THEATRE REVIEWS

The Other Plays

I was going to call this page, “The Lost Plays”, but that seemed overly dramatic and besides, in a sense, all of Buchanan’s plays are now lost. According to G. R. Sims in Among My Autographs, “He turned out work at a rate which was appalling. He would produce half a dozen plays in a year, and have another half-dozen ready for production. In the pigeon-holes of his study, at Merkland, he had always a score of unacted plays, ranging from comic operas to historical tragedies.” So it’s not surprising to come across mentions of plays which never seemed to hit the stage.

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1. Unproduced Plays

There is enough evidence (news reports, copyright performances etc.) to assume that the following plays were written although none were ever given full productions.

1. The Flying Dutchman

2. A Hero in Spite of Himself

3. The Squireen

4. The New Don Quixote

5. The Heavenly Twins

6. The Maiden Queen

7. The Diamond Necklace

1. The Flying Dutchman (1878)

Written for Herman Vezin (with whom Buchanan later collaborated on Bachelors), The Flying Dutchman was never produced on stage. Buchanan blamed the production of Henry Irving’s Vanderdecken (by W. G. Wills and Percy Fitzgerald) which opened at the Lyceum on June 8th, 1878 for pre-empting his own version. He later returned to the same subject in the novel, Love Me For Ever (1883) and the poem, The Outcast (1891).

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The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post (9 February, 1878 - Issue 9273)

—Mr. Herman Vezin will shortly appear in a new character at the Queen’s Theatre, which will surpass all this well-known actor’s previous creations, including “The Man o’ Airlie” and “Dan’l Druce.” The title of the new play is the “Flying Dutchman,” and it is said to be written by Mr. Robert Buchanan. The hero of the piece is specially adapted to Mr. Vezin.

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The Examiner (22 June, 1878 - Issue 3673)

     We believe there is no foundation for Mr. Robert Buchanan’s complaint that Vanderdecken was hurried on the Lyceum stage to anticipate a play on the same subject which he had written for Mr. Herman Vezin. The idea of finding a rôle for Mr. Irving in the Flying Dutchman was suggested to the Lyceum management several years ago, while Mr. Bateman was still alive.

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The Stage (10 January, 1924 - p.17)

     The following letter from Mr. Shear is of great interest to me, reviving, as it does, memories of the struggles of the giants of the past. “Venderdecken” was one of the few Irving failures at the Lyceum, when everyone thought it would be one of his great successes. “The Flying Dutchman” of Robert Buchanan might have been the great success for which Herman Vezin waited so long. Who knows? There is tragedy always in the telling of lost chances, and that fine actor, Herman Vezin, seemed to be always losing them. Such is fate. I am always glad to hear from Mr. Shear, who is a chronicler from the pure love of the theatre, and his letters of correction are always welcome on that account; but in this particular instance I was referring to the modernised version of “The Flying Dutchman,” in which Vanderdecken appears part of the time in modern garb, and this was written from the old version to suit Beerbohm Tree.
     Your true dramatist seldom wastes good material, and after one or two successes under the Tree management, Buchanan prepared Vanderdecken to fit in with Tree’s modern style of production, still retaining parts of the old version wherein Tree’s versatility would find full scope. The Compliments of the Season to you, Mr. Shear, and many of them.

Playgoers’ Club,
     20, Cranbourne Street,
                                 W.C.2.
                        Dec. 30, 1923.

     Dear Pillicoddy,
          In a letter I received from Herman Vezin, in June, 1878, occurs the following:—
          “The fact is Robert Buchanan wrote a ‘Flying Dutchman’ for the Queen’s when I was there to suit the company. I think it a magnificent play, and that it would have saved the theatre, but the malign influence that suggested the production of a series of bad plays at that theatre first accepted, then rejected the ‘F.D.’ It was a great pity, but the failure of ‘Vanderdecken’ still leaves a field for Buchanan’s play. When my luck turns I may have a chance with it.—Yours,
                                                “(Sgd.) HERMAN VEZIN.”
     The theatre mentioned was the old Queen’s, in Long Acre, then under the management of Mr. Henry Labouchere, and “Vanderdecken” had just previously been produced by Henry Irving at the Lyceum. Beerbohm Tree was just emerging from the ranks of the amateurs. With best wishes for the New Year, yours faithfully,
                           (Sgd.) EDWIN H. SHEAR.

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I also came across the following from 1883, which is rather too speculative to serve as evidence that Buchanan’s play was still being considered for production. However, the story in the Illustrated London News was Buchanan’s novel, Love Me For Ever, which was a reworking of the Flying Dutchman legend. The play which eventually followed Charles Reade’s Dora at the Adelphi on March 14th, was Buchanan’s Storm-Beaten, an adaptation of another of his novels, God and the Man.

Liverpool Mercury (25 January, 1883 - Issue 10932)

     We understand that Mr. Robert Buchanan’s new play will be produced on the withdrawal of “Dora.” It is said to be founded on the story that formed the Christmas number of the Illustrated London News. Mr. Buchanan’s success as a dramatist has not hitherto been equal to his deserts, but this has been due to accidental circumstances that may be easily avoided in the future. There is little reason why the author of a romance so powerfully dramatic as “God and the Man” should not take a place very high indeed among living dramatists. The principal part in the forthcoming drama is to be played by Miss Harriet Jay, a young lady whose impersonation of Lady Clancarty is said to be among the most exquisite yet seen. Miss Jay is well known as the authoress of stories of Irish life, some of which, like “The Priest’s Blessing” and “The Queen of Connaught,” are, in the opinion of such an excellent judge as Mr. Charles Read, among the most remarkable products of the time in fiction. The lady is also known as an accomplished actress, and in this capacity she recently gave some Wednesday matinées at the Gaiety Theatre, where she appeared as Lady Jane Grey in Mr. Buchanan’s stirring drama. We understand that Miss Jay may before long be expected in Liverpool. She is looked to as one of the notable artistes of the immediate future.

