s violent climax recalls those of William Beckford’s Vathek (1786) and Matthew Lewis’ The Monk (1795). (Notably, the Wandering Jew made his first appearance in Gothic fiction in The Monk.)

Another early Gothic work was December Tales (1823), Ainsworth’s second published work when he was only eighteen. Among the Gothic stories is a wandering immortal who sells his soul for eternal life so he can revenge himself on his enemies; then he has eternity to repent. He experiences such agonies as drowning without dying, which predates the similar situation in Varney the Vampire (1846), whose title character continually tries to destroy himself, only to have nature continually thwart him—the volcano he jumps in spits him back out; the sea he tries to drown in casts him ashore.

As early as Ainsworth’s first novel, Sir John Chiverton (1826), Ainsworth was being compared to Scott and Radcliffe and blending the Gothic with historical romance. Carver refers to Sir John Chiverton as possibly the first example of nineteenth century literature struggling to establish a new form of English Gothic since it is set in England (39).

In the preface to later editions of Rookwood, Ainsworth talks about writing the novel with the trappings of Radcliffe, but with an English setting. He discusses the design of romance and his intent to start a Gothic revival, so the preface is really like a Gothic manifesto for a Gothic revival. I have written extensively about Rookwood elsewhere at this blog, so I won’t discuss it further here, but it is the seminal work of this Gothic revival. I will note that according to Carver, Scott’s St. Ronan’s Well (1823) appears to have been an influence on the novel, but Scott’s work is a comedy of manners, while Ainsworth uses the Cain and Abel motif, the Gothic, and revenge tragedy to create a Gothic extravaganza.

Rookwood’s success led Ainsworth to be the darling of literary circles. He was befriended by Bulwer-Lytton, invited to Lady Blessington’s literary evenings, and hailed as the English Victor Hugo and successor to Sir Walter Scott.

Carver goes on to discuss Jack Sheppard (1839) and its role in the Newgate novels controversy, which I will skip over discussing here.

Other novels of Gothic interest include Guy Fawkes (1841), which is a Gothic tragedy with a Catholic hero. The novel’s family is named Radcliffe, which may be a homage to Mrs. Radcliffe. According to Carver, Ainsworth transforms Guy Fawkes from a terrorist into a revolutionary leader and hero in the novel (119).

The Tower of London (1840) is interesting also because it turns an English monument into a setting of Gothic horror. It also shows the influence of Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris (1831). In that novel, Hugo was treating the cathedral as if it were itself a book, “a book of stone.” Similarly, in Ainsworth’s novel, the history of England is written in the edifice of the Tower of London. (128). Like Notre Dame Cathedral, which was in disrepair when Hugo wrote his novel, the Tower of London was abandoned and neglected when the novel was published. Ainsworth’s novel resulted in the Tower becoming popular and being restored as a Victorian museum. The novel would be so popular that it would be referenced at length in Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), nearly half a century later. Carver goes on to discuss how in successive novels Ainsworth turned national landmarks into Gothic castles, an epic and ongoing process of “psycho-geography” (130).

Significantly, while Ainsworth wrote Gothic novels, he continued to blend historical details into them. The Tower of London is about Lady Jane Grey, and Windsor Castle (1843) and Old Saint Paul’s (1841) also have historical backgrounds. Ainsworth always did a lot of research for his novels and he even includes indexes in some of them (149). In Windsor Castle, Henry VIII sells his soul to marry Jane Seymour, and the mythical Herne the Hunter helps the characters to save their souls. While Herne goes back to Shakespeare, Ainsworth creates his own version of Herne. He did the same with other legends and historical personages in a way that made them sink into the national consciousness so that what people thought they knew about their own English history and myth was really stuff they had learned from Ainsworth (151-2).

Other Gothic works include Auriol, or: The Elixir of Life (1850) and The Lancashire Witches (1849), both of which I’ve discussed at length in separate blog posts.

Worth mentioning, however, is that Ainsworth draws on Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) and the depiction of Eve for his female witches. Carver argues that Ainsworth was in the feminist camp. In Jack Sheppard, his powerful sexual women are the ones left standing. In The Lancashire Witches, the witches are trail-blazing female characters because they self-emancipate. Eve in Paradise Lost dreams of flying, while Ainsworth’s witches do fly. Furthermore, the witches have a matriarchal dynasty, rather than one based in patriarchal authority. They are women of self-realization and determinism (163-66). Carver suggests that Alice, who has a mark on her forehead, may have inspired Stoker, in Dracula (1897), to give Mina the mark on her forehead (166). I think that a bit of a stretch given that the Mark of Cain was common in Gothic literature, but I will admit that usually it is on the forehead of a male and Ainsworth was the first to place it on a female’s forehead.

The Lancashire Witches was Ainsworth’s last major success and his last truly Gothic work, but he went on to write many more novels, most with Lancashire settings and about Lancashire history. Most notably, The Manchester Rebels of the Fatal ’45 (1873) discusses how Manchester raised a regiment to help support Bonnie Prince Charlie and is comparable to Scott’s Waverley (1814).

Ainsworth’s novels were popular enough in his time to be translated into German, Dutch, French, and Russian, and to sell well in America. In fact, Jesse and Frank James read or knew of them because they signed their letters to the newspapers as “Jack Sheppard” (212).

No doubt, Ainsworth deserves more recognition for his contributions to literature and his role in influencing many of his contemporary authors as well as those who came after him. An additional treat in reading this biography is how in-depth Carver is about the early Victorian publishing industry, particularly novel serialization, and we are given insight into Ainsworth’s relationships with Dickens, Thackeray, George W. Reynolds, his illustrator Cruikshank, and several other authors.

