Letters of G.A. Sala to Edmund Yates - Victorian Secrets

copyright Judy McKenzie L993
ISBN O 86776 49L O
ISSN O ].5 392L
Published by
Department of English
University of Queensland
Australia 4o72
VICIIORIN| FTETION RESEARCH GUIDES
Victorian Fiction Research Guides are issued by the Victorian
Fiction Research Unit within the Departnent of EngIish,
University of Queenstand.
The Unit concentrates on minor or lesser known writers active
during the period from about 1860 to about 191-0, and on
fiction published in journals during the same period. Arnong
the writers on whom Guides are being prepared are G.D Brown,
Victoria Cross, Ethel M. DetI, Elizabeth Robins, Beatrice
Harraden, and Sara ileannette Duncan. Indexes are being
cornpiled to fiction which appeared in the QueensTander between
L866 and l-900.
We would be interested to hear from anyone working in these or
related areas, and any information about the locations of
manuscripts, rare or unrecorded editions, and other nateriaL
would be most welcome. Information about gaps or errors in
our bibliographies and indexes would also be appreciated.
The subscription for the fifth series of Victorian Fiction
Research Guides, which concludes with this double-volume, is
$34 (Australian) for four Guides. Single volumes $1o. For
the sixth series of Guides, conmencing innediateLy, the
subscription is $40 (Australian) for four Guides. Single
volumes $fZ. Copies of earlier Guides are available at the
following prices: Series L,2,3,and 4: $25 each (single volumes
$7).
Orders should be sent to Barbara Garlick and editorial
communications to the general editor, Professor Peter Edwards,
both c/- Departrnent of EngIish, University of Queensland,
Australia eozz. FAx 6L 7 365 2799. E-mail P.
Edwards0cc . uq. edu. au.
Pl-ease note. This doubTe-vo7ume, concluding seties 5 of
victorian Fiction Research Guides, js being issued
simultaneously with the first volume of series 6 (Guide
no 21), a CalaTogue of the Edmund Yates Papers of which
the Tetters from SaTa to Yates and his wite, transcribed
and annotated in this Guide, form part- In the
CataTogue of the Edmund Yates Papers the Letters by SaTa
are Tisted as items 34o to 5o9.

*
q
-: !
'11t "-
fl
tt
ACKNOI|LEDGI.IEIfTS
I wish to thank Professor Peter Edwards, who
initiated this edition, for his assistance and
encouragement. His research in London on sources
not available in Australia, such as the lTTustrated
Times and the Critic, was particularly helpful to
me. I also thank Barbara Garlick for taking on the
task of proofreading and for her usefuL suggestions
after reading early drafts, and my fellow
postgraduate students at the University of
Queensland, Tiffany Urwin in the English Departrnent
and Ananda MacDonald and Helen Zabacarey in the
Department of Romance Languages, who helped solve
some of the mysteries I faced in preparing the
annotations.
].L1

Introduction 1
Abbreviations 16
colffEttfs
Chronology of the Life of Sala
Editorial Principles 19
Letters and Annotations 23
Works Cited 26t
Index 265
L7

INTRODUCTION
The bulk of my work is dictated to an amanuensis who follows my
speed, either in long-hand or with a typewriter. I keep on my knees a
volume of the lllustated Nelts of many years ago' ot the We
Parisienne of the early days of the Second Empire, or a volume of
Punch published between the 'forties and the 'fifties, or the French
Illustration of the same epoch; or failing these, a portfolio or
scrapbook full of old engravings and drawings. And while, with
seeming listlessness, I am turning over these pictures of the past, or,
as it sometimes happens, dipping into albums full of cartes-devisite
ofstatesmen, artists, warriors, men of letteN, journalists, actors,
actresses and ballet girls, the majority of whom have long since died,
the mernories come back to me thick and fast; and unconsciously I
am finding the keys to the long-locked-up pigeon-holes; and the
things which I have seen and the people whom I have known come
back to me, plastic, palpable and vascular. (Things xiii)
This collection presents hitherto unpublished letters written by the English joumalist,
archetypal columnist and foreign correspondent, George Augustus Sala (1828-1895) to his
long-time friend, and fellow journalist, Edmund Yates (1831-1894)' They provide insights
into the life and times of one of the most colourful characters of the early popular press, noted
for his love of puns and wordplay (often in French, Greek, I:tin or ltalian) and have been
extensively annotated in order to make his obscurities, and his obscenities, accessible to late
twentieth-century readers. Each letter acts in much the same way as the mnemonic devices
the sixty-seven year-old Sala described himself using to review his life in Things I Have
Seen and People I Have Known (189a); be it unlocking the doors of the past, or just peering
through their keyholes, each provides a view of the nineteenth century that is uniquely Sala's.
As a collection they are a fitting tribute to the egocentricity of a man who, while dominating
the daily joumalism of his time, "in a sense never wrote about anything else [but himself] ' ' .
every page of his voluminous writings is autobiographical" (Times 9 Dec 1895).
My introduction beards Sala, one of the original "young lions" of the Daily Telegraph,
in his den, the fecund lair of Victorian London's popular press, as he adds his voice to the
increasing roars of the medium that was to prove such a significant force in the inexorable
process of democratization changing the face of English society during the second half of the
nineteenth century. And it draws out two themes from the voluminous bundle of Victoriana
accumulated in the letters and annotations; the interactive network of relationships that
fostered the early days of popular periodicals and newspapers, and the social tensions that
arose as the emerging capitalist society came to define its success through middle-class
mores, mirrored in Sala's rather futile attemps to abandon Bohemia for respectability.
Readers can trace out many other areas of interest for themselves, such as publishers and
publishing, theatre and theatrical criticism, magazine editorships and management, the
production and dissemination of news, development of communications technologl', war
reporting, the volatile finances of early entrepreneurs, and the growth of the "new journalism"
as the public developed a taste for sensation, including gossip and the social expos6. On the
lighter side the letters can be enjoyed for the sheer fun they engender, often at his
contemporaries'expense, but almost as frequently at Sala's own.