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2. A Hero in Spite of Himself (1884)

A Hero in Spite of Himself was commissioned by Messrs Shook and Collier of the Union-square Theatre, New York. According to Harriett Jay’s biography of Buchanan, the play was never actually written, and if it had not become the subject of a court case four years later it is doubtful that either its title or the circumstances surrounding its rejection would have been come to light.

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The New York Times (20 December, 1888)

NOT TRUE TO AMERICAN LIFE.

     In 1884, when Sheridan Shook and James W. Collier were managing the Union-Square Theatre, Robert Buchanan engaged to write them an American society drama, for which he was to receive £1,000. An advance payment of £150 was made, and in due time the new play was brought over. It was called “A Hero in Spite of Himself,” and was built on the English ideas of Western life. The male characters would have been obliged to wear red flannel shirts and tuck their trousers into their boot legs, and the ladies in the cast would have appeared in costumes equally incongruous to real American society. Shook & Collier sued Mr. Buchanan to recover their £150 advance, and yesterday David Gerber of ex-Judge Dittenhoefer’s office presented the case to the jury in the Supreme Court, before Judge Lawrence. Mr. Buchanan was defended by Howe & Hummel. The jury were not satisfied with Mr. Buchanan’s ideas of American society and brought in a verdict against him of $945.

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The Era (2 March, 1889 - Issue 2632)

THE DRAMA IN AMERICA.
(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

     NEW YORK, MONDAY, FEB. 18.—

.....

     SOME time since Messrs Shook and Collier recovered $1,135.13 from Mr Robert Buchanan in their suit against him for the advance payment to him on account of the American society play he was to furnish them for the Union-square Theatre, and which they refused to accept on the ground that it was not an American society play. Hitherto, efforts to recover any of the amount have been vain. Recently, however, it was discovered that the production of Partners was under a contract by which Mr Buchanan received five per cent. of the gross receipts, and that $588 was here belonging to him. On Saturday an order was procured from Judge O’Brien requiring Mr Buchanan to show cause why a receiver of his property should not be appointed. In this order the playwright is referred to as an insolvent debtor.

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The Era (9 March, 1889 - Issue 2633)

THE AMERICAN MANAGER, OLD STYLE.
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—America is still a long way off, and American ways, especially in the matter of law, are still far beyond the comprehension of purblind Europeans. The paragraph contained in your issue of to-day, and stating that a certain Judge O’Brien has issued an order to attach certain monies of mine at the suit of Messrs Shook and Collier, late of the Union-square Theatre, needs a little explanation.
     It appears, then, that during my absence from America a certain suit, which I thought had long been abandoned as ridiculous, has been decided against me. Several years ago I was requested by Messrs Shook and Collier to write them a play, and on my agreeing to do so they paid me a small earnest-fee of $750, requesting me at the same time to come out to New York City and superintend the production. Having other business in that quarter, I set sail in due course, and found on my arrival that, in defiance of my contract, a play by an American writer was already in preparation to open the season. I interviewed a gentleman sitting in his shirtsleeves in the near neighbourhood of a well-known “bar,” and was taken by him to interview an elderly gentleman-farmer living in retirement far up the Hudson River. These were Messrs Shook and Collier, theatrical managers. A very little observation enabled me to discover that these gentlemen, having discovered, as they thought, a gold-mine in a “native” drama for which they would have to pay very little, meant to throw me over. With this determination they got me to run through the rough draft of my play, and on that hint, informed me that it would not “suit” their theatre. I was not dissatisfied with this decision, as I had in the meantime had an opportunity of discovering that their management was going fast to the dogs; but when, a little later, the gentleman in the shirtsleeves demanded back my earnest money, I refused to “deliver.” Action at law followed. Messrs Shook and Collier, in the sweet spirit of Yankee law, tried to attach my effects in prospect of an issue in their favour; but as they were unable or unwilling to give bonds on their side, nothing came of this vexatious proceeding. By-and-by the active partner of the firm approached me again and asked me if I would dramatise for him “Our Mutual Friend,” making a leading part of the Doll’s Dressmaker, and concluding with what he called “an allegory”—meaning, as I found, an apotheosis. This I declined, but, in a moment of pity for the condition of his business, I showed him Alone in London, which he decided would not suit “American audiences.” The lawsuit ebbed away and was forgotten. Alone in London was produced by me in Philadelphia, and immediately secured by Col. Sinn, of Brooklyn, with a result which is well known, and may be best described in the statement that Col. Sinn is the possessor of a “running” theatrical gold-mine, while Mr Shook has sunk into private obscurity, and Mr Collier is occupied, I believe, in the congenial pursuit of managing, not a theatre, but a Turkish Bath.
     I did not expect to hear any more of Messrs Shook and Collier, and was rather surprised, when Partners was produced at the Haymarket a year ago, to receive a cablegram from Mr Collier, asking me to let him have the American rights. Curious to know if he was in a position to treat for a theatrical property, I cabled back demanding the usual deposit, and received a reply to the effect that he “could not pay anything down,” but would give a large “percentage.” I heard nothing more of my retired managers till, a few weeks ago, I saw in your columns a paragraph that Messrs Shook and Collier had recovered some thousand dollars from me on the score of that old suit. The affair had been decided against me on the showing that I had contracted to supply the partners with “a drama of American society,” and “had not done so.” Of course, in my absence, Messrs Shook and Collier had it all their own way. Up to the hour of writing I have received no official intimation of the judgment, but in a letter received from my friend Mr A. M. Palmer a few days ago, I am informed that any outstanding royalties in Partners are to be attached until the judgment is satisfied.
     Your American correspondent is most anxious to inform your readers that Mr Judge O’Brien, in his “order,” describes me as an “insolvent debtor.” Yet, as I have shown, no direct communication of any kind has reached me, and all I know of this “debt” has been gathered from your columns. As I began by saying, America is a long way off, and though I might easily upset an absurd judgment, it would cost no little trouble. In all possibility I shall let it pass. The sum, though small, may console Messrs Shook and Collier for their loss of the Union-square Theatre, and go to the working expenses of the Turkish Bath.
                                                                           I am, &c.,
                                                                                       ROBERT BUCHANAN.
                                               Vaudeville Theatre, March 2d, 1889.