In the “L’Envoi” section that concludes the book, Carver provides an excellent summary of Ainsworth’s role in literature:

“In Ainsworth’s long life, we can see not only the struggle and commitment that necessarily comes of laying down one’s life for literature, but in his professional and personal relationships with friends and foes alike, the entire literary and cultural milieu of his age. And beyond this, there is the evolution of the English novel itself, from Romanticism to Realism, from Scott to Dickens. Writers like Ainsworth and his forgotten friends represent the transition, a dynamic period of literary production that was neither Regency nor Victorian but something in between, in which genres were born, merged and abandoned with dizzying speed.” (213)

Consequently, I feel Ainsworth is the link between the older Gothic novels of Radcliffe and a newer form of Gothic, which in Ainsworth’s novels meant a more historical Gothic, one also set in England, one valuable in itself, but that also paved the way for later works like Varney the Vampire and Dracula.

Ainsworth’s role in the evolution of the Gothic novel definitely deserves further exploration. I applaud Stephen Carver for this new biography that will raise new appreciation of Ainsworth, the author who not only rivaled his friend Dickens but inspired so many other great writers.

Stephen Carver also has a blog titled Ainsworth & Friends that is worth visiting.

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Tyler Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition, The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, The Children of Arthur novel series, Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City, and many other titles. Visit Tyler at www.GothicWanderer.com, www.ChildrenofArthur.com, and www.MarquetteFiction.com.

4 Comments

Filed under Classic Gothic Novels, George W.M. Reynolds, Gothic Places, Sir Walter Scott, The Wandering Jew

Tagged as Charles Dickens, George W.M. Reynolds, Rookwood, Sir Walter Scott, Stephen Carver, The Man Who Outsold Dickens, The Tower of London, the Wandering Jew, William Harrison Ainsworth, Windsor Castle

May 16, 2020 · 12:25 pm

The Forgotten Gothic: The Count of Monte Cristo

In titling this post “The Forgotten Gothic,” of course, I know no one has forgotten Alexandre Dumas’ phenomenal bestseller, The Count of Monte Cristo, first published in serial form in 1844, but what I think people have forgotten or never fully realized is just how much Dumas’ novel plays with Gothic elements in its depiction of the count and the chain of events he sets in motion in his thirst for revenge.

An early illustration of Dantès after his escape from the Chateau d’If

When I first read The Count of Monte Cristo in 1992, I admit I found it deadly dull. I had expected a gripping adventure novel, but the translation I read—I am not sure who the translator was, but he heavily edited the novel to about half its actual length, he used stilted, formal English which loses the charm of Dumas’ original language, and he censored word choice and parts of the plot to make it more appealing to a British Victorian audience—made the novel lacking in vivacity. Many other early English translations abridged and censored Dumas’ original. For example, in several translations, the count’s enthusiasm for hashish was censored. However, when a member of the Trollope and His Contemporaries listserv I belong to mentioned that the Robin Buss translation revealed a new understanding of Edmond Dantès’ intense desire for revenge in the novel, I decided to revisit the book, having always been attracted by its Gothic atmosphere in film versions. Buss’ excellent translation really brought the story to life for me and made me realize not only what an incredible book it is, but what a significant link The Count of Monte Cristo is in the chain of Gothic literature.

The Count of Monte Cristo has never failed to be popular as evidenced by the numerous film, TV, and comic book adaptations of it as well as abridged versions for children. Most of these renderings of it, however, have done it a disservice. While perpetuating the novel’s popularity, they have led people who have not read the novel to think they know The Count of Monte Cristo. They do not. Even the 2002 film starring Jim Cavaziel as the count, which is probably the best film version, fails to do the novel true justice because it cuts so much to simplify the plot into a two-hour film. In truth, the novel runs to 464,234 words or about 1,000-1,300 pages depending on the edition. It is so long because it has several subplots all tied to the count’s desire for revenge. The 2002 film and most others seek a happy ending, usually by not letting the count’s love, Mércèdes, die, and they make numerous other changes, which leave the films as weak renditions of Dumas’ vision. The novel would be better served if adapted into a television miniseries so all its subplots could be treated fully as they deserve. Hopefully, someday that will happen. It has happened in France, but no English miniseries has been made in decades.

I invite readers to reread the novel for themselves in the Buss translation because I will not summarize the entire plot here. However, a very detailed summary of the novel’s plot can also be found at Wikipedia. Instead, here I will discuss the novel’s Gothic elements and some of its possible literary influences. I believe it is a remarkable novel in the Gothic tradition that serves as a transition piece between early and late nineteenth century Gothic novels as I will illustrate at the end of this essay.

Most readers know the basic story, even though it has been simplified in the cinematic versions they are familiar with. Edmond Dantès is wrongfully accused of plotting to help restore Napoleon. He has four primary foes who accuse him without his knowledge. These enemies are his shipmate Danglars; Fernand Mondego, who is in love with Dantès’ fiancée Mércèdes; Caderousse, an unscrupulous neighbor who dislikes Dantès; and Villefort, a magistrate who wants to protect his father, a Napoleon supporter, and more importantly his own career, which could be jeopardized by the paper Dantès has brought back from where Napoleon is in exile.

James Caviezel as The Count of Monte Cristo in the 2002 film.

