Robert Elsmere
Encyclopedia
Robert Elsmere is a novel by Mrs. Humphrey Ward
published in 1888
. It was immediately successful, quickly selling over a million copies and gaining the admiration of Henry James
. 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 latter'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
. Instead of succumbing to atheism
or Roman Catholicism, however, Elsmere takes up a "constructive liberalism" (which Ward received from Thomas Hill Green
) 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
.
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." 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."
The novel was a runaway best-seller, but it may 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, 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 Savior. Had Wallace followed his original purpose to portray Jesus as a mere man, he might have undergone the attacks that were now 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 infidelism. Like so many big-sellers, though, it was pirated and sales of the unauthorized editions matched or surpassed those of the authorized.
This book is still in print, having been published in paperback by several publishers in the last two decades.
, 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.”
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.”
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."
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..."
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 1890's. But very few American theatre-goers were interested in social problems or subjective depth-probing."
Mary Augusta Ward
Mary Augusta Ward née Arnold; , was a British novelist who wrote under her married name as Mrs Humphry Ward.- Early life:...
published in 1888
1888 in literature
The year 1888 in literature involved some significant new books.-New books:*Grant Allen - The Devil's Die**The White Man's Foot*Edward Bellamy - Looking Backward*Rolf Boldrewood - Robbery Under Arms...
. It was immediately successful, quickly selling over a million copies and gaining the admiration of Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
. Inspired by the religious crises of early Victorian clergymen such as her father Tom Arnold
Tom Arnold (academic)
Tom Arnold , also known as Thomas Arnold the Younger, was a British literary scholar.- Life :He was the second son of Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby School, and younger brother of the poet Matthew Arnold...
, Arthur Hugh Clough
Arthur Hugh Clough
Arthur Hugh Clough was an English poet, an educationalist, and the devoted assistant to ground-breaking nurse Florence Nightingale...
, and James Anthony Froude
James Anthony Froude
James Anthony Froude , 23 April 1818–20 October 1894, was an English historian, novelist, biographer, and editor of Fraser's Magazine. From his upbringing amidst the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement, Froude intended to become a clergyman, but doubts about the doctrines of the Anglican church,...
(particularly as expressed in the latter's novel The Nemesis of Faith
The Nemesis of Faith
The Nemesis of Faith is an epistolary philosophical novel by James Anthony Froude published in 1849. Partly autobiographical, the novel depicts the causes and consequences of a young priest's crisis of faith. Like many of his contemporaries, Froude came to question his Christian faith in light of...
), it is about an Oxford clergyman who begins to doubt the doctrines of the Anglican Church
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
after encountering the writings of German rationalists like Schelling
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling , later von Schelling, was a German philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy make him the midpoint in the development of German idealism, situating him between Fichte, his mentor prior to 1800, and Hegel, his former university roommate and erstwhile friend...
and David Strauss
David Strauss
David Friedrich Strauss was a German theologian and writer. He scandalized Christian Europe with his portrayal of the "historical Jesus," whose divine nature he denied...
. Instead of succumbing to atheism
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
or Roman Catholicism, however, Elsmere takes up a "constructive liberalism" (which Ward received from Thomas Hill Green
Thomas Hill Green
Thomas Hill Green was an English philosopher, political radical and temperance reformer, and a member of the British idealism movement. Like all the British idealists, Green was influenced by the metaphysical historicism of G.W.F. Hegel...
) stressing social work amongst the poor and uneducated. Ward was inspired to write Robert Elsmere after hearing a sermon by John Wordsworth
John Wordsworth
The Right Reverend John Wordsworth was an English prelate. He was born at Harrow on the Hill, to the Reverend Christopher Wordsworth, nephew of the poet William 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
Benjamin Jowett
Benjamin Jowett was renowned as an influential tutor and administrative reformer in the University of Oxford, a theologian and translator of Plato. He was Master of Balliol College, Oxford.-Early career:...
, Mark Pattison
Mark Pattison
Mark Pattison was an English author and a Church of England priest. He served as Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford.-Life:...
, and her uncle Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...
.
The novel was the subject of a famous review by William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...
in which he criticized the novel's advocacy of the "dissociation of the moral judgment from a special series of religious formulae." In a more jocular manner, Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
in his essay "The Decay of Lying
The Decay of Lying
"The Decay Of Lying - An Observation" is an essay by Oscar Wilde included in his collection of essays titled Intentions, published in 1891. This is a significantly revised version of the article that first appeared in the January 1889 issue of The Nineteenth Century.Wilde presents the essay in a...
" famously quipped that Robert Elsmere was "simply Arnold's Literature and Dogma with the literature left out."
The novel was a runaway best-seller, but it may 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, and the presence of Jesus Christ in any but serious scholarly and devotional books was taboo. Then Lew Wallace
Lew Wallace
Lewis "Lew" Wallace was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, territorial governor and statesman, politician and author...
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 Savior. Had Wallace followed his original purpose to portray Jesus as a mere man, he might have undergone the attacks that were now 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 infidelism. Like so many big-sellers, though, it was pirated and sales of the unauthorized editions matched or surpassed those of the authorized.
This book is still in print, having been published in paperback by several publishers in the last two decades.
Dramatization
Plans were immediately underway to dramatize the work at the Madison Square Theatre on Broadway in New York City. Actor/playwright William GilletteWilliam Gillette
William Hooker Gillette was an American actor, playwright and stage-manager in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who is best remembered today for portraying Sherlock Holmes....
, who would later be renowned for playing Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
, 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
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman....
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.”
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.”
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."
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
Hollis Street Theatre
The Hollis Street Theatre was a theatre in Boston, Massachusetts that presented dramatic plays, opera, musical concerts, and other entertainments.-Brief history:John R...
in Boston on April 8 to pretty good reviews, the Boston Globe mentioning that "the playwrights have done their work deftly..."
David Belasco
David Belasco
David Belasco was an American theatrical producer, impresario, director and playwright.-Biography:Born in San Francisco, California, where his Sephardic Jewish parents had moved from London, England, during the Gold Rush, he began working in a San Francisco theatre doing a variety of routine jobs,...
then produced Robert Elsmere at the Union Square Theatre
Union Square Theatre
Union Square Theater is an Off-Broadway theatre, owned by Reading International, who also owns Reading Entertainment.- Productions :*Visiting Mr. Green by Jeff Baron*The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman and the Members of the Tectonic Theater Project...
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 1890's. But very few American theatre-goers were interested in social problems or subjective depth-probing."
External links
- Version of the text of Robert Elsmere at Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
- Another version of the text of Robert Elsmere at Project Gutenberg