Today's popular press has its roots in the second half of the nineteenth century, when
unprecedented rises in the rates of literacy created many thousands of potential readers,
whose tastes demanded cheap newspapers that could entertain as well as inform. Between
1857 and 1870, by directly targeting this untapped market, the penny Daily Telegraph
outstripped the well-established Times to become lnndon's best-selling paper, even
claiming to have "the largest circulation in the world." Its success can probably be attributed
to three things; low price, innovative advertising techniques and the pen of George Augustus
Sala. As one of his peers, Thomas Sweet Escott, said in "A Journalist of the Duy," an article
published in the first issue of Edmund Yates's Time in 1879: "Never was there a journalist
who had so thoroughly mastered the tastes and requirements of the colossal circle of readers
to which he appeals. Seldom has there been one of whom it may be said that he has created
the appetite which his writings satisfy" (1: 120). For nearly three decades Sala was an
indefatigable contributor to the Telegraph, where his vivid descriptions of current events
spiced with literary allusions and history provided a window on the world for its many
readers, influencing their awareness of themselves in relation to their urban environment, and
to their country in its relations with the rest of Europe and the far-flung lands to which its
govemment laid claim. Sala was in the vanguard of a press that was to be influential in
consolidating the expanding lower-middle class into a cohesive section of society, by
informing and educating it in a palatable manner, and by giving its individual members a
social identity based on knowledge of themselves, and their daily lives, as things worth
writing and reading about.
Although almost forgotten today, Sala was probably the best-known joumalist of his
time, famous for his flamboyant prose and his equally flamboyant personality, both of which
captured the imagination of his readers. They enjoyed reading what he wrote, and what
others wrote about him; his Bohemian lifestyle perhaps reminding some of them of their own
raffish beginnings before respectability set in. Sala's influence on journalism, for better or
worse, became an established fact as his dramatic, often purposely exaggerated word-pictures
brought colour and a sense of visual excitement to drab news presentation: the Telegraph's
success showed that his was a style worth emulating. To Matthew Arnold "Telegraphese"
became synonymous with the crass middle-class tastes he perceived as threatening to engulf
the "sweetness and light" of his rarefied concept of English culture. He summed up the style
of Sala and his colleagues in the preface to his Essays in Criticism (1865), as "the magnificent
roaring of the young lions of the Daily Telegraph" heralding the era of the Philistines (Super
L27), and later Sala again felt the full force of Arnold's satire in the concluding episodes of his
Friendship's Garland series in the Pall Mall Gazette (1870). "Iro," one of the young lions,
speaks:
I cannot, without a thrill of excitement, think of inoculating the
respectable but somewhat ponderous Times and its readers with the
divine madness of our new style, - the style we have formed upon
Sala. The world, mon cher, knows that man but imperfectly. I do not
class him with the great masters of human thought and human
literature . . . Sala, like us his disciples, has studied in the book of the
world even more than in the world of books. But his career and
genius have given him somehow the secret of a literary mixture novel
and fascinating in the last deglee: he blends the airy epicureanism of
the salons of Augustus with the full-bodied gaiety of our English
Cider-cellar. With our people and our country, mon cher, this
mixture, you may rely upon it, is now the very thing to go down;
there arises every day a larger public for it; and we, Sala's disciples,
may be trusted not willingly to let it die. (29 Nov L870: 3)
Sala's audience was by no means limited to the Telegraph; during his career he wrote
for dozens of periodicals, and his "Echoes of the Week" column in the lllustrated London
News made his signature initials GAS famous throughout England and her colonies for more
than twenty-five years. Between 1850 and 1895 he also produced a continuous stream of
books, including five.novels, numerous travelogues, over thirteen collections of his magazine
and newspaper articles, two sets of memoirs, even a cookbook containing 500 recipes. He
also collaborated on a number of pantomimes, a burlesque, Wat Tyler, M.P. (L869), and
various pieces of pornography including "A New and Gorgeous Pantomime entitled
Harlequin Prince Cherrytop and the Good Fairy Fairfuck or the Frig the Fuck and the Fairy
/ Theatre Royal Olymprick / Private Reprint." As a commentator on international affairs his
travels took him many times to continental Europe, including Russia, three times to America,
to Africa, lndia, and in L885 even as far afield as New Tnalarld and Australia, where as an
Englishman he was struck by aggressive Australian egalitarianism, noting the lack of
domestic servants because there was "no servile class." He was an eyewitness to the social
upheaval caused by most of the significant events of his time; in Russia just after the Crimean
War; in America during the Civil War; in ltaly following in the wake of Garibaldi's
campaigns; in Paris after it fell to the Prussians in L870, amid the subsequent anarchy of the
Commune; in Spain, both during the Civil War, and, after the defeat of the Carlists, at the
investiture of the young king Alphonso. He attended numerous coronations, grand weddings
and grander funerals, both at home and abroad, and, on a lower plane, added his voice to
political, legal and social debate. His other interests were wide ranging to say the least; he
was at various times editor, art critic, drama critic, social critic, bon vivant and club habitu6,
speechmaker, toastmaster, president of this and that committee, rare book and art collector,
casino gambler and habitual loser, serious drinker, pornographer and probable frequenter of
flagellant brothels.
GAS's letters plunge us into the middle of this plethora of text and activity by
providing an opportunity to share in his news-gathering process, and in his life, as it marches
along to the tune of the presses, which supplies the inexorable theme of perpetual deadline
that haunts their pages, be it for copy not ready or debts not paid. They also introduce us to
"Literary Bohemia," the new Grub Street, a milieu which fostered early popular journalism,
that supposedly freewheeling paradise for nonconformists, here seen in the familiar throes of
strangling itself with conformities of its own, such as drunkenness and terminal
impecuniosity. The collection comprises one hundred and seventy manuscript letters (five
are to Yates's wife Louisa) part of a wider collection of letters and memorabilia collected by
Yates and one of his sons, purchased by the University of Queensland Library in 1982. (A
catalogue of the remainder of the collection, will be published as Victorian Fiction Research
Guide 21.) The letters range in date from 1855 to L889, providing a fascinating sequel to the
view of the hurly-burly of Victorian journalistic Bohemia fictionalized by Thackeray in The
Hisnry of Pendennds, except that here we have a living Pen rollicking through real-life
adventures, with GAS thoroughly aware of the analogy.
Apart from their historical interest as a conduit into the early days of the
democratization of a society and its press, the letters provide valuable, spontaneous and
unguarded biographical insights into the character of one of the seminal personalities of
popular journalism, and probable prototype of such central journalistic figures as the feature

writer, the special correspondent, the social commentator and the gossip columnist - for GAS
was all of these, as reprcsented by his work on the Telegraph and the lllustrated London
Neu,s. Up to now his image, such as it is, has been largely based on an autobiography, first
published in 1894, the year before he died, and on Ralph Straus's biography, published in
L942. The choice of title for the first, The Life and Adventures of George Augustus Sala:
Written by Himself, typifies its style, for in it GAS is his own hero and Bohemia is
represented as a highly romanticized, necessary but fleeting, initiation process before he sets
off to conquer the world of the press. For the most part Straus's account, with the rather
pretentious title of Sala: The Portait of an Eminent hctorian, relies on GAS's own in
developing a "great man" syndrome (in letter 150 GAS refers to himself as "an eminent
English man of letters"), which, unrestrained by GAS's capacity to debunk himself, becomes
bogged down in sentimental evasion whenever anything untoward seems about to be
revealed. The irony that in his own time GAS fooled nobody is made clear by the memoirs of
associates like the publishers Henry Vizetelly and William Tinsley, and the journalists
George Hodder and Clement Scott. His friends, and those who pretended to be friends, were
quite aware of his shortcomings, the former choosing to enjoy him for his good qualities, the
latter unable to forgive him for his bad. The professional gossip Yates, who probably knew
him better than many, for once in his life kept mum; his references to his old friend in
Recollections and Experiences (1884) are affectionate, but bland and diplomatic. On the
other hand Tinsley was much more outspoken: "No author I ever had dealings with gave me
so much trouble as George Augustus Sala . . . I have often hunted and found the enatic
[fellow] in very curious places; for in his young days, when he got on the spree he was as
likely to be unfit for work for weeks as days . . . for some yea$ Sala's excellent wife had
ample cause to have abandoned him altogether" (1: 154-5). And in April 1869 Dickens, in a
letter to Georgina Hogarth about the arrangements for a dinner to be held in his honour at
Liverpool, mentions that "Sala [is] to be called upon to speak . . . for the newspaper press. As
he is certain to be drunk, I am in great hesitation whether or no I should warn the innocent
committee" (Dexter 3: 7L6).
GAS's letters make no secret of his well-known faults; in fact they confirm that he
was a boozer, a cadger and an unreliable debtor. But equally they bring out the positive side
of his character: the adventurous traveller, the vigorous newspaperman and prodigously
productive writer; above all the convivial friend and colleague with an endearing, if sharp,
sense of the ridiculous. And they certainly modify the rather white-washed view put forward
by Straus, and by GAS himself in his Life and Adventures, by revealing the underlying
paradox that fashioned his life; a desire for resp-ectability that was continually thwarted by his
love of (or perhaps inability to resist) the low life, as epitomized in the role models he alludes
to: Falstaff, and Bardolph (who shared the same dominant physical characteristic, a fiery red
nose). This paradox is reflected in his work as a strange mixture of assertion and selfdepreciation,
encapsulated in one of his favourite latin sayings, "cum grano salis," a pun on
his name which he often used in his newspaper articles - so much so in fact that it became an
unmistakable byline, a way of identifying his copy amid the anonymity of the Victorian
press. Like Falstaff GAS appears as a blend of potential hero and certain fool; an ambivalent,
but lovable and very human character.
A similar sense of self-depreciating paradox and bathos is a notable feature of the
letters. For instance in letter 63, where we find GAS writing from the smoking room of the
prestigious Reform Club. He makes a point of mentioning that Dickens is seated at the next
table. It is a definite sign of his rising in the world. Thackeray had seconded his application
for membership just two months previously. However, although he must be rather proud to
be ensconced in this bastion of respecti'bility, he can't resist a touch of Bohemian scorn as he
asks Yates: "when will you come to dine with me in this lacquered sarcophagus, this whited
sepulchre?" And by way of contrast he recalls a recent dinner at the far less respectable
Sheridan Club, where his disreputable friend Wiltshire Austin "with his craw full of
ptarmigan and red Hermitage threw himself back and exclaimed 'At this moment Mrs A is
starving on a red hening and a potato in Great Ormond Street."' This sets GAS to thinking
about his own wife, Harriett, and the embarrassing financial position he has placed her in, for
owing to his somewhat mysterious financial mismanagement she can't pay her grocery bills
(letter 60). From here his mind runs on to his brother, "the buccaneer" Albert, who seems to
be a confidence man of some sort (letter 138). GAS gives the impression that there is some
analogy between Albert and himself in this respect. He goes on to proffer a homily about
how "the whole world is going mad" and concludes by deconstructing everything he has just
said with a French couplet that intimates it is all nonsense. He seems to see himself in a
world where everything done, everything said, everything written, is reduced to meaningless
patter - "patat6, patata." This strong sense of cynicism, not only about his profession as a
wordsmith and image-maker for the people, but also about human nature as well is
characteristic, and not altogether unexpected in someone whose writing reveals "an acute
observation and immense experience of men and women" (Escott 117), along with a liberal
manipulation of fact to create "saleable" news. GAS recognized the banality that lay at the
heart of popular journalism from the outset, driven as it was by the need to generate sales in
an increasingly competitive capitalist environment. Comments in his journalism and his
letters show that he was aware that he had sold his soul to the devil. In letter 120 for instance
he exclaims: "Make a name fint, and then abandon letters for leaders: that seems to be the
modern recipe for combining popularity with pocket filling."
Despite this declaration GAS's novels can be seen as his way of attempting to rise
above the daily journalistic grind and make a name for himself as a "serious" writer by
articulating the anomalies and complexities he perceived in the human condition in a more
suitable form, and, presumably he hoped, to a more attentive and sophisticated audience. He
had Balzac in mind when he refened to what he considered to be his best novel, The Seven
Sons of Mammon (L862), as "my comddie humaine" (letter 1.9), but despite the fact that it was
received with astonishing applause, it has been forgotten like all his other novels. Irt's face
it, they are almost unreadable, their failure being due to the very thing that made him such a
valued journalist; his capacity for minute observation, which, when transfened to the longer
medium, bogs him down in so much detail that he is utterly unable to produce a coherent
plot. Sections lifted out and read as essays are splendid descriptive pieces, but as a whole the
effect is disastrous. His reaction to what he called the Saturday Review's "streams of abuse"
about novels such as Mammon, The Baddington Peera,ge (1860) and The Strange .4dventures
of Captain Dangerous (1863), shows that he felt its criticism keenly. However, the almost
fiendish delight with which it satirically demolished them is justified. ln letter 67n4 for
example see how the Review cut the notorious Captain Dangerous down to size as "a very'
small man with a very big coat, which flaps around his ancles [and buries him in folds."
GAS's problem seems to be that he became confused between the knowledge that his talents
really lay in journalism, and the pressures of a society that demanded more of its writers if
they were to rank as "eminent men of letters"; something that he aspired to do with all his
heart. Mammon rcflects his dilemma in its theme of bluned identity as its characters appear
and reappear under numerous aliases, creating confusion, even anxiety, for the reader who is
looking for a cohesive narrative. Irtter 91, a very fanciful note to Mrs Yates, almost ruefully
chides her for not having rcad Mammon, which, after all, had been dedicated to her husband.