Dantès remains in prison for fourteen years, which is where the Gothic elements begin. Dantès’ imprisonment recalls other Gothic novels filled with castles and prisons where characters are usually unjustly imprisoned. In prison, Dantès meets the Abbe Faria. Faria is particularly interesting because he meets Dantès while digging a tunnel that eventually leads to Dantès cell. Together, the men plan to escape. Faria is a Gothic character in the sense that, as Buss tells us in the novel’s excellent introduction, he is based on Portuguese cleric Jose Custodia de Faria, an eccentric figure in Paris in the early nineteenth century who was known for his experiments with hypnotism and magnetism. He was a student of Swedenborg and Mesmer and lectured on hypnotism. Hypnotism/magnetism are frequent themes in Gothic literature—the Wandering Jew, Svengali, and Dracula all have hypnotic eyes. Faria also draws geometric lines in his cell which cause his keepers to think him mad, but they reflect he has knowledge beyond most men and they do not understand he is planning his escape. He reflects in this knowledge the Gothic treatment of the Rosicrucian figure, who usually works for mankind’s wellbeing and has two great gifts, the secret of life extension and the philosopher’s stone that turns lead into gold. Faria reflects the gift of life extension in that he has had several strokes but has a “life-giving draught,” a sort of elixir of life, that restores him to health. As for the philosopher’s stone, he doesn’t know how to turn lead to gold, but regardless he has knowledge of a great treasure, one he reveals to Dantès that Cesar Borgia hid on the isle of Monte Cristo. He gives Dantès a paper written in “Gothic characters” that reveals the hiding place of his treasure. This paper is equivalent to the found manuscript in many Gothic novels that reveals secrets of the past. Besides working with Dantès to escape, he also educates Dantès, including teaching him several languages, which allows Dantès to disguise his identity as needed once he does escape.

Before they can escape, Faria dies. Dantès then escapes by hiding in the body bag given to Faria. He is flung into the sea but manages to survive, is rescued by pirates, and eventually gets to Monte Cristo where he finds the treasure, sets himself up under the disguise of a wealthy nobleman, and sets about his revenge. Dantès imprisonment lasts for fourteen years, which recalls the length of time the biblical Jacob labored so he could wed his beloved Rachel, but Dantès, upon returning to Marseilles, learns that Mércèdes has married his enemy Fernand, who now masquerades as a nobleman himself. More notably, Dantès’ escape is equivalent to a rising from the dead since he disguises himself as Faria’s corpse and then returns to life. He has basically been buried alive, not literally but through his imprisonment, and now he has resurrected. In rising from the dead, he is both a vampire figure and a Christ figure, but as the novel progresses, he gradually transforms from the former to the latter role.

Other Gothic elements surrounding Dantès’ character include how he learns to communicate with the sailors and pirates who rescue him. They make signs to one another to communicate much like the freemasons. The freemasons were often associated with conspiracy theories and were claimed to have done everything from building the Tower of Babel to causing the French Revolution. That Dantès works with them shows he is himself a manipulator of politics and economies. Indeed, the Rosicrucians’ possession of the philosopher’s stone was seen as a transgression against God, as evidenced in novels like William Godwin’s St. Leon (1799), because it allowed them to manipulate national and world economies. Dantès has a similar power through his incredible wealth, although he only uses it to manipulate the downfall of his enemies. He is referenced by another character as being like Cagliostro and the Comte de Saint-Germain, saying he has the wit of one and the philosopher’s stone of the other. Cagliostro was an Italian adventurer with an interest in the occult, including alchemy. Saint-Germain was of unknown birth but became a nobleman and philosopher with an interest in alchemy who claimed to be 500 years old to deflect inquiries into his origins.

Dantès is equated with several other historical and mythic figures as well. Early in his return to civilization, he calls himself Sinbad the Sailor, drawing upon Arabian Nights metaphors. The Gothic frequently used the Arabian Nights technique of stories within stories, although Dumas does not use that framework, but the many subplots serve a similar purpose. The Sinbad metaphor applies to all the “wandering” Dantès does in his early years as he sets into motion the plans for his revenge—something that aligns him with other Gothic Wanderer figures who are usually transgressors, most notably the Wandering Jew. Dantès is also linked to the Arabian Nights by being called an Ali Baba because he finds the treasure in a secret cave.

Most in line with the Gothic tradition is how Dantès is likened to a Byronic vampire. When he arrives in Paris, he is described by other characters as being a type of Byronic hero, specifically Manfred, and like Byron, he is described as having the gift of spellbinding others—another reference to hypnotism. Later, he is described as having a hand as icy as a corpse, for which he is compared to Lord Ruthven, the hero of John Polidori’s The Vampire (1819), said to be based on Lord Byron. As noted earlier, Dantès has risen from the grave like a vampire. He is also described by other characters as “ageless”—suggesting he shares the Rosicrucian gift of life-extension or perhaps the long life of a vampire. One scene in the novel that may well have inspired Bram Stoker in writing Dracula (1897) occurs when the character Franz visits the Count of Monte Cristo and is served hashish. He falls asleep and dreams of making love to three female statues in the count’s residence of the courtesans Phryne, Cleopatra, and Messalina. This scene is erotic and brings to mind the incident of sexual dreams Jonathan Harker has in relation to the female vampires in Dracula’s castle.

The actual Chateau d’If where Dantès is imprisoned in the novel.

