Scene from The Christmas Carol, at the Adelphi Theatre. From Edward Stirling's adaptation. The Illustrated London News: Saturday, 17 February 1844, p. 109.
O. Smith as Scrooge and Mr. Forman as the Ghost of Christmas Present in a scene from A Christmas Carol at the Adelphi Theatre — The Illustrated London News, Saturday, 17 February 1844. Unknown artist. From the officially sanctioned adaptation by Edward Stirling.
A Clipping from The Newspaper Review
Adelphi Theatre.
The Old Adelphi Theatre from Walford, Old and New London, 1879-1885, p. 114.
We have already given a slight sketch of this happy dramatic adaptation from Dickens's admirable "romance of real life;" we will now proceed to illustrate it, more through the graphical agency of our artist, than by anything we could ourselves indite. Of the production itself, from which the theatrical representation has emanated, we have nothing to say, but "plaudit" from beginning to end: it exhibits the author not only as a caricaturist, but a philanthropist, a satirist, and, unlike the censors of old, a moralist. Neither Horace, Juvenal, nor Persius, could "touch the pitch" they wanted to make appear more black, "without defining their own fingers;" but Dickens is never corrupted by the subject; he stands aloof and "shoots Vice as well as Folly" when it obtrudes itself upon his universal surveillance with —An arrow shot by Virtue — barb'd by Wit. [109]
Scene from the Burletta, "Stave 2": Social Realism with a Vengeance
Spirit. My time is short on Earth, it ends tonight.
Scrooge. To-night?
Spirit. To-night at midnight. Two children, Want and Ignorance, rise.
Scrooge. Forgive me, but I see something strange — points to one of their feet Is it a foot or a claw?
Spirit. It might be a claw for the flesh there is upon it — look here. (Shows children. Picture)
Scrooge. Ragged. Scowling and Wolfish. Are they yours?
Spirit. They are Man's. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is want, beware them both and all of their degree — but most ofd all beware this boy, for on his brow see that written which is doom unless the writing be erased. Deny it. Slander those who tell it you and bide the end — (Children disappear). [LC 821]
Related Material
- Edward Stirling's "A Christmas Carol; or, Past, Present, and Future, A Burletta in Three Staves" (1844, in collaboration with Charles Dickens)
- Poster for Edward Stirling's "A Christmas Carol; or, Past, Present, and Future" at The Theatre Royal, New Adelphi (2 January 160)
- Theatres in Victorian London: The Adelphi (Strand)
- John Leech's Christmas Present with Ignorance and Want — "The Second of the Three Spirits," 119 (1843)
Bibliography
"Adelphi." [second review of Stirling's Carol] Illustrated London News, no. 94, Vol. IV (Saturday, 17 February, 1844), p. 109.
Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being A Ghost Story of Christmas. Illustrated by John Leech. London: Chapman and Hall, 1843.
Patten, Robert L. Chapter 6, "Marley Was Dead." Dickens, Death, and Christmas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. 74-126. ISBN 978-0-19-286266-2. [Review]
Stirling, Edward. A Christmas Carol. Adelphi: 5 February, 1844. The Lord Chamberlain's Collection, MS. 42972 ff. 798-829. Licensed 27/01/1844.
Created December 6, 2002
Last modified 2 June 2024