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3. The Squireen (1890) (Written in collaboration with Aubrey Boucicault.)

I came across this title in the catalogue of the New York Public Library:

“Promptbook. Typescript in the New York Public Library. 1 vol. ; 28 cm. [“With this is bound: Buchanan, Robert Williams, 1841-1901. "The squireen." A second copy.”]”

And it is also listed in Dramatic Compositions Copyrighted in the United States 1870 to 1916 (Library of Congress Copyright Office):

“Squireen (The); an Irish drama in 4 acts, by Robert Buchanan and A. Boucicault.
© Aubrey Boucicault, New York; 1892; 5737, Feb. 5.    43709”

There is no evidence that the play was ever produced and since there are no other mentions of Buchanan collaborating with Aubrey Boucicault, I presume the following refers to The Squireen:

The Stage (12 December, 1890 - p.11)

     The benefit of Mrs. Boucicault at the Fifth Avenue, New York, on Tuesday, November 27, turned out very successfully, £400 being the result. In speaking of it the Spirit of the Times says:—

     Yesterday afternoon, at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, a testimonial benefit was given to Mrs. Agnes Robertson Boucicault, who deserves the recognition and needs the money. Horace Wall was in charge and reports the receipts, at advanced prices, as over $2,000. Sothern played a scene from The Highest Bidder, with Nina Boucicault. Mrs. Boucicault appeared in a scene from The Long Strike, with Mr. Stoddard. Everybody volunteered to sing or act or recite, and the audience threw flowers enough to redeem the Amphitheatre Show. The benefit was deprived of an attractive feature by the withdrawal of Mr. and Mrs. Kendal, who declined to play under H. C. Miner’s management. The circumstances seem to us to justify this public rebuke; for Miner’s claim that you do not hire the box-office when leasing a theatre is like saying you have no right to handle the money when you take charge of a bank. However, Mr. and Mrs. Kendal made up for their absence by paying $100 for a box and presenting it to Mrs. Boucicault.

     One is always liable to be misunderstood, but I must say I was surprised to receive from Mr. Aubrey Boucicault the following letter:—

     In reading over the “Chit Chat” in this week’s STAGE, I find mention of my mother and self. It is stated that on her return from America she will appear in a play by me. This is not so, the play being by Mr. Robert Buchanan and “yours truly.” The former does not require “lifting by a trick,” the latter only hopes that he may have inherited a small portion of the abilities which his father possessed.

     What does it mean? Well, Mr. Aubrey Boucicault read in THE STAGE last week a paragraph in which I showed how the Nottingham Daily Guardian had been “lifting” some remarks of mine about himself and his mother without any acknowledgment, and had done the trick very neatly by altering a couple of words. Whereupon Mr. Aubrey Boucicault jumped to an extraordinary conclusion—that the “lifting” and the “trick” referred to himself. If Mr. Aubrey Boucicault cannot reason better than this in future, his plays will, I fear, suffer.

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4. The New Don Quixote (1895)

The New Don Quixote by Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe, was given a copyright performance at the Royalty Theatre on 19th February, 1896, after undergoing some problems with the censors. It was due to be produced at the Royalty Theatre, then under the management of the actor, Arthur Bourchier, but he left the Royalty at the end of July, 1896 and, as far as I know, the play was never given a full production. A couple of years later, items in the American press refer to a proposed novelisation of The New Don Quixote but this also failed to appear.
(It should be noted, regarding the mention of The New Don Quixote in the January, 1898 item from The Omaha Sunday Bee, that Buchanan’s attack on Paul Potter’s Conquerors was probably due to the problems surrounding the American origins of Dick Sheridan.)

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The Penny Illustrated Paper (21 December, 1895 - p.394)

Robert Buchanan v. Mr. Redford.