The novel’s resurrection theme continues when Dantès learns from Bertucci, a Corsican and his servant, about how he had once broken into a home of Villefort and discovered Villefort burying a treasure. Bertucci attacked Villefort to get the treasure, only to discover instead the box contained a child whose umbilical cord was wrapped around its neck; Bertucci believes Villefort thought the child dead and was burying it—trying to hide its existence since it is also illegitimate—but Bertucci realizes the child is alive and rescues it. The child has then literally risen from the grave. The child grows up to be named Benedetto. He is a malevolent being, and in time, Dantès hires him to help bring about his revenge against his enemies. Later, Dantès will reveal the secret of this child’s burial when he invites Villefort and his mistress, mother of the child, to the house, which he has purchased now for himself. He frightens them by saying the house is haunted by ghosts and then recounting the story of the child’s burial without revealing the players’ names.

As the novel continues, Dantès creates havoc in the lives of his enemies, while his true identity remains unknown to them. He enjoys promoting his mysteriousness, telling Villefort he’s one of the superior angelic beings and his kingdom is great because he’s cosmopolitan—no one can claim to know his birthplace and only God knows when he’ll die. Because he’s cosmopolitan, he has no national scruples. These references again make him akin to the Wandering Jew, cursed by God to wander the earth for who knows how long—but who often is depicted as working to reduce his curse by serving God’s purposes. Dantès’ cosmopolitan nature in the novel may well have inspired Lew Wallace’s depiction of The Wandering Jew in his novel The Prince of India (1893), in which the Jew, masquerading as an Indian prince, goes to Constantinople at the time of its fall in 1453. The Wandering Jew in the novel also has a great treasure that is hidden away. It is also likely that The Count of Monte Cristo, with its emphasis on revenge, inspired Wallace’s novel Ben Hur (1880), which also is about revenge and redemption. Further research needs to be done to see if Wallace was a reader of Dumas’ novel, but I think it very likely.

Faust is also part of Dantès’ characterization. Dantès claims, that like everyone else, he has been tempted by Satan; here he takes on the role of Christ, offered great wealth if he will worship Satan. This biblical scene is the original Faustian pact, a common theme in Gothic literature, though Christ refuses to make it, and so does Dantès. He claims he resisted this temptation by becoming an agent of Providence, punishing and rewarding according to God’s will. He is viewed as one of God’s angels by the Morel family in the novel, to whom he is a benefactor, Monsieur Morel having owned the ship Dantès had sailed upon and having been the only one who sought to help Dantès when he was unjustly accused.

In truth, Dantès in the guise of the Count of Monte Cristo is a master of disguise. He claims as his close associates Lord Wilmore of England, who hates him after some nasty business happened between them in India, and a friend, the Abbe Busani. Actually, they are not his associates but people he also masquerades as. He does so especially when Villefort makes inquiries of both to find out the truth about the count. Of course, in both roles, Dantès feeds Villefort incredible stories. One is that the count bought a house to open up a lunatic asylum—perhaps another suggestion that seeped into Bram Stoker’s brain in writing Dracula. After all, Dracula is also a count and buys a house near a lunatic asylum where he manipulates the lunatic Renfield.

The Wandering Jew theme in the novel may have been suggested to Dumas partly because of his source material. The novel is based on the true-life story of Francois Picaud, who was a shoemaker or cobbler. Dumas found the story in Jacques Peuchet’s Police dévoilée: Mémoires historiques tirés des archives de Paris… (1838), a collection of anecdotes from the Paris police archives. While Picaud’s story shares many similarities to that of Dantès in the novel, Dumas made some changes such as shifting Dantès’ origins to Marseilles rather than Paris. However, what interests me here is the shoemaker origins. The Wandering Jew was himself a shoemaker who refused to let Christ rest outside his door on the way to Calvary; as a result he was cursed to wander the earth until Christ’s return. The shoemaker theme relates to the wandering—shoes being needed for long journeys. Here also we may have an influence of the novel upon Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities (1859) since Dr. Manette, when imprisoned in the Bastille, takes up shoemaking. Manette wanders about his rooms ceaselessly at night. Manette’s imprisonment in the Bastille also recalls Dantès’ long imprisonment, including that he was wrongly accused. Dickens would also use the resurrection theme in his novel, Manette being reclaimed to life, and there is a resurrection man, Jerry Cruncher, in the novel whose initials are the same as those of Jesus Christ. (For more on the Gothic elements of A Tale of Two Cities, see my book The Gothic Wanderer.)

One other Gothic theme in the novel is that of gambling. Madame Danglars is a great gambler who gambles away much of her husband’s fortune. Gambling is not limited to gaming, however; the count purposely uses the telegram to create false rumors that affect the buying and selling of stocks, which leads to Danglars’ financial ruin. Gambling was seen as a transgression against God in Gothic literature because people tried to rise above their social and financial status by gambling to gain great wealth. This transgression was linked to the philosopher’s stone that could manipulate world economies by manufacturing wealth.

Buss, in his introduction, says that Dumas could not have written this novel without first being influenced by Eugene Sue’s The Mysteries of Paris (1842-4). That novel created urban crime fiction, and Paris is similarly the setting to the later parts of Dumas’ novel. Certainly, that Dumas took the frame of his story from Jacques Peuchet’s Police dévoilée: Mémoires historiques tirés des archives de Paris… suggests that he was trying to create an urban crime story to ride the coattails of Sue’s popular novel. Although only part of The Count of Monte Cristo is set in Paris, it is in the Paris scenes that the count enacts most of his revenge, creating many mysteries that those he would be revenged upon do not understand. At the same time, Dantès is benevolent much like Prince Rodolphe in Sue’s novel. Rodolphe disguises himself as a common worker to go out among the people, like Haroun al-Rashid—another tie to the Arabian Nights—to find people deserving of his benevolence. However, while in Sue’s novel, the prince aids convicts to help reform them, in Dumas’ novel, the count aids criminals only so they will help him achieve his revenge. These criminals in the end are also punished in various ways, despite their role in bringing about the count’s form of justice.

