Miss Gwilt in this last stage version is much less guilty than her namesake in the novel, or in the first dramatization. But it is not quite accurate to say, as Catherine Peters does, that ‘she is not implicated in the plots to sink Allan’s yacht and to murder him with poison gas’. Lydia is, albeit not always wholeheartedly, a clear accessory before the murder.
As Collins records, Miss Gwilt was ‘put on for the first time at the Alexandra Theatre, Liverpool, 9 Dec 1875’ and thereafter ‘performed some hundreds of nights in England and in America’. It had its London opening in April 1876 at the Globe Theatre. It was not a critical success. The Athenaeum‘s review (22 April 1876) was scathing:
So favourable a reception had, according to report, been awarded Miss Gwilt on its first production in Liverpool, a success in London had been discounted beforehand. The best laid plans o’ mice and managers ‘gang oft agley’… To the faults which ordinarily attend dramatized versions of novels, Miss Gwilt adds some shortcomings which are specially characteristic of the author. It is long-winded, involved, oppressive in atmosphere, and artificial in treatment.
The reviewer liked Ada Cavendish, the actress who played Miss Gwilt, but thought the climactic murder wholly absurd.
Notes
1. For Collins’s theatrical activities with Dickens in the 1850s see Robert L. Brannan, Under the Management of Mr Charles Dickens (Ithaca: New York, 1966).
2. Robinson, p. 195.
3. Huntington Library, call mark HM 33787.
4. Walter Dexter, ed., The Letters of Charles Dickens (London, 1938), III, p. 477.
5. Huntington Library, call mark HM 33789.
6. Robinson, p. 198.
7. B. A. Brashear has studied the various dramatic versions of Armadale in his doctoral thesis, ‘Wilkie Collins: from novel to play’ (Case-Western Reserve University, 1972).
A CHRONOLOGY OF WILKIE COLLINS'S LIFE
1824
8 January: Born at 11 New Cavendish Street, St Marylebone,
London to William John Thomas Collins, RA (1788–1847), painter, and Harriet Collins, née Geddes (1790–1868)
1826
Family moves to Pond Street, Hampstead
1828
25 January: Brother, Charles Allston Collins, born (d.1873)
1829
Family moves to Hampstead Square
1830
Family moves to Porchester Terrace, Bayswater
1835
13 January: Attends Maida Hill Academy
1836
19 September–15 August 1838:Family visits France and Italy
1838
August: Family moves to 20 Avenue Road, Regents Park; attends
Mr Cole's private boarding school, Highbury Place
1840
Summer: Family moves to 85 Oxford Terrace, Bayswater;
December: leaves Mr Cole's school
1841
January: Apprenticed to Edmund Antrobus, tea merchant of the Strand
1842
June–July: Visits Scotland with his father
1843
August: First published fiction, ‘The Last Stage Coachman’, Illuminated Magazine
1844
Writes Iólani; Or Tahiti as it was, a Romance, which remains unpublished until 1999
1845
January: Submits Iólani to Chapman and Hall; is rejected in March
1846
17 May: Enters Lincoln's Inn to study law
1847
17 February: Death of father
1848
Summer: Family moves to 38 Blandford Square; November:
first book, Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq., RA, published
by Chapman and Hall
1849
Exhibits a painting, The Smuggler's Retreat, at the Royal Academy
Summer Exhibition
1850
26 February: First play, A Court Duel, an adaptation of J. P. Simon
and Edmond Badon's Monsieur Lockroy, staged at the Soho Theatre,
Dean Street; 27 February: first novel, Antonina; or the Fall of Rome,
published by Richard Bentley; Summer: moves with mother to
17 Hanover Terrace; July–August: walking tour of Cornwall with
Henry Brandling, artist
1851
30 January: Rambles Beyond Railways, a travel book on Cornwall,
published by Bentley; March: meets Charles Dickens; first
contribution to Bentley's Miscellany, ‘The Twin Sisters’; 16 May:
acts with Dickens in Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Not So Bad as We
Seem; 27 September: first article for Edward Pigott's socialist
newspaper, Leader; 21 November: called to the Bar; 17 December:
Mr Wray's Cash-Box published by Bentley
1852
24 April: First contribution to Household Words, ‘A Terribly
Strange Bed’; 16 November: Basil: A Story of Modern Life
published by Bentley
1853
July–September: Stays with Dickens in Boulogne; October–
December: tours Switzerland and Italy with Dickens and
Augustus Egg
1854
Joins the Garrick Club; 6 June: Hide and Seek published by
Bentley; July–August: stays with Dickens in Boulogne
1855
16 June: First play, The Lighthouse, performed at Tavistock House
by Dickens's theatrical company; September: sails to Scilly Isles
with Pigott
1856
February: First collection of short stories, After Dark, published
by Smith, Elder; 1–29 March: A Rogue's Life serialized in Household
Words; September: Moves to 2 Harley Place; October: becomes
staff writer on Household Words
1857
3 January: The Dead Secret begins serialization in Household Words
and (from 24 January) in Harper's Weekly; 6 January: The Frozen
Deep performed at Tavistock House; June: The Dead Secret
published in volume form by Bradbury and Evans; 10 August:
The Lighthouse opens at the Olympic Theatre; September:
tours Cumberland, Lancashire and Yorkshire with Dickens;
3–31 October: they describe the trip in The Lazy Tour of Two
Idle Apprentices, published in Household Words; December: collab
orates with Dickens on ‘The Perils of Certain English
Prisoners’
1958
First French translation, The Dead Secret; July–August: first visit
to Broadstairs, Kent; September: resigns from the Garrick club,
in protest at the expulsion of his friend Edmund Yates; 11
October: The Red Vial is produced at the Olympic Theatre, and
flops
1859
January–February: Lives with Mrs Caroline Graves at 124
Albany Street; apart from one short interlude, they remain
together until his death; May–December: lives at 2a Cavendish
Square; October: The Queen of Hearts published by Hurst and
Blackett; 26 November–25 August 1860: The Woman in White
serialized in All the Year Round; December: moves to 12 Harley Street
1860
17 July: Charles Allston Collins marries Kate Dickens; August:
The Woman in White published in volume form by Sampson
Low; 22 August: opens bank account at Coutts
1861
January: Resigns from All the Year Round; 16 April: joins the
Athenaeum club; August: visits Whitby, Yorkshire, with Caroline Graves
1862
15 March–17 January 1863: No Name serialized in All the Year
Round; 31 December: published in volume form by Sampson Low
1863
August: Visits the Isle of Man with Caroline and her daughter,
Harriet; November: a collecti
on of journalism, My Miscellanies,
published by Sampson Low
1864
November–June 1866: Armadale serialized in the Cornhill
Magazine, December: moves to 9 Melcombe Place, Dorset Square
1865
Chair of the Royal General Theatrical Fund
1866
May: Armadale published in volume form by Smith, Elder;
October: visits Italy with Pigott; 27 October: The Frozen Deep
opens at the Olympic Theatre
1867
September: Moves to 90 Gloucester Place; December: collaborates
with Dickens on short story ‘No Thoroughfare’; 24
December: theatrical adaptation produced, Adelphi Theatre
1868
Finds lodgings for Martha Rudd, his second mistress, at 33
Bolsover Street, Portland Place; she uses the name ‘Mrs
Dawson’; 4 January–8 August: The Moonstone serialized in All
the Year Round; 19 March: his mother dies; July: The Moonstone
published in volume form by Tinsley Brothers; 29 October:
witnesses the marriage of Caroline Graves to Joseph Charles Clow
1869
29 March: Black and White, written in collaboration with the
actor Charles Fechter, opens at the Adelphi Theatre; 4 July:
daughter, Marian Dawson, born to Collins and Martha Rudd;
20 November–30 July 1870: Man and Wife serialized in Cassell's Magazine
1870
June: Man and Wife published in volume form by F. S. Ellis; 9
June: Death of Dickens
1871
April: Caroline Graves returns to live with Collins in Gloucester
Place; 14 May: second daughter, Harriet Constance Dawson,
born to Collins and Martha Rudd at 33 Bolsover Street; 9 October:
The Woman in White opens at the Olympic; 2 September–24
February 1872: Poor Miss Finch serialized in Cassell's Magazine
1872
26 January: Poor Miss Finch published in volume form by
Bentley; October–July 1873: The New Magdalen serialized in
Temple Bar
1873
17 January: Miss or Mrs? And Other Stories published by Bentley;
22 February: Man and Wife opens at the Prince of Wales Theatre;
9 April: Charles Allston Collins dies; 17 May: The New Magdalen
published in volume form by Bentley; 19 May: stage version of
The New Magalen opens at the Olympic; 25 September: arrives
in New York for reading tour of America; 10 November: The
New Magdalen opens in New York
1874
Martha Rudd moves to 10 Taunton Place, Regents Park; 7 March:
Collins leaves Boston for England; 26 September–13 March 1875:
The Law and the Lady serialized in the Graphic; 2 November: The
Frozen Deep and Other Stories published by Bentley; 25 December:
son, William Charles Collins Dawson, born to Collins and Martha
Rudd at Taunton Place
1875
Copyright for Collins’s work acquired by Chatto and Windus,
who remain his publishers until his death; February: The Law
and the Lady published in volume form by Chatto and Windus
1876
January–September: The Two Destinies serialized in Temple Bar;
15 April: Miss Gwilt, a dramatic version of Armadale, opens at
the Globe Theatre; August: The Two Destinies published in
volume form
1877
29 August: The Dead Secret opens at the Lyceum Theatre; 17
September: The Moonstone opens at the Olympic Theatre;
December ‘My Lady's Money’ published in the Illustrated London News
1878
June–November: The Haunted Hotel published in Belgravia
Magazine; published in volume form in November
1879
1 January–23 July: The Fallen Leaves – First Series serialized in
World; 7 April: A Rogue's Life published in volume form; July:
The Fallen Leaves – First Series published in volume form; 13
September–30 January 1880: Jezebel's Daughter serialized in the
Bolton Weekly Times and other regional newspapers owned by
William Tillotson
1880
March: Jezebel's Daughter published in volume form; 2
October–26 March 1881: The Black Robe serialized in the Sheffield
and Rotheram Independentand other Tillotson titles
1881
April: The Black Robe published in volume form; December:
A. P. Watt becomes Collins's literary agent
1882
22 July–13 January 1883: Heart and Science serialized in the
Manchester Weekly Times and other regional newspapers;
August–June 1883: Heart and Science serialized in Belgravia
Magazine
1883
April: Heart and Science published in volume form; 9 June: Rank
and Richesopens at the Adelphi Theatre, and is a failure; 15
December–12 July 1884:‘I Say No’ serialized in the Glasgow
Weekly Herald and other regional newspapers
1884
January–December: ‘I Say No’ serialized in London Society;
October: ‘I Say No’published in volume form
1885
28 August: Tommie, Collins's dog, dies; 30 October: The Evil
Genius performed once at the Vaudeville Theatre for copyright
reasons; 11 December–30 April 1886: The Evil Genius serialized
in the Leigh Journal and Times and other Tillotson titles
1886
September: The Evil Genius published in volume form; 15
November: The Guilty River published in volume form
1887
May: River Novels, a collection of short stories, published in
volume form
1888
February. Moves to 82 Wimpole Street with Caroline Graves;
17 February–29 June: The Legacy of Cain serialized in the Leigh
Armadale Page 97