     It was bound to come. Here is Mr. Robert Buchanan breathing fire and slaughter against the Licenser of Plays, while the Press looks on and chuckles. Everyone expected something of the kind when Mr. Redford was appointed, and the only surprise is that it has not come sooner. We had all got used to Mr. Pigott, and though dramatists occasionally grumbled and wrote letters to the Times, his position was an assured one, which the public wee inclined to back. Mr. Redford, however, stands on rather different ground, and it is an eloquent tribute to his courage that he should have chosen of all people in the world Mr. Robert Buchanan as his victim. This gentleman has, it seems, written a play which was accepted by a manager, and all was clear for production. Unfortunately, however, the Examiner did not see his way to give it the cachet of the Lord Chamberlain, assigning no reasons for his action. Mr. Buchanan is a past master in the art of controversial warfare, he has emerged victorious from scores of paper battles, and his fierce dialectics are not to be lightly regarded. I do not suppose Mr. Redford will permit himself to be dragged into the arena but clearly this is not going to prevent Mr. Buchanan smiting him hip and thigh. Certainly it is very hard lines on a man who has spent much time on a play to have its most profitable avenue of publication—the stage—
stopped to him. But at the same time, it is obviously in the public interest that British audiences should be protected from the gross prurience of the Paris stage, and that it should be the duty of some public man like Mr. Redford to keep our dramatic food as wholesome as possible in these days of insidious plays on “women with a past.”
                                                                                                          THE SCENE-SHIFTER.

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The Pall Mall Gazette (31 December, 1895 - Issue 9599)

THE CENSOR AND MR. BUCHANAN.
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A “PURE LOVE STORY.”
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MR. ARTHUR BOURCHIER INTERVIEWED.
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     On Saturday the Reader of Plays at last withdrew his opposition to Mr. Robert Buchanan’s play, “A New Don Quixote,” which had been sent to him for licensing by Mr. Arthur Bourchier. Last night a Pall Mall reporter called upon Mr. Bourchier at the Royalty Theatre to endeavour to obtain the history of this incident, Mr. Redford’s first display of the cloven hoof of censorship. Mr. Bourchier was communicative—up to a point. He said: “Mr. Buchanan offered me the play. I liked it immensely, accepted it, and proceeded to arrange for the copyrighting of it, against the day I should want it. With two other plays, I sent this on to Mr. Redford. The other two came back licensed all right; but while they were taken this one was left. I was invited to go and see Mr. Redford, and he told me that Mr. Buchanan’s play could not be licensed in its then form. I could only plead that the situation in it was identical with that in certain other plays which had been licensed, but without avail.”
     “What was the situation which brought the vicarious blush of shame to the expert cheek of Mr. Redford?”—“Ah! that I am not at liberty to tell you.”
     “Then what were the situations in the other plays which were identical with it?”—“Oh, no! you don’t get me like that.”
     “Come, Mr. Bourchier, you are making out that Mr. Redford is a stricter censor than his predecessors, if he cannot pass a situation which did not cause his ancestors in office to boggle?”—“I do not wish to do that exactly. Mr. Redford asked me whether there was no way of modifying the play, and the only answer I could make was that I was the manager and not the author, and that therefore it did not rest with me.

MR. BUCHANAN NEXT WROTE TO MR. REDFORD,

and the answer he got, which, I am bound to say, was perfectly justified and in order under the statute, was that the Reader of Plays does not recognize authors as such. The manager is the culprit, and so back again I went. Mr. Redford, Lord Lathom, and all of them were charming, and when I asked whether they would, supposing Mr. Buchanan consented to produce it, read another version of the same story, they readily expressed perfect willingness.”
     “But how did Mr. Buchanan take that?”—“I told Mr. Buchanan that it was very necessary in the interests of—I don’t know what, but in some interest or other, that his play should be modified. I pointed out to Mr. Buchanan that it would be a great pity for the wrath of a moment to be permitted to stand in the way of the production of a play, and Mr. Buchanan does me the honour of saying that I have acted the part of mediator and peacemaker in a level-headed way, keeping him quiet on the one hand, and pacifying Mr. Redford on the other. I assured Mr. Buchanan that it was well worthy of his attention to consider whether he should not produce a new version. He did so, and after some further lengthened consideration it was licensed on Saturday last.”
     “Did you consider, when you originally sent it in, that it was a play which would exercise the judgment of the Reader of Plays to any extent?”—“It never occurred to me for a moment. Why, there are religious elements in it.”
     “Perhaps that was why Mr. Redford shied at it?”—“No,” rejoined Mr. Bourchier with a perfect assumption of gravity, “because he has passed ‘The Sign of the Cross’ all right, I believe. But as I was saying, it has religious elements in it, and it is a play dealing with the purest theme possible, this play of Mr. Buchanan’s. I see one of the papers says it is

CALCULATED TO TICKLE THE STALLS.

Nothing of the sort. It is a serious play. In my humble way I endeavoured to impress upon Mr. Redford that the theme was of the purest, dealing with the subject from a totally different point of view from that adopted in ‘The Second Mrs. Tanqueray,’ and so on.”
     “Why, yes, the keynote of your management, I have heard, is that the time has come when the woman with a past is to be thrown overboard.”—“I don’t want the woman with a past unless you have shown to you the reason why she has that past, and in this play Mr. Buchanan shows you that. His woman is a pure woman at the commencement, and you see during the action the reasons which drove her from her purity, the man in the case being a noble, high-minded fellow, as free from cant, stage cant, or street cant, as you could wish a man to be—a really fine fellow. The theme of the play is an argument about real and ideal love, argued out between ‘the New Don Quixote’ and his friend. The things which are dissected and analyzed and bothered about in the problem plays are the minor side issues in this. I am a young manager, I know, and ought not to speak in too cocksure a vein, but I know of nobody who has ever touched these love themes with so firm and strong a hand, or driven the nails home so hard, as Mr. Buchanan in this new play. It is a fine piece of stage-work, and the questions involved have never been so cleverly handled. It settled the thing once for all without any maudlin nonsense. There is a woman, who doubtless becomes soiled as the play progresses, but there is an art in the treatment of this part of the play which still leaves it a pure love story—the man being an idealist, you understand.”
     “No, I don’t quite follow how he idealized in this——”
     “Mr. Bourchier,” said the call-boy; and I had to come away still hazy in my mind about that idealist.