The Chateau de Monte Cristo, a home Alexandre Dumas built with money from the sales of his novels. Today, it is a museum.

Despite Dantès’ believing he is the hand of Providence, at the end of the novel, when he sees the full extent of the misery he has inflicted upon his enemies, he begins to question whether he has acted justly. After almost everyone in Villefort’s family has died, Villefort realizes he has been unjust toward his own wife, who has poisoned some of the family. He says she caught the disease of crime from him like it was the plague and he decides they will leave France together to wander the earth—another play on the Wandering Jew theme. However, Villefort arrives home to find it is too late—his wife has already killed herself. At this point, Dantès reveals who he is to Villefort, and having pity on him, tells him he has paid his debt and is satisfied. It’s too late, however; Villefort goes mad. Dantès then rushes from the house in horror, fearing he has gone too far.

Dantès is now filled with doubt and despair. He meets Mércèdes one last time—she long ago realized who he was and she begged him to spare her son when the two dueled—film versions often make the son Dantès’ son—but Dumas did not go that far. Dantès now parts from Mércèdes, knowing he has impoverished her and her son after her husband, Fernand, committed suicide, but he makes sure they are provided for.

Reexamining his life, Dantès next travels to the Chateau d’If, where he had been imprisoned, and there hears from the guard the history of the abbe and the escaped prisoner—the guard does not realize he is telling Dantès his own story. Dantès now asks God to take away his doubt that he has been acting as God’s agent in carrying out his revenge. When the guard gives Dantès the abbe’s manuscript of the history of the Italian monarchy as a gift, Dantès notices the book’s epitaph, “‘You will pull the dragon’s teeth and trample the lions underfoot,’ said the Lord,” and takes it as a sign that he has done the right thing in bringing about justice.

In the novel’s final chapter, Dantès completes his transformation from a resurrected vampire into a resurrected Christ figure. Throughout the novel, while he has wreaked revenge on his enemies, he has also spared the good, especially those of the second generation who were not responsible for their fathers’ sins. By not punishing sins to the third and fourth generation like the Old Testament God of the Hebrews, he also acts like a Christ figure who forgives sins. Among the second generation is Valentine, the daughter of Villefort. When Villefort’s wife was poisoning members of the family so that her son could become sole heir, Dantès manipulated events so that when Valentine’s life was in jeopardy, it would only appear she had also died. Dantès does not reveal his secret even to Valentine’s lover, Max Morel. Now in the novel’s final scene, he brings Max to the isle of Monte Cristo, where Max expects the count will help him carry out his suicide because he is so grief-stricken over Valentine’s death. Instead, Max finds Valentine there, alive and well, like Jairus’ daughter raised from the dead by Christ (a reference Dumas makes, thus equating the count with Christ). One also can’t help thinking of Romeo and Juliet in this scene where poison and suicide both figure in for the lovers, but instead of tragedy, life and happiness are restored.

In truth, while films and other adaptations of the novel have treated The Count of Monte Cristo as a great adventure novel, it is truly much more akin to Shakespearean and other Renaissance revenge tragedies. The novel may well have brought the revenge theme strongly back into literature in a way it had not known since the Renaissance. It is probably no accident that a slew of novels focused on revenge followed in the nineteenth century.

The first such novel that comes to mind is Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847). Heathcliff, like The Count of Monte Cristo, is bent upon revenge. Heathcliff also has a great deal of mystery about both his origins and how he came by his wealth and what he did in the years he was absent from Wuthering Heights. I do not know if Emily Brontë read The Count of Monte Cristo, but I think it very likely since the novel’s publishing history in England, as detailed at Wikipedia, shows that several translations were available in England beginning in 1845, including serialization beginning in 1845 in W. Francis Ainsworth’s Ainsworth’s Magazine. Another abridged serialization appeared in The London Journal between 1846 and 1847, and the first single volume translation in English was an abridged version published by Geo Pierce in January 1846 as The Prisoner of If or The Revenge of Monte Christo. The novel also began appearing in April 1846 as part of the Parlour Novelist series of volumes, translated by Emma Hardy and in an anonymous translation by Chapman and Hall in 1846. One would have to learn more about the dating of the manuscript of Wuthering Heights to determine if an influence is possible in this short timeframe. (Some suggest she began the novel as early as 1837 but no later than October, 1845.) However, Brontë also read French—in fact, she lived in Belgium in 1842 to perfect her French so she could teach it. Given that the novel was published in France in 1844, that allows three years for Brontë to read it and be influenced by it in writing her own novel. I find I am not the first to suggest this possibility. Robert Stowell argued this point in “Brontë Borrowings: Charlotte Brontë and Ivanhoe, Emily Brontë and The Count of Monte Cristo,” Brontë Society Transactions, 21: 6 (1996), 249–251. However, while Stowell highlights similarities between the novels, there is no hard evidence to prove Brontë read Dumas. The text of Stowell’s article can be found at: https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/count-monte-cristo.

