Robert Elsmere
Title page from the American or Colonial Edition.
AuthorMary Augusta Ward
CountryEngland
LanguageEnglish
PublisherSmith, Elder
Publication date
1888
Pages604

Robert Elsmere is a novel by Mrs. Humphry Ward published in 1888.[1] It was immediately successful, quickly selling over a million copies and gaining the admiration of Henry James.[2]

Background

Inspired by the religious crises of early Victorian clergymen such as her father Tom Arnold, Arthur Hugh Clough, and James Anthony Froude (particularly as expressed in the last's novel The Nemesis of Faith), it is about an Oxford clergyman who begins to doubt the doctrines of the Anglican Church after encountering the writings of German rationalists like Schelling and David Strauss.[3][4] Instead of succumbing to atheism or Roman Catholicism, however, Elsmere takes up a "constructive liberalism" (which Ward received from Thomas Hill Green)[5] stressing social work amongst the poor and uneducated. Ward was inspired to write Robert Elsmere after hearing a sermon by John Wordsworth in which he argued that religious unsettlement, such as that experienced in England throughout the nineteenth century, leads to sin; Ward decided to respond by creating a sympathetic, loosely fictionalized account of the people involved in this unsettlement at the present, including her friends Benjamin Jowett, Mark Pattison, and her uncle Matthew Arnold.[6]

The novel was the subject of a famous review by William Ewart Gladstone in which he criticized the novel's advocacy of the "dissociation of the moral judgment from a special series of religious formulae."[7][8][9][10] In a more jocular manner, Oscar Wilde in his essay "The Decay of Lying" famously quipped that Robert Elsmere was "simply Arnold's Literature and Dogma with the literature left out."[11]

The novel was a runaway best-seller,[12] but it might have suffered the same fate as other Victorian era novels dealing with crises of faith had it not been for Ward's sensitive treatment of the subject. It was revolutionary in the nineteenth century when readers were acutely sensitive to anything they saw as blasphemy,[13] and the presence of Jesus Christ in any but serious scholarly and devotional books was taboo. Then Lew Wallace included him in his novel Ben-Hur less than a decade before Ward published Robert Elsmere. This broke new ground but it was successful only because Wallace portrayed him as the Saviour.[14] Had Wallace followed his original purpose to portray Jesus as a mere man, he might have undergone the attacks that were then launched at Ward.

Robert Elsmere generated enormous interest from intellectuals and agnostics who saw it as a liberating tool for liberating times and from those of faith who saw it as another step in the advancement of apostasy or heathenism. As with many other best-sellers, though, it was repeatedly copied and sales of the unauthorized editions matched or surpassed those of the authorized.

The book was out of print for twenty-five years, but was republished as a scholarly edition in 2013 which includes extracts from Gladstone's review.[15]

Setting

Much of the novel is set in and around Longsleddale in the Lake District, called by Ward ‘Long Whindale’.[16]

Thus for example the haunted ‘High Fell’ of the book is in fact High Street.[17]

Dramatization

Plans were immediately underway to dramatize the work at the Madison Square Theatre on Broadway in New York City. Actor/playwright William Gillette, who would later be renowned for playing Sherlock Holmes, was given the task of doing it. He read the novel to determine, as he put it, "whether or not there existed sufficient dramatic material in the book for stage purposes. Upon deciding that, with some modification, an effective drama could be constructed upon the motive found in it, I so notified those managers, and at the same time wrote at length to the author requesting her permission to make sure of the material, and offering therefore a liberal royalty." He assured Mrs. Ward that the material would be "seriously and delicately treated" and would be free from theological discussion of any description. He also assured her that he strongly wished to break down barriers of unreasonable prejudice opposed to works dealing with religious belief, "for those who consider the stage as a mere place of amusement and buffoonery are as hopelessly narrow and bigoted as the people who still hold it to be an agency of the devil."

He had also assured her that, should she give her consent and then withdraw it, her wishes would be honored in full. Then he warned her of a fate similar to what befell Uncle Tom's Cabin not four decades earlier, when pirated copies were printed and sold overseas with no payment to the author, and dramatizations were written and staged throughout America, many of them reshaping the story according to the prejudices of those dramatizing it, which worked to the detriment of the original work: "Should Mrs. Ward, upon receiving it, still refuse us her authorization, the piece will not be done under our management. Instead, there will be presented to the public a number of cheap and careless adaptations, hurried upon the stage by irresponsible parties, just as there have been issued and put on sale hundreds of thousands of cheap, ill-printed, and unauthorized copies of the book. We shall then be treated to a burst of horrified indignation against the theater from the righteous people who have been partakers in literary theft by buying and reading these unauthorized and un-paid-for publications."[18]

Another problem, Gillette declared, was that "the literary state of affairs between England and America – at least so far as dramatic work is concerned – is not one of peaceful trade; it is nearer to absolute warfare. Our work is taken by the English, and adapted, changed, rechristened, and performed without even the courtesy of asking permission. Anything in the way of reprisal is certainly excusable, provided one is inclined to that sort of work. I do not particularly care for it."