His mention of "a character I drew many years ago in a book you never read" could be seen as
rather petulant. Perhaps he guessed that she had tried, but had not been able to sustain
interest.
Charles Dickens was responsible for launching GAS's @reer. In 1851 Dickens
accepted from him "The Key of the Street,"a piece of slumming journalism aboul l-ondon
afteidark, for publication in Household Words, For a number of years after this GAS coasted
along in "l-otus Land," as he calls it in his memoirs, living off the five guineas a week for
storiis he was contracted to provide for Household Words. He didn't always keep his side of
the bargain, and finally Dickens's patience gave out, leaving GAS penniless and desperate.
lrtter i mas him, twenty-seven years old and in dire straits, asking Yates, in characteristic
style, to lend him the money he needs to finance his escape from the Bohemian influences
that have brought him down, and, presumably, to give him a chance to dry out:
,
Thursday 13 December 1855 / L Exeter Change, Strand
MY dear Yates,
It is in your Power to solve the problem of Sala.
I owe you two pounds, and I send this letter to you to ask you to
lend me five Pounds.
I know perfectly well that you ca'nt [sic] afford to lend money
when its return is problematical. But the purpose for which I require
this sum is one so serious and one that may be perhaps the tumingpoint
in my miserable fortunes, that I do not hesitate to apply to you'
I mean to go away immediately, to bury myself in some remote
place, to gu! utterly and without a chance of relapse all the good for
nothing associations in which I am involved, and to come back with
increased experience, a disciplined mind, and, I hope, a firm resolve
to eam and deserve a better reputation than I possess at present.
I tatked a great deal of nonsense last night, and made a great ass of
myself; but at the same time I really &!! and appreciated all the good
and kindly things you said to me.
If, knowing the positively sacramental nature of the favour I ask
you, send me the money by the bearer. You will see me no more for
some time. I shall send the manuscript to you directly; and in a
week's time I will send you an order on Household Words for the
money I owe you, and for the second call of the Train. If you happen
to be short of money and ca'nt do what I ask you, forget that I
imposed so much on your forbearance
believe me / my dear Yates / Yours very truly
Yates must have obliged because, in letter 2, one month later, GAS has arrived in Paris and
located Dickens, who was staying there at the time: "I had (and have) in my muddled brain an
idea that Dickens will set me straight eventually, and enable me to get that start for want of
which I have been going to the Devil anytime these eight years." As he foresaw, this meeting
was indeed the turning point of his newspaper career. A few months later he was in St
Petersburg reporting on the aftermath of the Crimean War for Hou-sehold Words - he had
made his d€but as a special correspondent, following in the impressive footsteps of W.H.
Russell of the Times, who had arouseil the interest of the English reading public with his
poignant reporting of the honific conditions British soldiers had to endure therein the Crimea.
GAS's schooling as one of "Dickens's young men," when, as an anonymous
contributor to Household Words he had to emulate the style of his editor to get the desired
effect, or have his copy altered accordingly, stood him in good stead. (Although he didn't
always like it, as indicated by the reference to Dickens's subbing of his Russian reports in
letter 4: "[ am glad you liked H.W. I do'nt. The woodman who has not spared the tree has
applied the pruning knife -'Zounds! the axe.") He never lost the power to extemporize on
any subject, and was never afraid to blend fact and fantasy; nothing was ever too large or too
small for his descriptive powers. After the collection of his f/ousehold Word Russian articles,
A fourney Due North, was published, his b€te noir (and Dickens's), the Saturday Review
exclaimed: "Mr. Dickens is out-Dickensed by this imitator of his overwrought style of wordpainting"
(SR 6 [1858]:262). This may be true, but it was on the strength of his Russian
correspondence that Edward Irvy-Iawson, eager to recruit lively young writers for his
fledgling paper, offered him, in 1.857, the job with the Inndon Daily Telegraph, that led him
to fame, if not fortune. In 1863-4 his "My Diary in America in the Midst of War" series for
the Telegraph was so successful that his mission was extended for another six months, and
his reputation for colour and polemic was assured, as he put it himself, estimating that at least
a quarter of a million people were reading them: "these letters may not have made me
favourably known, . . . but they have made me known" (Diary 1: 13). Many more overseas
assignments followed, and by L875 Vanity Fair epitomized him as arguably the best-known
journalist of the day in a cartoon captioned with just one word, "Journalism."
Perhaps the most representative place to find GAS is in letter 1.36, when he is relaxing
in his study around turo in the morning after a hard day churning out copy, lighting up his
second cigar, his gouty leg up on a stool, a hefty swig of gin at his elbow, ridding himself of
all his frustrations by compiling what amounts to a blow-by-blow description of one day in
his life. It's a rambling and hilarious grumble that paints a vivid picture of flunied activity in
response to the pressure of deadlines, with cynical asides casting doubt on the worth of all
this effort:
My dear Edmund,
I have been very seedy since that dinner, and have scarcely left the
house. [t has been as well as not that I should be so confined; for the
pressure of work lately has been g!4gp!y fearful. Last Thursday for
example between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. I had (1) to write 5 cols about
"the Stage" in a wretched little paper called "Touchstone" in which
Willing is losing €100 a week. My articles have trebled the
circulation of the thing; but jg wo'nt g!9. There is no money to be
made by theatrical journalism alone. The Era, black mast and all is'nt
[sic] worth 12000 a year to Irdger. Wait till I come out with my own
journal "Household Words-cum-Once a Week-cum-All the Year
Round-cum-Welcome Guest (very much cum Welcome Guest)
weekly twopenny periodical conducted by G.A.S." and see if I do'nt
make a comfortable feather bed for my old age . . . Well; I was
saying; after I had finished the 5 cols for the "Stage" I had to read my
morning papers, and make up my budget of suggestions for the D.T.
TWelve noon, gouty legs to bathe and bandage. 12.30 a proof of a
story in "Bow Bells", "The Good Young Man" to be corrected.