As mentioned earlier, revenge is a key theme also in Lew Wallace’s Ben Hur (1880) along with the title character’s ultimate redemption when he becomes a Christian and learns forgiveness. Wallace scholars are well aware of Dumas’ influence on Ben Hur and The Count of Monte Cristo also influenced Wallace’s later novel The Prince of India (1893). According to Wikipedia:

“Ben-Hur was also inspired in part by Wallace’s love of romantic novels, including those written by Sir Walter Scott and Jane Porter, and The Count of Monte Cristo (1846) by Alexandre Dumas, père. The Dumas novel was based on the memoirs of an early 19th-century French shoemaker who was unjustly imprisoned and spent the rest of his life seeking revenge. Wallace could relate to the character’s isolation of imprisonment. He explained in his autobiography that, while he was writing Ben-Hur, ‘the Count of Monte Cristo in his dungeon of stone was not more lost to the world.’”

Also, as noted above, I suspect influence on Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. In addition, The Count of Monte Cristo brings to mind the wealthy and mysterious financier Melmotte in Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now (1872) and even Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) because of his equally enormous wealth and mysterious background. While more research should be done to confirm these possible influences, to me, the novel’s incredible influence on both Gothic and realistic fiction that followed it cannot be overstated.

Alexandre Dumas

Too often, The Count of Monte Cristo has been dismissed as an adventure novel and even reduced to a children’s classic. In truth, it is a masterpiece of Gothic fiction, drawing upon numerous Gothic themes to tell not only a story of revenge but the transformation of one man’s soul as he struggles between his human inclinations for revenge, a belief in God, and trying to find a happy medium of justice where evil is punished but the good rewarded while leaving room for benevolence and redemption. It is time that the novel receive the critical attention it deserves, including taking its place in the Gothic canon on the same shelf as Polidori’s The Vampire and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and firmly planted between Sue’s The Mysteries of Paris and Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.

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Tyler Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition, The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, The Children of Arthur novel series, and Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City. Visit Tyler at www.GothicWanderer.com, www.ChildrenofArthur.com, and www.MarquetteFiction.com.

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Filed under Alexandre Dumas, Classic Gothic Novels, Dracula, Gothic Places, revenge tragedies, The Wandering Jew

Tagged as A Tale of Two Cities, Alexandre Dumas, Anthony Trollope, Ben Hur, Bram Stoker, Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte, Eugene Sue, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gothic elements in The Count of Monte Cristo, John Polidori, Lew Wallace, Melmotte, revenge tragedies, Rosicrucians, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Great Gatsby, The Mysteries of Paris, The Vampire, the Wandering Jew, Wuthering Heights

March 1, 2019 · 5:36 pm

Melmoth the Wanderer: Grandfather to Gothic and Irish Literature

Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer will be celebrating its two hundredth anniversary next year, and it deserves to be celebrated since it is one of the most important Gothic novels of all time, yet few people who are not students of the Gothic have ever heard of it. Published in 1820, the novel was the most popular of the several novels Maturin, an Anglo-Irish and Anglican clergyman, published. It is also one of the last works from the Golden Age of Gothic Literature, ranging from roughly 1790 to 1820 when Radcliffe, Lewis, Shelley, and many other writers published notable Gothic novels. Most importantly, it had a huge influence on many other Irish and Gothic novels that followed it.

Charles Maturin (1780-1824) wrote several novels including historical fiction that predated Sir Walter Scott, whom he was friends with, and a popular tragedy, “Bertram.”

In this article, I will discuss a little about why Melmoth the Wanderer is an important Gothic novel, especially for its title Gothic wanderer figure and its anti-Catholicism, and then I will look at some of the other works it influenced.

Contribution to the Gothic Wanderer Figure and Anti-Catholicism

A good summary of Melmoth the Wanderer can be found at Wikipedia for those not familiar with the novel although I would encourage you to read it. Its stories-within-a-story technique, a common element of the Gothic, makes the reader wonder how all the stories will come together, but in the tale of Immalee, the full extent of Melmoth’s Gothic wanderer role is apparent. Melmoth is a member of an Irish family who in the seventeenth century was cursed and now wanders about Europe causing terror and tempting the innocent. He is not immortal, but he does have an extended life of about 170 years before he meets his fate at the end of the novel. Although he does try to tempt people, at times Melmoth feels torn with guilt, especially when he attempts to convince the innocent Immalee to marry him. Immalee was lost in childhood and has grown up alone in nature, innocent and childlike, but eventually, she is found and returned to her family in Spain. However, before Immalee is found, Melmoth visits her on the island and educates her in religion and other problems and hypocrisies of human society—or rather he miseducates her. After Immalee returns to Spain, Melmoth convinces her to marry him in a dark ceremony, and then she conceives his child. When her brother accosts Melmoth, Melmoth slays him and Immalee nearly dies from grief. She is then taken to the prisons of the Inquisition where she gives birth to a daughter. Because of her sin for loving a minion of Satan, she is condemned to lifetime imprisonment in the Inquisition’s prison, and her child is to be taken from her and raised in a convent. However, the child dies before it can be taken from its mother and Immalee dies soon after.

Although the novel was written by an Irishman, it’s important to note that Maturin had a low opinion of Catholics and was himself Anglican. The novel is the most extreme example of anti-Catholicism of all the Gothic novels I have read. Much of the novel is the story of Moncada, who is forced by his family members—themselves manipulated by the clergy—to enter a seminary and become a priest. Because he resists, Moncada is beaten, tortured, and locked up in a cell without light. The depiction of the Inquisition is overall very derogatory. Not that the Inquisition was not a horrible institution, but Maturin has no problem with depicting it in the most derogatory way possible, likely without any real knowledge of the institution.