Gillette reported that "upon Mrs. Ward's final refusal of her permission to dramatize 'Robert Elsmere' I abandoned the work. It was completed, rehearsed, and put upon the stage by other parties, and under other management."[19]

Producer Charles Frohman then announced that what Gillette had refused to do would be done by somebody else, "and the piece, which has already been booked through the country, will be presented, a production being made in this city as soon as arrangements can be made."[20]

It was announced on March 18 that the dramatization and the casting were complete and rehearsals were underway. The play opened at the Hollis Street Theatre in Boston on April 8 to pretty good reviews, the Boston Globe mentioning that "the playwrights have done their work deftly..."[21]

David Belasco then produced Robert Elsmere at the Union Square Theatre in New York on April 29, 1889. It ran for two nights before being withdrawn due to lack of support. Its main problem was that it dealt with harsh realities and deep and controversial situations that theater audiences were not yet ready for. "Most middle class men of the late nineteenth century did not see life either in social or economic or in modern psychological terms," Catherine Marks explained. "They regarded dramatic conflict as a battle between the individual and visible external forces or between the individual and his conscience. There was no doubt about what was 'Right.' Cracks were beginning to appear and the European dramatists, Henrik Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw, were attracting some attention by the 1890s. But very few American theatre-goers were interested in social problems or subjective depth-probing."[22]

Notes

  1. ↑ John Sutherland (1990) [1989]. "Robert Elsmere". The Stanford Companion to Victorian Literature. p. 539. ISBN 9780804718424.
  2. ↑ Ashton, Rosemary (1989). "Doubting Clerics: From James Anthony Froude to Robert Elsmere via George Eliot." In: Jasper, David, and T.R. Wright, The Critical Spirit and the Will to Believe: Essays in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Religion. New York: St. Martins Press, p. 72.
  3. ↑ Peterson, William S. (1976). Victorian Heretic: Mrs Humphry Ward's Robert Elsmere. New York: Humanities; Leicester: Leicester University Press.
  4. ↑ Prickett, Stephen (1988). "Biblical Prophecy and Nineteenth Century Historicism: The Joachimite Third Age in Matthew and Mary Augusta Arnold," Literature and Theology, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 219–236.
  5. ↑ Richer, Melvin (1956). "T. H. Green and His Audience: Liberalism as a Surrogate Faith," Review of Politics, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp. 444–472.
  6. ↑ Ashton (1989), pp. 83–84.
  7. ↑ Gladstone, W.E. (1888). "'Robert Elsmere' and the Battle of Belief," The Nineteenth Century, Vol. 23, pp. 766–788.
  8. ↑ Peterson, William S. (1970). "Gladstone's Review of Robert Elsmere: Some Unpublished Correspondence," The Review of English Studies, Vol. 21, No. 84, pp. 442–461.
  9. ↑ Towheed, Shafquat. (1997). "W.E. Gladstone’s Reception of Robert Elsmere: A Critical Re-Evaluation," English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920, Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 389–397.
  10. ↑ Erb, Peter C. (2001). "Politics and Theological Liberalism: William Gladstone and Mrs Humphry Ward," Journal of Religious History, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 158–172.
  11. ↑ Ashton (1989), p. 73.
  12. ↑ Ryals, Clyde de L. "The critical reception of "Robert Elsemere"". Victorian Web. Retrieved 28 April 2023.
  13. ↑ Morsberger, Robert E. & Katharine M., (1980). Lew Wallace: Militant Romantic. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, p. 293.
  14. ↑ Mott, Frank Luther (1947). Golden Multitudes, The Story of Best Sellers in the United States. New York: The Macmillan Company, p. 172-73.
  15. ↑ Ward, Mrs Humphry, Robert Elsmere, ed. by Miriam E. Burstein (Brighton: Victorian Secrets, 2013)
  16. ↑ G Lindon, A Literary Guide to the Lake District (London 1993) p. 30
  17. ↑ G Lindon, A Literary Guide to the Lake District (London 1993) p. 32
  18. ↑ Hartford Courant, "Letter from the People, Robert Elsmere, Its Dramatization – Statement of Facts by Mr. William Gillette," February 13, 1889, p. 5.
  19. ↑ Hartford Courant (1889), p. 2.
  20. ↑ The New York Times, "Robert Elsmere, Mr. Gillette Will Not Dramatize It Without Permission," February 14, 1889, p. 9.
  21. ↑ The Boston Globe, "Drama and Light Opera," April 9, 1889, p. 7.
  22. ↑ Marks, Catherine Maxwell, William Gillette and the Stage of Enterprise (An unpublished thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, June 1974), pp. xix-xx.