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The Omaha Daily Bee (12 January, 1896 - p.2)

     Some trouble was experienced in securing a license for the play, “The New Don Quixote,” which Robert Buchanan has written for Mr. Bourchier, at the Royal theater. This has now been satisfactorily arranged and the comedy will be produced shortly before Easter.

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The Era (22 February, 1896 - Issue 2996)

     A COPYRIGHT performance of The New Don Quixote, a play in four acts, by Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe, took place at the Royalty Theatre on Wednesday afternoon. The various acts were described as follows:—Act one—In which Don Quixote avows himself knight errant, and goes forth seeking adventures. Act two—In which Don Quixote tilts with windmills and rescues his fair lady from a dragon’s cave. Act three—In which Don Quixote and the fair lady go through an old-fashioned ceremony. Act four—In which Don Quixote breaks his lance, and wins a last victory without it.

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Brooklyn Daily Eagle (26 July, 1896 - p.22)

Arthur Bourchier, who is one of the impending English stars, will have a new play by Robert Buchanan, called “A New Don Quixote.” The heroine seems, from the outline of the plot, to acquire her past as the piece progresses and in full view of the audience.

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The Omaha Sunday Bee (16 January, 1898 - p.1)

LONDON, Jan. 15.—(New York World Cablegram—Special Telgram.)—George Alexander’s promised production, Paul Potter’s “Conquerors,” has provoked a fierce attack from Robert Buchanan, who has himself frequently come into conflict with the English censor, owing to the daring incursions into forbidden ground. Buchanan complains:
     “Not long ago a play of mine, ‘The New Don Quixote,” was refused a license on the score that it was immoral. I protested and after a second appeal after some important changes my piece was licensed and copyrighted. My piece, for which I claim perfect, even austere morality, will shortly be printed, and I shall publicly ask the lord chamberlain under what influence he condemned my innocent work, but afterward stamped his approval on a piece containing the most bestial and revolting incidents ever presented on our or any stage.”

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The New York Times (7 January, 1899)

[From William L. Alden’s ‘London Literary Letter’ - 26 December, 1898.]

     Now that the Christmas publishing season is virtually over there will be the usual lull in book publishing. A new novel from Mr. Robert Buchanan, to be called “A New Don Quixote,” is about the only announcement among new novels which deserves attention. There are rumors of a novel by Mr. Meredith in the Spring, and of course there will be the usual quantity of novels by Crockett, Guy Boothby, and the other unlimited purveyors of fiction. I doubt, however, if novel readers will have much that is both new and readable during the next six months. The advent of cheap magazines, with cheap serials, will have its effect lessening the year’s output of really good novels.

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5. The Heavenly Twins (1896)

Mentions of an adaptation of Sarah Grand’s novel The Heavenly Twins stretch from February 1896 to August 1902 but there is no evidence that it ever reached completion, or the stage.

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The Era (22 February, 1896 - Issue 2996)

     A PIECE called The Heavenly Twins will shortly be produced at a matinée at a London theatre. Mr John Douglass has been engaged to superintend and stage-manage the production.

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The New York Times (8 March, 1896)

     A play called “The Heavenly Twins,” thought to be a dramatization of Sarah Grand’s novel, is soon to be tried at a matinée in London.

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The Stage (15 June, 1899 - p.13)

     The new comedy, written by Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe, who have founded it, by permission of Sarah Grand, upon her novel “The Heavenly Twins,” will shortly be produced at a West-end theatre. Though “founded,” the play is, I understand, to a large extent quite original, both in plot and characterisation.

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The New York Times (20 May, 1900)

     Robert Buchanan has written a play founded on the episode of the Boy and the Organist (and the Fried Eggs) in “The Heavenly Twins.” Presumably it will have a happy ending, the Organist marrying the Boy, who turns out to be a Girl and not to be already married, as in the book. The case of pneumonia, probably, will be omitted. They say in London that Ellaline Terriss will have the principal part in this piece.

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The Observer (11 May, 1902 - p.6)

     An example of curious collaboration is to be provided shortly, though not as has been stated, at the Haymarket, in the joint work of Mrs. Craigie and Mr. Murray Carson, whose dramatic styles could not well differ more widely than they do. The play which these authors have written together is called The Bishop’s Move. Two other writers who are about to collaborate are Miss Harriet Jay—the “Charles Marlowe” of one or two promising stage ventures—and Madame Sarah Grand. It would be easy to imagine their achieving a popular success together. The Bishop’s Move is, by a novel arrangement, to be produced by Mr. and Mrs. Bourchier on the last night of their season at the Garrick, where they make way, on June 9, for Madame Sarah Bernhardt. The initial run of the comedy, which must thus be limited to a single performance, will be devoted to Queen Alexandra’s Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Fund. In this play Miss Jessie Bateman will make her first appearance in London since her recent engagement in America.