A Sequel by Honoré de Balzac

This edition of Melmoth the Wanderer includes Balzac’s sequel, and an introduction by Julian Hawthorne, the son of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who referenced Melmoth in his 1828 novel “Fanshawe.”

At the novel’s conclusion, Melmoth’s prolonged life appears to end. However, because no one witnesses Melmoth’s death and there is no final body, the possibility exists that he lives on. Melmoth may not have died since it is believed that Maturin intended a never-written sequel in which Melmoth would return. Honoré de Balzac did write a sequel, Melmoth Reconciled (1835), in which Melmoth is able to find someone to take his place and thereby rest from his wanderings. This short sequel is lacking in Gothic atmosphere and effectiveness, but Balzac does retain the concentration upon Melmoth’s eyes which create a “piercing glance that read men’s inmost thoughts.” The French work is also progressive compared to British Gothic in that it allows the Gothic wanderer to rest, which would be denied to Gothic wanderers in British fiction until the Victorian period.

Influence of Melmoth the Wanderer on J. S. Le Fanu and James Joyce

In rereading Melmoth the Wanderer, I noticed many aspects and possible influences it may have had on literature that I had failed to notice previously when I wrote about it in The Gothic Wanderer. First is the opening scenes where John Melmoth comes to his uncle’s deathbed. This scene is written in a tongue-in-cheek, lighthearted, and comical manner, despite the gravity of the situation. The manuscript John Melmoth reads that depicts life at the court of Charles II is also of this style. What surprised me was that these pages seem like they could have come straight out of J. S. Le Fanu’s The House by the Churchyard (1863). I’ve always thought that particular novel of Le Fanu’s to be almost unreadable, but the comical tone is very similar, suggesting that Le Fanu must have read Maturin. Notably, James Joyce is said to have been inspired by Le Fanu’s novel in writing Finnegan’s Wake (1939).

However, the influence of Maturin on Joyce is even more specific. In Chapter 14 of Ulysses (1922), titled “Oxen of the Sun,” Joyce uses a variety of literary styles that basically trace the history of the English language. One section of the chapter, lines 1010-1037, is written as a parody of Gothic novels, as scholars have long noted. Don Gifford’s Ulysses Annotated even notes that this parody owes a debt to Le Fanu’s The House by the Churchyard.

Note the similarity between this passage from “Oxen of the Sun” and the following one from Melmoth the Wanderer:

“The secret panel beside the chimney slid back and in the recess appeared…Haines! Which of us did not feel his flesh creep? He had a portfolio full of Celtic literature in one hand, in the other a phial marked Poison. Surprise, horror, loathing were depicted on all faces while he eyed them with a ghastly grin.”

In the penultimate paragraph of Chapter 1 of Melmoth the Wanderer, John Melmoth first sees Melmoth the Wanderer as follows:

“At this moment, John saw the door open, and a figure appear at it, who looked round the room, and then quietly and deliberately retired, but not before John had discovered in his face the living original of the portrait. His first impulse was to utter an exclamation of terror, but his breath felt stopped.”

John is shocked because he has already heard that Melmoth the Wanderer has lived well over a century and seen the portrait of this relative. The two passages are not obviously the same, but the entrance of a figure who causes shock occurs in both, and I suspect Joyce borrowed it from Maturin, whether consciously or not. Since Maturin was an Irish writer, Joyce was likely familiar with his work, though I am not aware of any scholars discussing Maturin’s influence on him, something that should be explored further.

Influence on George W. M. Reynolds

This painting by Eugene Delacroix is titled “Melmoth or Interior of a Dominican Convent.” It depicts Moncada being mistreated by the other monks for wanting to renounce his vows.

George W. M. Reynolds was the bestselling author of Victorian England and a key player in the Gothic renaissance that occurred in the 1840s and 1850s with the rise of the penny dreadful. One of Reynolds’ novels, The Necromancer (1851-2), tells the story of a man who has a bargain with the devil to marry seven women over the course of a couple of centuries so that they sell their souls to Satan; if he fails, his own soul will be lost. The plot of Reynolds’ novel recalls Melmoth’s effort to deceive Immalee into marrying him and agreeing to follow his God (Satan), although she never completely understands his purposes. That she ends up dead, and in the final scene of the novel, Melmoth is taken by the devil suggests that perhaps Melmoth had a similar pact with Satan. Maturin does not say this overtly, but Reynolds might well have read the novel, read between the lines, and expanded on the idea in his own book. Since so little is known about Reynolds, we do not know if he read Maturin’s novel or not, but it seems plausible given that he was obviously well-versed in the Gothic tradition.

Influence on Anthony Trollope

Scholars have not failed to note that the villain in one of Anthony Trollope’s greatest novels, The Way We Live Now (1875) is named Melmotte, a name that may owe a debt to Maturin’s Melmoth. Besides the name similarity, there is much confusion and many rumors about exactly who Melmotte is in Trollope’s novel. He is suspected of being Jewish because he is in finance, but beyond this, he is known for having lived in various locations—a type of wandering that makes him akin to the Wandering Jew, whose legend was a major influence on the creation of Melmoth the Wanderer. Among the possible backgrounds of Melmotte is also that he is Irish—his father believed to be an Irish coiner in New York named Melmody (Chapter 98), from whom Melmotte may have learned forgery. Melmotte, of course, claims he is English, wanting to rise in English society.

Since Trollope spent considerable time in Ireland, it is not surprising that he was likely familiar with this Irish novel, which would have been quite popular in his childhood. Coincidentally, Trollope worked for the Post Office in Ireland and Maturin’s father was a Post Office official.