Machine waiting. 1 p.m. a proof of a story called the "Didactic
Village" for a d --d, infernal tinpot thing called "Mirth" whose rate
of pay to contributo$ may be computed by the price of catsmeat.
Lunch. 2 p.m.telegram from the D.T. "Bryant & Herbert " A
Thundering Case in the Common Pleas of.2 lz cols to wade through,
epitomise and write a long leader upon, taking care to avoid the risks
of actions for libel with which the case absolutely bristled. But I
have written 4,500 leaders with only two suits for libel, in neither of
which did plaintiff get damages. This takes me up to 4'30 p.m' Then
a Sub. 5 p.m. Knock off now? Not a bit hoof to corect, "Echoes
of the Week." Machine waiting. Finished yet? Not at all. A Revise
of the "Bow Bells" story to be re-conected; because there is some
French in it, and the readers are funky. Dinner. 7 p.m. At 8 p.m.
comes the proof of "Stage." 8.45 p.m. To sleep on the sofa. 10.45
p.m. gouty legs bandaged and bathed dg novo. Then the houshold go
to bed; and I into my study to write nine letters; to post uP my diary;
to do my Greek lesson . . . not the way to live to be a Hundred Years
of age as that duffing old Canon Beadon of Wells has done, but it is a
simple aus! literal record of what a working journalist is compelled to
do in the year L877.
Yates must have smiled at the bit about starting his own magazine, since GAS had shown
himself incapable of handling an editorship, let alone ownership. In 1860 when the publisher
John Maxwell chose him to edit the new Temple Bar, a monthly in Cornhill style, GAS's
name as editor appeared on the title page from December 1.860 to May L863, but Yates did all
the work as assistant editor. Irtters of this period reflect GAS's incompetence: "fn discharge
of my duties as Editor, to the performance of which you may have to swear some day I send
you the conespondence concerning your department of Temple Bar. How earnestly t hope
that the circulation will go down this month" and "Smash! Smash! irrevocable smash. I am
overwhelmed. t have seen and heard nothing of you since last month. I know nothing of the
June number." Perhaps it is not surprising that Sa/a's Journal, the magazine he did start in
1892, made his life more difficult, not easier. [n fact, some said that worries associated with
it hastened his death.
GAS's adventures as a special correspondent became legendary, and !g mainly
created the legend. In his reports he placed himself at the focal point of all activity and
silenced his critics with the tongue-in-cheek retoft: "Should a strong man be ashamed to
avow that his Book is Himself, and that in whatsoever he writes that treats of individual
thought and opinion, he must be, to a gleat extent his own herc" (Diary 1: 14). Thus, in
America to report on the Civil War for the Telegraph, he not only typically represented
himself in one of his newspaper reports philosophizing on the nihilistic absurdity of the Battle
of the Potomac from a commanding vantage point of both sides, but used his sympathy for
the South to create his own battles in the Northern media, giving himself plenty of scope for
polemic in the preface to his follow-up book on the subject, My Diary in America in the
Midst of War (1865), as well as the makings of a second book, America Revisited (1882),
where he admitted he had backed the wrong side and declared himself a convert to the Union
(viii). Similarly, in Paris in November L870 for the Franco-hussian War, he was arrested
and thrown into jail (letter 85). His remark to Yates, "[ have got a . . . charmingly festered
wound on my ancle due to a kick from a Patriotic wooden shoe in Paris on the night of the
downfall of the Empire. Otherwise I'm as right as a trivet," became the lead in to his
Telegraph report: he was the hero of the moment. So much so in fact that his friend Algemon
Swinburne included the incident with some very outr6 suggestions in one of his letters to
Charles Howell: "Have you seen the statement in the papers that poor Sala . . . has been
'subjected to terrible and painful outrages' by the mob at Paris as a Prussian spy? Can this
imply that his personal sharms were too much for some countryman of the Citizen Sade (cidevant
Marquis) who exclaimed to an ardent and erect band of his fellows - "Fouton, foutons
etc, etc ." It seems that under Swinburne's tutelage GAS was the willing victim of other
outrages. Together with the explorer Richard Burton he had a taste for flagellation,
frequenting certain brothels in St. John's Wood for the purpose. GAS did his bit for the
Marquis when in 1882 he wrote 96 pages of The Mysteries of Verbena House, or Miss
Bellasis Birched for Thieving set in a Brighton school for young ladies. In it he reveals a
penchant for ladies'underwear. He seems to have been particularly interested in young girls;
for instance in letter 71 he mentions "an ancient Tart now retired on her laurels and selling
[?fans], gloves, scawes etc and on whom I occasionally look in for a cup of tea and inquire
whether there is anything rising fifteen fit for a stout middle aged gentleman's tooth."
But I'm neglecting the other half of this conespondence, the silent but omni-present
Yates, to whom every word is addressed, but who never says a word in reply, at least not
here. Although few of his letters in response have been discovered it is not difficult to
imagine him chuckling to himself over some witty referen@ or bawdy ditty (many of whrch
he unfortunately removed frorn posterity's prying eyes), or thrcwing his hands up in desparr a'
yet another request for yet another loan that would never get paid back, or another promrse of
copy that would never turn up, or looking fonvard to a convivial night out at the club with his
old friend, or a quiet evening at home over (as GAS coyly puts it, for he was renowned for his
gourmet entertaining) a mutton chop. Yates's silence can in part be broken by using his
memoirs as a companion to some of the letters. There he recalls his first meeting with GAS
at the Fielding Club, "a slim, modest young fellow about twenty-six-years of age" (205)
(This was doubtless tongue-in-cheek, for it is hard to imagine that Sala had ever been
modest, even if he was once slim!) He sketches in their association on the Train, a cooperative
venture started by writers thrown out of work after the collapse of. Comic Times
(one of many abortive challengers to Punch), stressing the ephemeral nature of publications at
the time, and the difficulties experienced by journalists endeavouring to make a decent living
under such unpredictable conditions. They found friendship, and solidarity of a sort, in a
Bohemian existence that gave a certain glamour to being down-and-out. It was not the
rarefied Bohemia of Murger (or Baudelaire), but, as Yates puts it, a British version "less
picturesque more practical and commonplace, perhaps a trifle more vulgar; but its
denizens had this in common with their French prototypes - that they were young, gifted, and
reckless; that they worked only by fits and starts, and never excopt under the pressures of
necessity; that they were sometimes at the height of happiness, sometimes in the depths of
despair . . . and had a thorough contempt for the dress, usages and manners of ordinary
middle-class citizens" (L97). The last carries irony for Yates and GAS since the audience
they increasingly wooed belonged to that very class. This was pafticularly so for GAS on the
Daily Telegraph, and by L860 for them both on Temple Bar, descibed as "A I-ondon
Magazine for Town and Country Readers," whose preface was the epitome of respectability,
promising a magazine that would not presume to offend any one or any thing: "Our journal . .
. from headline to imprint, will strive to inculcate thoroughly English sentiments - respect for
authority, attachmeni to the Church, and loyalty to the Queen'i (Weltestey 3: 387). Yates's
gossipy "Lounger" columns, and later his "What The World Says," were designed specifically