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The New York Times (14 June, 1902)

     Mme. Sarah Grand, author of “Babs the Impossible,” has just completed a play in collaboration with Miss Harriet Jay, who is a sister-in-law of Robert Buchanan, who was a close friend of William Black at the time when the novelist was not so well known. Their friendship terminated on some trifling misunderstanding. In his biography of Black, Sir Wemyss Reid tells of the novelist’s devotion to work in those days, and of the young Scotsman’s refusal to see any of the sights of London before he had finished an article upon which he was at work. He is described as being at that time “a raw youth, dressed in a rather rough tweed suit, with Berlin-wool gloves on his hands and a hard felt hat on his head—a very different figure from that of the conventional city clerk.”

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The New York Times (26 July, 1902)

     Madame Sarah Grand, who has done little in story writing since the publication of “Babs the Impossible” a year ago, is contemplating an early journey to the United States. Lately she has been working on a dramatization of “The Heavenly Twins,” which was begun by the late Robert Buchanan and carried forward by George H. Sims.

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The New York Times (31 August, 1902)

     The disposition in favor of dramatized novels continues.
     Beerbohm Tree is busily rehearsing Hall Caine’s “The Eternal City,” and will go to Rome in order to study local color. London will also have matinées of Mrs. Humphry Ward’s “Eleanor,” with Marion Terry in the title rôle, while Sarah Grand, in conjunction with Harriet Jay, is preparing a dramatization of “The Heavenly Twins.”

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6. The Maiden Queen (1896)

A comic opera in two acts, book by Robert Buchanan and ‘Charles Marlowe’, music by Florian Pascal. Like The New Don Quixote the only evidence of this ever being produced is a copyright performance at Ladbroke Hall, London on 6th April, 1905. However, the libretto was published (London: Joseph Williams, Ltd., 1908.), which probably explains why the following extracts were included in Writers, readers, and reputations: literary life in Britain, 1870-1918 by Philip J. Waller (Oxford University Press, 2006):

“Topsy-turviness remained a comic standby. Punch in 1898 gave its ‘vision of the future’ in the form of a letter to the editor of the ‘Daily Telephone’, on the theme of ‘Should Husbands Work?’ Then there was The Maiden Queen, a two-act comic opera, storyline by Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe, music by Florian Pascal, which delighted audiences in 1908. Again set in the future, c. 1970-80, women (‘the stronger sex’) hold all offices of Church and State, chorused by the Amazons (‘the flower of the Army’); men are subordinate and voteless, kept cloistered until ripe to be married off. Naturally, Lady Rosalind Millstone, ‘the democratic Home Secretary’, is nicknamed the Grand Young Woman; and when the Revd Annabel Lee, excited at being made Bishop of Putney, exclaims, ‘I shall faint!’, she is told, ‘Courage! Bear it like a woman!’ The education of Prince Edgar—in direct succession to the throne, though likely to be passed over on account of being male—provides occasion to satirize political correctness. Newnham is now a single-sex men’s college, where the hapless Professor Dingo is cross-examined by Lady Bustleborough, the Lady Chancellor, about the Prince’s syllabus:

LADY CHANCELLOR.  You have taught him the duties of his sex and position?

DINGO.  Quite so.

LADY C.  Your course of study has embraced—

DINGO.  French and the piano. Calisthenics and the Fashion Plates; the Moral Philosophy of Man as an inferior biped; Modesty and Deportment . . .

LADY C.  Very good. You allow him to read no carnal books?

DINGO.  None!

LADY C.  No pagan authors, such as Thackeray, the arch-enemy of our sex.

DINGO.  Certainly not. Even Kipling is forbidden, on the ground that his works describe the achievements of Man. He is thoroughly grounded, however, in the masterpieces of the female novelists of the last century—more particularly Ouida—

MISTRESS [of Newnham].  Ouida! Good heavens!

DINGO.  Pardon me, the study of the works of Ouida has this effect, it shows the wickedness of the male sex in all its ghastly enormity. From this point of view Ouida is strictly moral—and, moreover, Ouida, if tradition is to be trusted, was a female!

The Lady Chancellor then catechizes Lord Eustace, one of the Prince’s fellow undergraduates:

LADY C.  What is Man’s most fitting place?

LORD EUSTACE. [after a look at DINGO, who winks].  The Home!

LADY C.  What must he chiefly avoid to fulfil his functions?

LORD E.  All public excitement, all enquiry into political questions, which are beyond his intellect—

LADY C.  And what, above all, must he reverence?

LORD E.  The Perfect Woman, as embodied in those who legislate for his security.

     The Maiden Queen ends with Prince Edgar becoming King and true love reigning.”

(From Writers, readers, and reputations: literary life in Britain, 1870-1918 by Philip J. Waller, pp. 857-858)

The Maiden Queen is not mentioned in the Jay biography and due to the appearance of the Rev. Annabel Lee, I first assumed it was written around the time of the publication of Buchanan’s novel of that name, in March, 1898. However, I then came across this letter in The Era which as well as mentioning The Maiden Queen also makes a passing reference to Good Old Times (aka When Knights were Bold):

The Era (23 May, 1896 - Issue 3009)

COINCIDENCES AGAIN.
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—We observe that a farcical comedy called Josiah’s Dream was produced on Thursday evening at the Strand Theatre. Curiously enough, it bears a strong resemblance in subject to two works in which we have collaborated, and which have been completed for a considerable time. The prophetic vision of the Coming Woman, as she is to be a hundred years hence, is to be found in an opera, The Maiden Queen, while the structure of the farcical comedy—involving, as it does, two acts of contemporary life, and one act which takes place in a remote period—closely resembles the structure of a comedy which we wrote more than a year ago. We do not suggest for a moment that the author of Josiah’s Dream has plagiarised our ideas, but certainly the long arm of coincidence has been at work, and as both our pieces are set down for early production we think it desirable to make this explanation, lest in the fulness of time we ourselves should be accused of adopting any suggestions from Josiah’s Dream.
                                                             Yours truly,
                             ROBERT BUCHANAN and CHARLES MARLOWE.
                                  35, Gerrard-street, Shaftesbury-avenue, W.,
                                                         May 22d, 1896.

