ickens supplied two of his literary friends, Mark Lemon (first
editor of Punch) and dramatist Gilbert Abbot A'Beckett, with rush
proofs in order to have the "authorized" adaptation of The Chimes
beat to the boards those produced by such theatrical pirates as Edward
Stirling. He needn't have bothered since the only serious stage rival to
his friends' production at The Adelphi (home of the type of popular
melodrama called "The Adelphi Screamer") was Stirling's at the Lyceum,
then managed by the Keeleys. Stirling's production opened about a week
after the novel's publication, on 26 December 1844, and closed its run
of thirty-three performances on 1 February 1845. Just two days after the
novel's publication, 16 December 1844, Lemon and A'Beckett opened their
version, but Dickens never saw it: he had already left town, arriving
back in Genoa on 20 December. The "authorized" adaptation closed two
nights after Stirling's, presumably having enjoyed a run of about 45
performances. In Dickens Dramatized, Philip Bolton lists from
1845 to 1975 just 29 adaptations in total, including two silent films
(the later being Herbert Blanche's in 1920) and two radio plays. If, as
Michael Slater contends, The Chimes was "a tract for the times," it was
probably too firmly rooted in the miseries of the Hungry Forties to
stand the test of time and warrant either theatrical or cinematic
resuscitation.
Related Material
- The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells That Rang An Old Year Out and a New Year In
- The Chimes Illustrated: Ten Woodcuts and Two Steel Engravings
References
Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1990.
Bentley, Nicholas; Michael Slater and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1988.
Bolton, Philip H. Dickens Dramatized. Boston, Mass.: G. K. Hall, 1987.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z. The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Kurata, Marilyn J. "Fantasy and Realism: A Defense of The Chimes." Dickens Studies Annual 13 (1984): 19-34.
The Letters of Charles Dickens. Ed. Kathleen Tillotson. The Pilgrim Edition. Vol. 4: 1844-1846. Oxford: Clarendon, 1965.
Schlicke, Paul, ed. Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1999.
Last Modified 16 January 2007