to play on the snobbery and Pretensions of the middle-class' GAS got Yates's measure quite
.urifi,, tfr"ir friendship wiitr his characterization of Ethelred Gufoon, who featured as a
"man-about-town" coriespond"ntinTwice Round the Clock, serialized inWelcome Guest in
1858. This description of Ethelred Gufoon as a Prccurer of literary lions for Mrs Van
u-uug', soir6e ij typical; there is no doubting that he is a thinty-disguised Yates
(remembering that Vai"s wrote theatrical reviews for lllustrated Times and worked full-time
at the General Post Office):
And equally, of course Ethelred Gufoon is here. Ethelred Gufoon is
everywhere. He is one of Mrs Van Umbug's special favourites' She
calls him by his christian name. He hunts uP new lions for her;
occasionally he officiates as peacemaker, and prevents the lions from
growlingunorightingamongthemselves.HerushesfromMrsVan
Umbug's conueiazio-rre to the pontoppidan Thgatre, to see a new face
, which he must criticise; after that he will sit up half the night to
review Mr Gladstone's Homer, for the "Daily scfatcher," and will be
atSomersetHousebypunctualofficehoursthenextmorning.A
man of the age, Ethelied Gufoon - a man of the time, a good fellow,
but frivolous. (309-10)
yates must have complained, or at least commented on the piece, for in letter t9 GAS insists:
',Ethelred Guffoon is a chimaera, or a merman or a centaur. That is I based him upon yog but
purposely disfigured d6natur6d to use a gallicism and pinched him out of your likeness so as
,not to make him toolJilil1" e ptauiiUle explanation-perhaps, but in "pinching out" his
lili;;s;Gi. .t thaf there is a iuperficiality about Yates that prevents him
'fi;;"kirjjou*utir* ","r,'intimates as seriously as he should. bas had already made this- accusation far
;;;r aireJtty in letter 15. It *ouid seem that here he successfully employed the technique
A.scriU"O inietter 2,6: "ltis capital fun pitchforking a man, but it is exceedingly difficult to do
- ;:^i#;;;u, l'*itt steel in myrtle dressei." The image of "the blade"
_trenchant
iir*jir.a [""Juii -yttr"
boughs represents the sort of satire that GAS prefened, rather than
the direct "personalities" of Yates's style'
It was during the period covered by the letters,that journalism evolved into a
respectable prof"ssi,o"n, gadually shaking off the imagc of the down-and-out hack' vainly
,rying to make a fiuin! in tfre days befori the burgeoning poputar press provided. promise of
,"gui;, income. Ttre iryth of Grub Street remained, with its memories of the abject poverty
of authors like Oliver c-oldsmith and Richard Savage, and the struggle of lrigh_Hunt to gain
iecognition for the talented but lower-class writers ot his "cockney-school'" However the
reality was that --y *fto now chose the pen, were increasingly able to live.by it' Some of
these, like GAS, revlred their "humble foiefathers," setting up men like Goldsmith, Savage
and Johnson as exemplars. This was probably because Thackeray had romanticized the lives
of the early Bohem-i-airs by using theii direct descendants, renowned but disreputable writers
of the 1830s like Witliam Vtiginn and Theodore Hook, as models for characters in his
autobiographical novel, The Hiiory of Pendennis (1848-1850). Pen became a role-model
for aspiring young journalists, who-longed to find tire Bohemian freedoms that accompanied
his foray inio n""i Street, u. n" n"o lhe strictures of provincial society and his mother's
cloying embrace. GAS was no exception; like Yates he wanted "to be a member of that
wonderful Corporation of the Goosequill, io be recognised as such, to be one of those jolly
fellows, (yates f+i;- fte too wantedio escape from his mother, who "demanded the rigidest
10
principles of decorum" (letter 1.0). ?aradoxically, to him in those days, morality was
Bohemia, respectability a short-lived, hypocritical sham. When Yates criticized in the
Illustrated Times "the dirty denizens of 'literary Bohemia' who bring their profession into
such contempt that all the members of it are compelled to suffer for their recklessness and
dishonesty" (1.0 Oct 1857:250), GAS flew to the defence:
"Do you want Bohemia to open upon you with its great guns? Do
you want to be utterly demolished by the saeva indignatio of such
men as Brough, as Hannay, as Mayhew, as Edwards, or as a dozen
others of equal power. Do you want to be told that you are 49! a
professionally literary man, that you are gq[ a member of the press;
that you have no right to impugn the motives or blacken the character
of men who, whatever they may be in private life, do their duty,
fearlessly, honestly, and ably to the public; - who have served a long
and painful apprenticeship to a thankless craft, and who look upon
literature, not as a polite pgrssetemps, but as a serious mission. (Irtter
1s)
Robert Brough, James Hannay, Augustus Mayhew and Sutherland Edwards worked
together with GAS and Yates on the lllustrated Times. They had been part of the close-knit
Bohemian group that in the late 40s and 50s had shared a hand-to-mouth existence in Paris
and London. These were presumably the "good for nothing associations" that GAS swore to
escape from when he asked Yates for the loan of two pounds in letter 1. But there was more
than an element of truth in Yates's inflammatory lllustrated Times par, since Brouglr, a gifted
poet and playwright had drunk himself to death within three yean, and Hannay died at 45,
"literally like a poisoned rat in a hole . . . it was the story of Swift in Dublin, only with lush
instead of lunacy and poverty superadded" (letter L24). ln fact the letters record that many of
the Bohemians died miserably. There was playwright Watts Phillips dead at 49 without
enough money for a funeral. GAS had to pass the hat around: "the undertaker will not even
begin his abominable devices until money is forthcoming or guaranteed for the funeral"
(letter L21). There was Peter Cunningham (letter 19n10), another hopeless alcoholic, whose
abandoned column in the lllustrated London News was in a way bequeathed to GAS and
became his "Echoes." There was Angus Reach, considered one of the nineteenth-century's
best journalists and collaborator with Albert Smith on The Man in the Moon. "Poor Angus"
(letter 118) died of overwork. He was only 33. Charles Dickens's brother Fred was another:
"F.D.'s habitual breakfast was a penny bun and a glass of gingerbeer. The remainder of his
diet was mainly gin, cold. He could'nt [sic] smoke; he had no taste for reading: in fact he had
no taste for anything save Van John and three card loo :- luxuries not altogether attainable on
a net income of 140. per ann. Poor devil." And his famous brother didn't even go to the
tuneral (letter 72).
After his fateful meeting with Dickens described in letter 2, did GAS ever moderate
his drinking, and his Bohemian habits? Suffice to say, that in the early hours of a January
morning in 1859, he had his nose badly split open while being thrown out of a "house" in
Panton street, the notorious red light district of I-ondon, for complaining about the cost of the
champagne (etter 24). He recovered, but his nose never did. [t branded him for life with its
colour of purple to red, which was to lead to much speculation, even to a law suit, which I
will deal with later (letter 89). About the same time, his name was being bandied around the
famous Punch dining table in Bouverie Street, at which a position was highly coveted. Staff
member Henry Silver, who kept an informal diary of proceedings, recorded that on 28 June
11

1860 both publisher Evans and editor Mark Irmon gave GAS the thumbs down: "Evans: 'If
Mr Sala had been a gentleman he should have been given a seat at the Punch Table'. Lrmon:
'Punch gets on very well without Sala and Co. I shouldn't like to dine with them once a week
. . . Punch keeps up by keeping to the gentlemanly view of things and its being known that
Bohemians don't write for it'."
No wonder that in his memoirs Yates makes it known that "[ was never a real
Bohemian" (198). His habits had been regularized by an early marriage and his job at the
Post Office. He admits to "a certain distaste for an integral portion of the career [of a
Bohemian]." As in the passage from letter 15 quoted above, GAS often chides Yates for his
respectability; sometimes, especially in the later years, with humour that bespeaks more than
a tinge of jealousy: "IhS@ next at ggg& here. No dress; and for God's sake ask Mrs
Yates pl to wear her diamonds: (I mean the [?curlicue] with the emerald hermit-crab in the
centre eating a ruby shrimp). You know what ladies are; and Mrs Sala's garnet brooch is at
Dobree's [the pawnbrokers)" (letter 112). And: "Write and say when we can meet some
afternoon and have a cigar and a chat. I ca'nt ask you to come here, my womankind being in
the way; and I do'nt care about coming to the Bedford which is too grand for the likes of me"
(letter 131).
By the 1870s Yates had indeed managed to become something of a "swell" after his
retirement from the post-office, thanks to the job he took with James Gordon Bennett on the
New York Herald (1873-1875), and his success with the World. But GAS was never able to
claim financial success, although from L863 he was eaming "about €2,000 a year" (Life 358).
His letters show that he was always on the run from the duns. What did he do with his
money? The answer is he spent it - and freely. A fairly informed guess would be that he was
never able to rise above the pleasures of his youth, which included heavy drinking, gambling
and probably, judging by his friendship with Swinburne and their shared interest in
flagellation (letter 86n5), rather expensive sexual practices. The reasons for his chronic
shortage of money become even more appar€nt in the light of the fact that his home was
crammed with valuable china and other collectibles (as shown in the photographs
accompanying Strand Magazine's "Illustrated lnteryiews" profile in 1,892), and that he was
also a gourmet and had a passion for collecting first editions (4: 58-62).
ln some ways GAS's reputation as the "King of Bohemia" (Cross 117) served him
well. Taking the analogy of Falstaff for instance, it had established the roots of his writing in
cockney I-ondon, strengthening his ties with ordinary citizens, the working men and women
who were fast making up the bulk of his audience. It was with their eyes that he described
the city in Twice Round the Clock, "which for sheer brilliance of rendering has never been
surpassed" (fZS 18 Feb I972:I81). And being identified with an increasingly romanticized
piece of literary mythology probably had the effect of mitigating condemnation of his
behaviour, inclining people to consider that reports of it might be exaggerated - as perhaps
they were. Despite his obvious social drawbacks he was not cut off from the world of
respectability; a case in point is his membership of that least Bohemian of clubs, the Reform.
ln fact he became a "social lion" of sorts, even being nominated as a Liberal candidate for
Brighton in the L880 elections (letter 762n2). He tried somehow to straddle both worlds
while committing himself to neither. Again, keeping in mind his defence of the denizens of
Bohemia against Yates's criticism, look at the way he deals with what could only be called a
sell-out to "the other side" in letter 81. Early in 1870 he announced to Yates his coming
editorship of the proposed magazine, England in the Nineteenth Century, brainchild of the
advertising magnate James Willing, who had ads plastered all over london: "not a word,
please, about the proprietary of the New Show. I,et it be a society of Capitalists: say
12
Rothschild, the Marquis of Bute, Bar.um and George Hodder and the beautiful Mister
Rousby." Irtter 81n3 shows how GAS's facetious list of the "proprietary" manages to get
over his opinion of Willing's venture and its propriety. (Engtand in the Nineteenth Ceniry
before I{9:d it began because the advertising to finance it was not forthcoming. Ironically
Willing, the master salesman of space on vehicles and hoardings throughout Inndon, hai
found it impossible to sell any in his magazine.)
GAS's lucrative editorship (willing had lavished money on the project and a large
staff of the best journalists had been engaged) was stillbom, but who couta Utame him for
trying, since by now his fame as special conespondent, essayist, reviewer, bon viveur and
entertaining dinner-guest had granted him entr€e into anothei world, one that was certainly
not frequented by the down-and-out. A good way to catch GAS in the social whirl is to lool
at W.P. Frith's giant paintingThe Private Wew at the Royal Academy (1881). There he is in
the right hand corner, the white waistcoat he affected making him i focus of the artist's
composition; his remark about it in a letter to Frith makes the point about his social duality:
"Don't forget the white waistcoat. You can't very well .uid"t when you have a white
waistcoat on' By donning that snowy garment you have, in a manner, given hostages to
respectability" (qtd Wallis 2I7). \\e densely packed crowd jostling to see ind be seen in the
The Private Wew makes this painting emblematic of the cloie, interactive world of Victorian
society. Assembled around GAS are some of the people he mentions in his letters, including
Mary Braddon, Gladstone, Robert Browning, John Bright, Baroness Burdett-Coutts, Ellen
Terry and Frith himself along with many other famouJ personatities of the period such as
Oscar Wilde, T.H. Huxley, John Tenniel, George du Miurier, and Henry trving and Lillie
Iangtry (see letter 168n3). This is only a small section of an enormous canvas filled from
edge to edge with famous figures imaginatively portrayed as viewers, not so much of the
paintings (almost blocked out by the crush) that line ihe walls, as of each other, a selfreflexive
attitude very much akin to that of the Victorian press, which, as the letters
demonstrate, often found itself the most newsworthy topic of all.
When GAS sued James Hain Friswell for defamation in 1871 (letters 89 and 90), it
seemed to show just how far he was prepared to go to defend his reputation, no matter how
tarnished' Friswell, best-known for The Gentli Life; Essays tn iia of the Formation of
Character,1864, dedicated - with her consent - to eueen Victoria, *ouid hardly seem to be
the sort to be sued for libel. But seven years after the Gentle Life hadbeen published, he was
in.court with his publishers facing charges in the case of "Saia v Stoughton and Another.,,
His crime, a warts-and-all portrait of GAS in Modern Men of Letters-Honestly Criticised,
1870, in which among other things he accused him of being "in the hands of thi Jews, often
drunken, always in debt, sometimes in prison, and . . . totally disreputable, living d tort et d
travers the rules of society":
A Bohemian writer of a bad school, but yet a brave man; one that has
done very little good, and yet one full of capabilities for good; a
writer of sound English and a scholar, and yet a driveller ol tipsy,
high-flown, and high-falutin' nonsense; a man of understanoing
when he likes, and yet of bosh and nonsense as well when he choosei
to debase himself; one of keen intellect, high qualities, prodigious
memory' great picturesqueness, and a photographic accuracy. (15g)
GAS's initial reaction when he first read the article was that "although sufficiently illnatured
[it] did not strike me as being at all libellous from a legal point of-view', (Life'S6g).
And there doesn't seem anything particularly libellous in anythiig that Friswell said; in fact it
13