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7. The Diamond Necklace (1900) (a.k.a. The Queen’s Necklace)

This seems to have begun life as a Buchanan/Marlowe collaboration, then segued into A Royal Necklace by Pierre and Claude Berton, which was produced at the Imperial Theatre, London on April 22nd. 1901. Whether the Buchanan/Marlowe version was a translation of the French play, an adaptation, or a different version of the same story, I have been unable to ascertain.

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The Era (10 June, 1899 - Issue 3168)

     MRS LANGTRY will make her reappearance on the stage in a version by Messrs Robert Buchanan and “Charles Marlowe” of Dumas’s Collier de la Reine. The version is founded on historical documents and on the famous trial for conspiracy already familiarised to English readers by the brilliant essays of Carlyle. Mrs Langtry will produce the play as soon as possible in London, and will afterwards tour with it in America and the Colonies, creating the leading female rôle of Marie Antoinette. Another piece by the same authors, also to be produced shortly, is the comedy founded by special arrangement with Sarah Grand, on her famous story, “The Heavenly Twins.”

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The Graphic (17 June, 1899 - Issue 1542)

     The next drama of old Court life in France will present Mrs. Langtry, who has so long been absent from the London stage, in the character of Marie Antoinette. The period of the play—which is the work of Mr. Robert Buchanan and the lady novelist who prefers to be known to the world under the pseudonym of “Charles Marlowe”—is not the dismal time of the Terror, but the earlier days of the famous procés of the Diamond Necklace, familiar to readers of Carlyle and Dumas.

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The Stage (6 July, 1899 - p.11)

     Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe are at work on a new play for Mrs. Langtry—of the Marie Antoinette period.

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The Era (8 July, 1899 - Issue 3172)

     DUMAS is still in demand, and, besides the Monte Cristo drama, by Mr Henry Hamilton and the new piece by Mr Aubrey Boucicault, we are to have one by Mr Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe, based on the character and life of Cagliostro, and the celebrated “Queen’s Necklace”—an incident which will be the title of the play. Dumas and Carlyle are both laid under contribution for the plot of this piece, which is designed for Mrs Langtry.

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The Stage (10 May, 1900 - p.14)

     The report continuously published that Mrs. Langtry is to produce a new play by Robert Buchanan founded on the story of the Queen’s necklace in the coming autumn is incorrect. As I have before stated in these columns, Mrs. Langtry’s plans are well defined. A tour has been booked for her, commencing in September, which will last until Christmas. Then, if arrangements can be completed for a theatre, the new play in question probably will be given its first production, but I am authorised by Mrs. Langtry’s manager, Mr. Edward Michael, to say that beyond the fact that the autumn tour is inked in, no positive arrangements of any sort have been made for the future.

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The Stage (9 August, 1900 - p.11)

     Mrs. Langtry has “copyrighted” at the Library of Congress, in Washington, U.S.A., her new play, The Diamond Necklace, written by Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe.

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From Dramatic Compositions Copyrighted in the United States 1870 to 1916 (Library of Congress Copyright Office):

Diamond (The) necklace:
—original romantic drama in 4 acts, by Robert Buchanan and Chas. Marlowe [pseud. of Harriett Jay] Typewritten.
© Lillie De Bathe, London; 1900 A:11044. Mar. 2; 2c. May 4.    10768 ]

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The Stage (11 October, 1900 - p.13) 

     Mr. Edward Michael, business manager for Mrs. Langtry, tells me that that lady has secured the Imperial, Westminster, for a long term. She will alter and redecorate it at an expense of between £4,000 and £5,000, and will open there in the spring with A Queen’s Heart, the new play by MM. Pierre and Claude Berton which she acquired during her recent visit to Paris. The Imperial during the last few years has not competed very successfully with the other West End houses, but there is no reason why, under an able and generous management, its popularity should not return with added force.
     A play which Mrs. Langtry may present during her tenancy of the Imperial is Robert Buchanan’s The Queen’s Necklace.

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The New York Times (23 April, 1901)

MRS. LANGTRY’S THEATRE OPENED.
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“A Royal Necklace” Well Received,
Though It Is Regarded as Crude.

     LONDON, April 23.—Mrs. Langtry inaugurated the Imperial Theatre, London, now under her management, last evening, about an hour after the builders had hastily fled from the building, with what is regarded as a rather crude play by Pierre and Claude Berton. It is called “A Royal Necklace,” and is a story of the intrigues of Marie Antoinette.
     Despite the weakness of the piece, Mrs. Langtry’s personality secured for it a favorable reception. Mrs. Langtry as the Queen and Robert Taber as Count Fersen were frequently recalled.
     Responding to the final call, Mrs. Langtry briefly apologized for the incompleteness of the theatre, and said she hoped soon to make it more comfortable.

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2. Plays Mentioned

The evidence that the following ‘plays’ were ever written is dubious, usually there is an odd reference in the newspapers and nothing else. Also these could just be alternate titles for other plays.