Further reading

  • "Author of Robert Elsmere," The Outlook, Vol. 124, 1920, pp. 583–584.
  • "Robert Elsmere," The Andover Review, Vol. 10, 1888, pp. 297–306.
  • "The Author of Robert Elsmere," The Critic, Vol. 13, 1888, p. 167.
  • Ashton, Rosemary (1987). Introduction to Robert Elsmere. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Brumm, Ursula (1982). "The Religious Crisis of the 19th Century in Robert Elsmere and The Damnation of Theron Ware." In: Die Amerikanische Literatur in der Weltliteratur: Themen und Aspekte; Festschrift zum 60. Ed. Claus Uhlig and Volker Bischoff. Berlin: E. Schmidt, pp. 159–75.
  • Collister, Peter (1982). "A Postlude to Gladstone on Robert Elsmere: Four Unpublished Letters," Modern Philology, Vol. 79, No. 3, pp. 284–96.
  • Collister, Peter (1989). "'A Fresh and Supplementary Language': Some Quotations in Robert Elsmere," Durham University Journal, Vol. 81, No. 2, pp. 253–64.
  • Concilio, Januarius V. De (1889). "'Robert Elsmere' as a Controversial Novel," The American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. XIV, pp. 268–282.
  • Cook, Joseph (1889). "Robert Elsmere’s Mental Struggles, III," The North American Review, Vol. 148, pp. 106–109.
  • Cressey, George Croswell (1888). Robert Elsmere as a Type of Religious Transition. Bangor: Press of John H. Baron.
  • Culp, Mildred L. (1982). "Literary Dimensions of Robert Elsmere: Idea, Character, and Form," International Fiction Review, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 35–40.
  • Findlater, Jane H. (1902). "On Religious Novels," The National Review, Vol. XXXIX, pp. 88–98.
  • Gwynn, Stephen (1917). "Robert Elsmere." In: Mrs. Humphry Ward. London: Nisbet & Co., pp. 17–34.
  • Hale, Edward Everett (1889). "Robert Elsmere's Mental Struggles, I," The North American Review, Vol. 148, pp. 97–102.
  • Harland, Marion (1889). "Robert Elsmere's Mental Struggles, II," The North American Review, Vol. 148, pp. 102–106.
  • Herrero Granado, María Dolores (1995). "Fiction through History and/or History through Fiction: Mary A. Ward’s Theism as Reflected in Robert Elsmere: an Illustration of the Ultimate Hegelian Paradox." In: Telling Histories: Narrativizing History, Historicizing Literature. Ed. Susana Onega. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 31–47.
  • Howe, Julia Ward (1889). "Robert Elsmere's Mental Struggles, IV," The North American Review, Vol. 148, pp. 109–116.
  • Howell, David B. (1999). "The Novelist as Interpreter of Theology and Biblical Criticism: A Study of Mrs. Humphry Ward and Robert Elsmere," Perspectives in Religious Studies, Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 365–378.
  • Hutton, R.H. (1894) "The Theology of 'Robert Elsmere'." In: Criticisms on Contemporary Thought and Thinkers, Vol. II. Ed. Hutton. London: Macmillan & Co., pp. 263–269.
  • Lightman, Bernard (1990). "Robert Elsmere and the Agnostic Crises of Faith." In: Victorian Faith in Crisis: Essays on Continuity and Change in Nineteenth-Century Religious Belief. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 283–311.
  • Loesberg, Jonathan (1990). "Deconstruction, Historicism, and Overdetermination: Dislocations of the Marriage Plots in Robert Elsmere and Dombey and Son," Victorian Studies, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 441–464.
  • Mallock, W.H. (1892). "Amateur Christianity," The Eclectic Magazine, Vol. 56, No. 1, pp. 80–96.
  • Marinet, J. Van Loenen (1890). "Yet Another View of Robert Elsmere," The Review of Reviews, Vol. 2, p. 233.
  • Marvin, F.S. (1939). "Robert Elsmere: Fifty Years After," The Contemporary Review, Vol. 156, pp. 196–202.
  • Pater, Walter (1918). "Robert Elsmere." In: Essays from The Guardian. London: Macmillan & Co., pp. 53–70.
  • Perkin, J. Russell (2009). "Literature and Dogma: Mary Augusta Ward's Robert Elsmere and Walter Pater's Marius the Epicurian." In: Theology and the Victorian Novel. McGill-Queen's University Press, pp. 196–224.
  • Salter, W.M. 1888). "The Attack on Robert Elsmere," The Open Court, Vol. 2, No. 69, pp. 1372–75.
  • Sempers, Charles T. (1888). "Robert Elsmere," The Harvard Monthly, Vol. 7, pp. 113–121.
  • Schork, R.J. (1989). "Victorian Hagiography: A Pattern of Allusions in 'Robert Elsmere' and 'Helbeck of Bannisdale," Studies in the Novel, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 292–304.
  • Statham, F. Reginald (1896). "The Real Robert Elsmere," National Review, Vol. 28, pp. 252–261.
  • Willey, Basil (1957). "How 'Robert Elsmere' Struck Some Contemporaries." In: Essays and Studies, Vol. 10. London: John Murray, pp. 53–68.
  • Wilson, Samuel Law (1899). "The Theology of Mrs. Humpry Ward — 'Robert Elsmere'." In: The Theology of Modern Literature. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, pp. 347–378.
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