sounds like a fair description of the GAS that can be infened from these letters and the
memoirs of contemporarils hke Henry Vizetelly and William Tinsley, backed uP by Henry
Silver's diary and dickens's letters. Friswell's language is undoubtedly too strong and his
imputations unwise, but the accusations can be corroberated, even to a stint in jail, since
letLn 2L and 22 prove that GAS was incarcerated at least once in his lite (21 bears the
address of the Queen's Bench debtors' prison). Why then was GAS prepared to go to court
and swear under oath "that there was no foundation for any of these offensive imputations . . .
I am not often drunk. I am not always in debt, nor sometimes in prison, and as to my being
totally disreputable I must leave that to the public at large and to my own particular friends?"
(Timis 18 Feb 1871:11) Wouldn't he be risking his reputation even further by having
iriswell's remarks aired to the enormous audience of the popular press? (The case was given
generous coverage not only by the Times, but by most London paPers, including-the Daily
-N"*r, and, of course, the Dai\y Tetegraph). William Tinsley's account of "Sala's action
against poor, harmless, and as a rule well-meaning Hain Friswell" (1:158) provides a
p6ssible-answer. According to Tinsley: "Sala was in the hands of some shrewd solicitors,
who knew he was right in law for Friswelt had accused [him] of being the author of some
very questionable liteiary matter, and had been stupid enough to reprint it from a dead joumal
into a live book" (ibid).
The shrewd solicitors mentioned included Daily Telegraph lawyer George I-ewis,
who was so anxious to prosecute that he discouraged GAS from meeting the distressed
Friswell's plea to settle out of court: "Friswell has written me a slavering letter, offering to
apologise and pay costs. Too late . . . .He says he is bleeding from the lungs" (letter 89). This
was unusual for Irwis, since he had the reputation of protecting his clients from the glare of
publicity by ananging prior settlements wherever possible (DNB). Report-s of -the trial
iugg"rtittui in this partiCutar case kwis had an ulterior motive for actually pushing his client
unlit the spotlight; the defence counsel, in questioning not only why all attempts of Friswell
and his puUtirtr61r to settle out of court had been quashed, but also why none of the resulting
correspondence had been produced in court, came to the conclusion that the really aggrieved
party was the Telegraph, iitrce "the caustic strictures on the style of writing in the Telegraph
irad-caused certain persons connected with it more annoyance than any reflections upon Mr
Sala" (Times 11). Thus it would not be unreasonable to surmise that, with the collusion of
George Irwis, dAS's "trusted friend," the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph, wary of their
pup"t;r reputation, had pressured him into continuing to Press charges, and that i! was at their .
instigation, and not on GAS's own volition, that he made such a blatant denial of his
BohJmian past - and a not so distant past at that, since it was only two years before that
Dickens had mentioned in his 1869 letter to Georgina Hogarth that "[Sala] is certain to be
drunk," and only in L867 that he had written to Yates: "I am full of duns, writs and
judgements and outstanding executions" (letter 69), followed by the complaint that "a
-Oamned Jew lawyer" had served an execution notice on him that led to an appearance before
the bankruptcy court in September (letter 70).
flitciiy for GAS his belief in the legal ability of the wily George Lrwis, and in his
own ability to generate popular appeal with the "public at large," paid off, for the jury found
in his favour and awardia ISOO damages. As usual their colourful special conespondent had
won the day for the Telegraph. According to the old reprobate it was nothing more than the
rose in his buttonhole that swayed the jury (Ltfe 57$; flippant this may be, but it seems likely
that as representatives of an increasingly press-influenced public, they were party to its
demand for colour (be it of nose or rose) in its newspapers, and its newspapermen. The
Telegraph must have been satisfied by press comments showing that the verdict in GAS's
t4
favour was just as much a vote of confidence in their paper as a vindication of his character.
ln fact everyone seems to have been satisfied, except poor Friswell of course, who, according
to Tinsley,"never recovered the loss he sustained in the action, and not being in anything like
good health at the time, the shock . . . doubtless hurried him faster on to his early grave
(1:159). This was probably pure conjecture on Tinsley's behalf (Friswell died in L878 at 53),
and designed to put GAS in a bad light as their relationship was an uneasy one. However, a
remark GAS made in his memoirs shows that he was not without a twinge of conscience on
the matter: "these wretched damages so preyed upon my mind that, to relieve me, the Daily
Telegraph sent me to Berlin to witness the opening of the German Parliament" (575).
The arch-Bohemian GAS went on to become acknowledged as one of the
aggressively respectable Daily Telegraph's greatest asset. [n L955 Inrd Burnham, the direct
descendant of Edward Irvy-Lawson, paid him a tribute in Peterborough Court: The Story of
the Daily Telegraph:
Among the great men of the Daily Telegraph the strangest, and in
many ways the greatest was George Augustus Sala (D.I 1857-93).
It is quite clear that Sala, with all his oddities of style, dress and
behaviour, can never have been the disreputable figure painted by
Friswell and his enemies . . . certainly he was never in prison . . . he
stayed with Lord Rosebery at Mentmore and he would never have
entertained the disreputable scallywag of Old Frizzle's Modern Men
of Letters. (3L-32)
With the revelations provided by these letters in mind, it is possible to appreciate the
unconscious irony with which Bumham juxtaposes both sides of GAS's character, an irony
that seems to epitomize his uneasy foothold on the ladder of respectability. The young man,
who in 1857 heatedly defended his friends against Yates's public criticism of them as "dirty,
drunken denizens" of Bohemia, by declaring that loyalty and ability were more important
than any ephemeral respectability (letter 15), became the renowned doyen of the Daily
Telegraph, whose success was sanctioned by the approval of a middle-class readership
steeped in Victorian notions of respectability, notions that must have to a large extent been
suggested and nurtured by his writings, not only inthe Telegraph, but also in Temple Bar and
the lllustrated London News. An utterly pragmatic "working joumalist," he wrote to sell,
tailoring his work to suit an audience that he had in grcat measure helped to create. The
wonder is, perhaps, that he reached such a pinnacle of success and remained there, for so
many years despite the obvious anomalies in his character. Or could it be that it was this
very departure from the norms of respectability that increased and sustained his popularity?
What more appropriate hero could there be for Victorian readers, nurtured on sensationalism
by newspapers eager to increase sales, than GAS, with a strong whiff of Bohemia about him?
ln the last letter of the collection (170, 1 January 1889) GAS touches on the long
association that he and Yates have shared, reminding his old friend that: "[t is a very long
time since we first foregathered. I well remember the evening when I came to see you in
Doughty Street." Both men were nearing the end of their careers, and their lives. Times were
changing and a new "new journalism" was making its presence felt, although GAS didn't
think much of it. 'What the new journalism may be like," he self-righteously complained, "I
neither know nor care, but most assuredly it is not the journalism to which I served my
apprenticeship, and in which I have been for many years a skilled workman" (Ltfe xi). [n
1-894, with the failure of Sala's Journal, he was made uncomfortably aware that the
overblown and personal style that had engendered his success was losing popularity'. In
1,5