1. “Richard Steele” (1891)

The Daily News (2 February, 1891 - Issue 13987)

     What is the “episode in the life of Sir Richard Steele” on which Mr. Robert Buchanan has founded a new costume play for Mr. Charles Wyndham? The question may serve as a riddle for the curious in such matters. Authentic anecdotes of Steele are not very abundant. Shall we see him at Button’s? or at that tavern “by Hyde Park Corner” where he and Richard Savage concocted the pamphlet which was to pay the bill? And will the dramatist follow him down to Llangunnor, where he passed away among friends, far from his old coffee-house cronies?

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The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post (3 February, 1891 - Issue 13331)

     Mr Robert Buchanan has completed the new costume comedy commissioned by Mr Charles Wyndham. The play is founded on an episode in the life of Sir Richard Steele, of “Spectator” fame, and Steele himself is the hero.

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[The play never materialised, possibly because another play on a similar subject, Richard Savage by J. M. Barrie and H. B. Marriott-Watson, was produced at a matinée performance at the Criterion Theatre on 16 April, 1891 and was not a success.]

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2. Adam and Eve (1894)

Aberdeen Weekly Journal (10 August, 1894)

THE AFFAIRS OF MR ROBERT BUCHANAN.
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     At the London Bankruptcy Court, a meeting has been held before Mr Registrar Giffard for the public examination of Robert Buchanan, the well-known author and playwright, who appeared to pass upon accounts showing unsecured debts £15,632, and no available assets. Creditors for £8750 partly secured hold charges upon his plays, “The Piper of Hamelin,” “Dick Sheridan,” “The Charlatan,” and an unfinished opera, “Adam and Eve;” also charges upon certain of his books, which he places no estimate upon. Amongst the debts appearing in the statement are those of Mr G. R. Sims for £805; Mr Albert Chevalier, £150; Mr Passmore Edwards, £250; Messrs L. and H. Nathan £200; dresses for “A Society Butterfly” and Mr J. Willing, jun., £200. A sum of £240 is due in respect of the rent of the Opera Comique. The failure is attributed to loss and liabilities incurred in connection with theatrical speculations in 1890 at the Lyric and Royalty Theatres, £5000; to heavy interest on borrowed money, £1500; to loss by the non-production of the play, “Dick Sheridan,” in America, and by adverse criticisms on his dramatic work, and to losses by betting, £1500. He states, further, that his loss on the production of “A Society Butterfly” at the Opera Comique recently was £600.

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[This is the only mention of Adam and Eve in the reports of Buchanan’s bankruptcy hearings. However, given the title and the fact that it is described as an “opera”, it is most likely to be an early version of The Maiden Queen.]

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3. Oh! Anastasia (1896)

The Era (14 November, 1896 - Issue 3034)

     MESSRS ROBERT BUCHANAN and CHARLES MARLOWE have also ready a new wildly farcical piece, to follow their Strange Adventures of Miss Brown. The title is Oh! Anastasia, and the piece is described as “a cyclone, in two storms and a hurricane.” The leading character, from whom the piece takes its name, has been offered to Mrs John Wood.

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4. André Cornélis (1897)

The Era (11 December, 1897 - Issue 3090)

THEATRICAL GOSSIP.
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     MR BEERBOHM TREE has made arrangements with Mr Robert Buchanan for an adaptation of Bourget’s powerful story “André Cornélis.” In this a youth convicts his stepfather of having slain his own father—as in Hamlet, to be sure. But in this case the blow was accidental, and the stepfather is a most exemplary man. “For the sake of my mother and sister, who love you,” says the avenger,” I will not denounce you, but within such a time you must die by your own hand.” Such a compact is made, and broken. The wretched man does not fear death—knows, indeed, that a fatal disease is rapidly working its course—but he hesitates to inflict the shame and pain of suicide upon his beloved wife. Between the two men there is another violent scene, and the younger man stabs the elder, who, in dying, declares that he inflicted the wound himself.

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5. Father Anthony (1899)

The Era (8 July, 1899 - Issue 3172)

     MR JACOB LITT has just secured from Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe the American rights of Father Anthony.

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The Era (26 August, 1899 - Issue 3179)

     MR JACOB LITT, who has recently arranged with Mr Cecil Raleigh to write a melodrama a year for him, and who has also secured the American rights of The Ghetto, which is to be produced shortly at the Comedy Theatre, with Mrs Brown Potter and Kyrle Bellew in the cast, has long been a producer of plays. and has for the past ten years conducted the tours of from six to ten companies. Two years ago, however, he bought the rights of Sporting Life, and gave it a production at the Academy of Music, new York, where it remained for five months. He still has it on the road. Other companies that Mr Litt has out this season, travelling in the States, are those performing Shenandoah, In Old Kentucky, Mistakes Will Happen, and Zorah. He is the proprietor of theatres in Milwaukee, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Chicago. M^cVicker’s Theatre, Chicago, of which he is the lessee, is one of the largest and best equipped theatres in the States. On May 1st he secured the Broadway Theatre, which is now being thoroughly overhauled, redecorated, refurnished, and equipped with all modern electric improvements. Mr Litt’s general manager, Mr A. W. Dingwall, has also made a contract with Mr Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe for the American rights of Father Anthony.

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[Father Anthony was the most successful of Buchanan’s later novels and it would have been an obvious candidate for a theatrical adaptation, particularly given its Irish setting. However, the main plot of the novel was taken from The English Rose, the 1890 Adelphi hit of Buchanan and Sims, which could be the reason it never materialised.]

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