Influence on Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Charles Dickens

Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel Zanoni (1842) is noteworthy for how it reversed the Gothic tradition by creating positive depictions of Rosicrucian characters with extended lives. (For a full discussion of Zanoni and Rosicrucianism in the Gothic tradition see my book The Gothic Wanderer.) Notably, Rosicrucians were known for life-extension and so Melmoth the Wanderer may have been influenced by the Rosicrucian tradition, which had already influenced other earlier novels such as Percy Shelley’s St. Irvyne (1811). (Notably, George W. M. Reynolds’ novel Wagner the Wehr-Wolf (1846-7) features the Rosicrucian founder, Christian Rosencrux, as a character.) Bulwer-Lytton may have been influenced specifically by the end scenes of Melmoth the Wanderer when Immalee is imprisoned by the Inquisition and gives birth to a child who dies. In Zanoni, Bulwer-Lytton’s title character is a Rosicrucian who has lived a long life. He and his lover, Viola, are caught up in the chaos of the French Revolution, resulting in Viola giving birth to their child in prison. Melmoth dies long after Immalee when Satan comes to take him, but Zanoni ends up dying at the guillotine. However, hope remains in the image of the child born to Viola, who survives.

Notably, Zanoni was a major influence on Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities (1859), particularly Sidney Carton’s sacrifice at the end of the novel, but also because of its many Rosicrucian elements, as discussed in my book The Gothic Wanderer. Therefore, Melmoth the Wanderer may be said to be the grandfather of Dickens’ novel.

Influence on Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde was Charles Maturin’s great-nephew by marriage and adopted the name Sebastian Melmoth to protect his privacy and comment upon his state as an outcast following his famous trial and prison term.

It is well-known, but worth repeating, that Maturin was the uncle by marriage to Oscar Wilde’s mother. After Wilde was released from prison after serving a sentence for homosexuality, Oscar Wilde adopted the name of Sebastian Melmoth while he wandered about Europe. The name Melmoth implied he was cursed and a wanderer, and the name Sebastian referenced St. Sebastian, considered the first gay icon of the nineteenth century.

Numerous Other Influences

Melmoth the Wanderer influenced many other literary works in direct and indirect ways and has even influenced the creation of characters in movies and TV. The following list comes from Wikipedia, which includes a few of the works I have already mentioned:

In Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s The Club Dumas (the basis for Roman Polanski’s film The Ninth Gate), Corso bumps into the mystery girl following him as she is reading Melmoth the Wanderer in the lobby of the hotel after seeing Fargas to review his copy of The Nine Doors of the Kingdom of Shadows.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Fanshawe, one of the major characters is named “Doctor Melmoth.”
In Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, Professor Humbert Humbert calls his automobile “Melmoth.”
In John Banville’s 1989 novel The Book of Evidence, the narrator steals an automobile from a garage called “Melmoth’s”; the make of the car is a Humber, an allusion to both Wilde and Nabokov.
“Melmoth” is mentioned in Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin.
In Dave Sim’s Cerebus comic book (issues 139–150), there’s a writer named Oscar (homage to Oscar Wilde), who’s registered under the name “Melmoth” at his hotel.
In Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers metaseries, Melmoth is an antagonist of Frankenstein.
In Leonie Swann’s Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story, the mysterious sheep who has wandered the world and comes home to teach the flock what he has learned is named Melmoth.
The mysterious financier Augustus Melmotte in Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now resembles Melmoth in more than name.
In an 1842 review of Stanley Thorn, Edgar Allan Poe refers to “the devil in Melmoth” as an ineffectual seducer of souls.
In letters P. Lovecraft addresses Donald Wandrei as Melmoth the Wandrei.
A British magazine about surrealism was named Melmoth after the book. Melmoth was published from 1979-1981 and its contributors included George Melly and Ithell Colquhoun.
In the British TV murder mystery series Midsomer Murders the episode “Murder By Magic” (2015) included a mysterious country manor called Melmouth House, the home of an infamous rake-hell and paganist, Sir Henry Melmouth, who died, apparently, in a ritual pagan fire, hoping to be reborn from the ashes like the mythical phoenix.
In Marty Feldman’s movie In God We Tru$t (1980), Peter Boyle plays a con man and crooked street preacher named Dr. Sebastian Melmoth.
Peter Garrison named the aircraft Garrison Melmoth after himself and Melmoth the Wanderer.
Sarah Perry’s third novel Melmoth (2018) centers on a female variation of Maturin’s character, damned (like Richard Wagner’s Kundry in Parsifal) for denying the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The reason I recently decided to reread Melmoth the Wanderer was because I had heard about Sarah Perry’s new novel Melmoth. I will be reviewing that novel in my next article.

Even though Melmoth the Wanderer’s life appears to end at the conclusion of Maturin’s novel, it is clear his influence wanders on and likely will continue to do so for many years to come.

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Tyler Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition, The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, The Children of Arthur novel series, Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City and numerous other books. Visit Tyler at www.ChildrenofArthur.com and www.GothicWanderer.com.

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Filed under Classic Gothic Novels, Contemporary Gothic Novels, George W.M. Reynolds, The Wandering Jew

Tagged as A Tale of Two Cities, Anthony Trollope, Charles Dickens, Charles Maturin, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Honore de Balzac, J. S. Le Fanu, James Joyce, melmoth the wanderer, Oscar Wilde, Sarah Perry, Sebastian Melmoth, Zanoni

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