Things I Have Seen and People I Have Known he acknowledges this in typically lighthearted
fashion, referring to himself as an "old bore", but then counteracts this selfdepreciation
by launching into a detailed description of a joumalistic career that must
certainly place him in the forefront of nineteenth-century social observers: a record of thirty
years at the coal face of history, both in England and abroad. As ever there was no one better
equipped to do justice to GAS than GAS himself. And with his credentials not many better
equipped to provide an informed contemporary view of the Victorian period.
ABBREVI,ATIONS
,4YR ,4U theYear Round
BM Cqt British Museum Catalogue
DN Daily News
DT Daily Telegraph
DAB Dictionary of American Biography
DNB Dictionary of National Biography
Echoes "Echoes of the Week"
GAS George Augustus Sala
ILN lllustrated London News
HW HouseholdWords
IT lllustrated Times
Ltfe Ltk and Adventures of George Augustus Sala written by Himself
MS Morning Star
OED Oxford English Dictionary
OCEL Oxford Companion to English Literature
SOD Shorter English Oxford Dictionary on Historical Principles
SR Saturday Review
TB Temple Bar
Things Things I Have Seen and People I Have Known
Viz Henry Vizetelly
WG llelcome Guest
Waterloo Waterloo Directory of Wctorian Periodicals. (When dates read 1900+ it means that
the joumal or paper closed after 1,900, exact date is not known).
Wellesley The Wellesley Index to hctorian Periodicals
WTWS "What the World Says"
* See lndex: an asterisk denotes that the subject has been fully noted elsewhere.
16
Chronology of the life or. George Augustus Sala (1828-1895)
1.828 (28 Nov) Born in London, father a dancing master of ltalian parentage, mother
daughter of West Indian sugar planter, possibly Creole. Father died year he was born; mother
supported 5 children by acting and singing. Educated in Paris and at progressive school at
Tumham Green. After unsuccessful apprenticeship to miniaturist becomes scene painter at
Lyceum Theatre.
1848 lllustrates Man in the Moon for Albert Smith on strength of work for Alfred Bunn's
lampoon "A Word for Punch"; also becomes editor of strugglingweekLy,Chat.
1851 Decorates walls of Soyer's Gore House restaurant with cartoons during Great
Exhibition. Charles Dickens accepts "Key of the Street" for publication in Hll/, to which, and
later to AYR, GAS becomes a regular contributor.
1E56 (April) Goes to St. Petersburg for Dickens Q4 Journey Due North 1858). Also works
with Yates and others on Comic Times, Illustrated Times, The Train, and, in 1858, The
Welcome Guest.
1857 Begins association with the Daily Telegraph,
1859 Manies Haniett.
lE60 Starts "Ffhoes of the Week" in lllustrated London News; contributes essays on Hogarth
to early Cornhill and becomes editor of John Maxwell's Temple Bar.
1863-64 Covers American Civil War for DT (My Diary in America in the Midst of War,
1865). Series of jobs as special correspondent follow.
f865 (May) In Algeria with Napoleon III (l Trip to Barbary by a Roundabout Route, 1866)
1865-66 Holland, Belgium, France, Spain (Froz waterloo to the Peninsula,rS6T).
1866-67 ltaly and Austria (Rome and Venice, L869)
t7

1867 Paris Exhibition (Notes and Sketches).
1870 tn Paris as observer of Franco-Prussian War; anested as a spy in August; escaPes to
Rome via Geneva 20 Sept.
1871 In Berlin for opening of German parliament.
1873 Very ill with erythema; convalesces at Brighton.
1875 In Spain for crowning of King Alphonso and close of Carlist War.
f875 (Dec) - summer 1877 In St Petersburg to observe Turkish-Russian hostilities: returns
home through Constantinople and Athens.
l87t Paris Exhibition (Paris Herself Agaia 1880).
1879 Dec-spring 1880 In America (America Revisited,1882)'
f 881 (Dec) In St Petersburg after murder of Alexander [I.
f883 (May) In St Petersburg for coronation of Alexander III.
f8E4 (Dec)-(Dec) ln America, Australia, New Zealand, lndia. Haniett dies in Melbourne.
1891 Maries Bessie.
1892 Sala's Journal.
1895 (8 Dec) Dies.
18
EDITORIAL PRINCIPLES
Transcription has been based on a compromise between readability and preserving some
the flavour of the original letters. Thus layout of the body of each letter has not been changed,
except where some oddity occurs that cannot be reproduced in type, as in 29 where GAS
includes a fanciful version of a menu, and in 149 where he supplies a long list of possible articles
for the World. Dates and addresses have been standardized and the formal "Edmund Yates, Esq"
at the bottom of each letter has been dropped. Dates supplied by the editor are enclosed within
square brackets and a rationale is provided in the annotations; where dating is conjecttral it is
prefixed with a question mark. In some cases cuttings from journals or newspapers have been
pasted on to the letters, as in 138, L44 and L52. In each case the cutting has been left in its
original position as a preface to the letter.
Punctuation has been added only where needed for ease of reading; when this has been
done GAS's most usual style of putting commas and full stops after inverted commas has been
adopted. Use of the apostrophe, as in do'nt, has not been altered, although apostrophes to denote
the possessive case have been inserted whenever necessary. The flourish at the end of GAS's
signature has been replaced by a full stop (a very inadequate substitution). Words abbreviated
with superior letters have been set out in full. Where letters or whole words have been
inadvertently omitted they have been supplied between square brackets, as in letter 108, I [am].
Strike outs have not been retained. There are very few ofthese and they are either scored out so
heavily as to be unreadable or are of an insignificant nature, for example in 149 where "I am"
replaces "I [have]". *** is used to signify lacunae, and square brackets are placed round uncertain
transcriptions. lndecipherable words have been denoted as such. The occasional use of ff for ss
is standardized to ss. Where abbreviations for newspapers and periodicals are used without full
stops in annotations, as HW (Household Words),IT (Illustrated Times) etc, they have been left as
H.W., I.T. etc in GAS's text. Similarly where he writes his name as G.A.S., it appears as GAS in
annotations.
Annotations are as detailed as possible in order to make full use of the letters as aids in
reconstructing GAS's life and times. They often extend beyond the matter in hand in an attempt
to create a closely woven web of text that binds the collection into something like a connecting
narrative. They are positioned directly below the letters they refer to for ease of reading, and to
accentuate their linking function. An asterisk is used to denote that something has already been
noted in full elsewhere and that the index should be consulted.
Works cited in the introduction, as well as those cited in the annotations, are included
in the Works Cited section at the end of the book. Where not otherwise stated, information
about periodical publication comes from The Waterloo Directory of Wctorian Periodicals; no
page numbers are given as this is an alphabetically organized work; if there is more than one
entry under the same name dating can be used for identification. Other references with no
page numbers also come from alphabetically ananged works.

LETTERS AND ANN OTATIONS

111
[embossed crown in left hand top corner]
Thursday L3 December 1855
1 Exeter Change,l Strand
My dear Yates,
It is in your power to solve the problem of Sala.
I owe you two pounds, and I send this letter to you to ask you to lend me five pounds.
I know perfectly well that you ca'ntz afford to lend money when its return is
problematical. But the purpose for which I require this sum is one so serious and one that may be
perhaps the turning-point in my miserable fortunes, that t do not hesitate to apply to you.
I mean to go away immediately, to bury myself in some remote place, to cut utterly and
without a chance of relapse all the good for nothing associations in which I am involved, and to
come back with increased experience, a disciplined mind, and, I hope, a firm resolve to earn and
deserve a better reputation than I possess at present.s
I talked a great deal of nonsense last night, and made a great ass of myself; but at the
same time I really felt and appreciated all the good and kindly things you said to me.
If, knowing the positively sacramental nature of the favour I ask you, send me the monel'
by the bearer. You will see me no more for some time. t shall send the manuscript4 to you
clirectly; and in a week's time I will send you an order on Household Wordss for the money I
owe you, and for the second call of the Train.o If you happen to be short of money and ca'nt do
what I ask you, forget that I imposed so much on your forbearance
believe me / my dear Yates / Yours very truly
George: aug: Sala.
l. In London of 1855 this was a small arcade between Wellington and Catherine Streets (later
sitc of the Gaiety Theatre and Morning Post), where in its final months the short-lived journal
I'uncinello (4 March I854-I7 February 1855) had been located. Here in its office GAS worked,
lnd "ftequently slept" in a gloomy room above, "neatly constructing a couch and a pillow out of
lhc back stock of the publication" (Life 261). This remained one of his unofficial addresses for
two or three years after Puncinello had folded (Straus 108). It could be the "Bohemian
cstablishment" he refers to in 10n6. From here he dispatched articles to conveniently nearbl'
lkru.sehold Words (Life 206-61). Beginning with "The Key of the Street" in 1851, he regularll'
wrtttc articles for Dickens in Ifll until 1856, and less frequently, in All the Year Round, between
Itl.59 and 1869.
.1, All MS apostrophes follow this form, e.g., do'nt, wo'nt, would'nt, have'nt etc.
l. In both Paris and London, between the end of 1,852 and the spring of 1-856, GAS led an
irrcsponsible and dissolute Bohemian life, financed solely by his five-guinea articles for HW, to
wltttnr hc was frequently in debt when he accepted payment without delivering any copy. His
Ittenroirs refer to this period as the "Bad Dream" (Lik 258-59). In the hope of rehabilitating
lrlttrsclf he asks Yates to lend him the money that will enable him to return to Paris, where he
lrelicvcs his mentor Dickens to be (letter 2par 3).
'1. Itrcsumably "Fripanelli's Daughter," his promised serial for the Train (n6). It failed to arrive
ro ltrtlrcrt Brough* "threw himself into the breach" with Marston Lynch, the story of his own life
(\'nlcs 216). However, Brough wasn't a very reliable contributor either, as shown by an editorial
ttrtlc itt lhc Train apologising for breaks in the serial (no 2 December 1857). He died prematurell'
23

of alcoholism without finishingMarston Lynch, which was published posthumously as a book in
1860 (the year of his death), with GAS as editor. He patched on a sudden happy ending by
adding a single paragraph of 22 words.
5. Household Words (30 March 1850-28 May 1859), a twopenny weekly founded by Dickens in
collaboration with publishers Bradbury and Evans. It was responsible for launching a number of
literary careers, including those of Wilkie Collins and GAS. Such writers were dubbed Dickens's
"Young Men." In April 1859 Dickens abandoned Hll after a falling out with Bradbury and
Evans over their refusal to print a notice in Punch, another of their publications, explaining his
separation from his wife, Catherine. He then proceeded to publish independently a new
magazine, AII the Year Round (1859-1895), much the same in cost, appearance and format, but
featuring longer fiction (Sutherland 1.9).
6. The Train (L January 1.856-June 1858), a shilling monthly, edited by Yates throughout its
publication (Edwards 53,76). It grew out of a co-operative effort by the self-styled "Trainband,"
a g1oup of writers and artists who couldn't find a ready backer for their literary talents
after the collapse of. Comic Times (11 August-24 November L855), due to the withdrawal of
publisher Herbert lngram (Yates 215-220)'
121
Thursday 10 January 1.856
Hotel des Etrangers,2 Rue Racine, Paris
My dear Yates,
I have been, for now nearly a fortnight, in a most pitiable condition of body and mind -
utterly incapable of work and mooning about more like a reptile than a man. I am now getting a
little better, though with an incessant honible hellish pain in my head which nearly drives me
mad.1
I am sure you must have thought my silence most unkind and most unfair. That it has
been both I will freely admit: no excuse of mine can in any way alter the unfavourable opinion
you must have formed of me from my desertionz of you, the Train and etc's too numerous to
mention.
Irt me however give you one morsel of explanation concerning the reason of the
whereabouts of my exodus. I had (and have) in my muddled brain an idea that Dickens will set
me straight eventually, and enable me to get that start for want of which I have been going to the
Devil anytime these eight years. I went to Paris to find him. He was in England. He is now
back again. t have seen a great deal of him. He is most kind and jolly, and t think will do
anything for me. He knew all about the book from Thackeray, but not its title, and learning that
from me gave me trvo books about Hogarth he had.J I am going to dine with him tomorrow, and
I think that he will get a series of my H.W articles published in 2 vols before the book comes
out.4 I gb! return to England till I can start fair again in the world and I have every hope of
doing so with his assistance.) I have not written one single line of copy for anything since I left
England and have drawn no money, or you may be assured I should have at least the honest], to
return the money you lent me. But I do hope now if I have health to go to work again and right
myself.
The Train I hope progresses favourably. If you still care anything about me tell me all
about it and how the serialb gets on. I will send immediately after I have knocked off two papers
for H.W. an article for No 2 of the Train called the "Retum of the Eagles". It is a description of
the triumphant entry of the troops from the Crimea into Paris.T
24
Write to me, and bear with mr yet a little. Believe me I am very unhappy. I have bad
ncws from England. I am at variance with py mother, and with the awful ghost of a loss of
intellect before me, quite broken and done up.6
The enclosed is an articte forwarded for your approval for the Train.9 It is written by a
young American friend of mine here who is bitten with the cacoethes scribendi;lo if you do'nt
think it good write me a few lines which I can show him declining it upon some courteous
grounds.
Hoping to hear from you / believe me my dear Yates I ever yours sincerely
George: aug: Sala.
l. In his memoirs Yates quotes these words, and others in this letter, verbatim, as he recollects
the early days of the Train, and the beginning of his long association with GAS (Yates 218). To
find out more about the reasons for the depressed tone of this letter see GAS's Life and
Advenrures Chapter 23, "I-otus Eating," which paints a rather mournful picture of English
Bohemians in Paris.
2. For Yates, hindsight mellowed GAS's failure to submit his promised copy. This "desertion"
becomes an amusing story as he recollects the advertizement he inserted in the Times to attract
the wanderer's attention. [t commenced, "Bohemian, where art thou?" (Yates 216).
3. He had discussed the idea of a book about Hogarth with Thackeray in 1855 (Things 23-4).
No such ambitious project ever eventuated, but the series "William Hogarth: His Life and his
Times" (Thackeray's suggested modified version for serial publication) was presented in Cornhill
Magazine February-October 1860, and published as a book by Smith and Elder in 1866.
4. Owing to a disagreement over copyright (5n3) the first articles to be reprinted in book form
were I Journey Due North (1858), followed by Gaslight and Daylight (1859); neither was
identified as having been first published in HW. The book he refers to here is his original
Hogarth plan that never came to fruition.
5. Two months later Dickens agreed to GAS's proposal of a trip to Russia to record his
impressions of the aftermath of the Crimean campaign for HIl. [t was, according to Yates, "the
first momentous event of his life" (Yates 219); presumably because it was GAS's first appearance
as "special conespondent," a role which he played many times after, and which made him
famous throughout the English-speaking world.
6. Robert Brough's* Marston Lynch.
7. It didnt appear. GAS made no contribution to No 2 of the Train.
8. He is feeling guilty about the sort of life he was leading in Paris, that "roaring, restless, goodfor-nothing
head-quarters, productive of little but waste of time, dissipation, and consequent
deadening of the moral sentiments" (Lik 359). Doubtless his mother had voiced her disapproval,
since she demanded the "rigidest principles of decorum" (letter 10 par 2).
9. Not retained with MS.
10. An inesistible desire to write (OED).
25

t3l
Tuesday 26 February 1856
2t Shenard Street, Golden Square
My dear Yates,
For anything I may have said yesterday rude, offensive or sarcastic pray accept the
expression of my heartiest sorrow. t think you too much my friend and I regret too much the
temporary cloudl that has latterly (culpi meA) obscured a friendship I prized very highly - not to
feel something very like remorse five minutes after having said a rude thing. I did so yesterday.
I am sure I behaved altogether like the illconditioned cub I frequently show myself to be.
But I had been specially "riled" during the day. ln the first place I had received your letter, had
hoped to be able to raise some cash at least on "Train" calls, and going to H.W. had found that
Willsz would not be at the office till Wednesday. In the next simultaneously with your note
there had arrived a lawyer's letter from Davis (of all people in the world) telling me that he had
been instructed to sue me for twenty six pounds, and that he was afraid he could not refuse to act
for his client.3 ln the third my etdest brothey' from Southampton had been skating all over
lnndon in search of me all day without success; and as there is a regular intemecine war raging
in the lala family I anticipated nothing but ill news from his business. So I came to the club
sW,,) and am only glad I was gg@1, or I should have run a very good chance of being thrown
out of the window, by somebody.
As it happened I discovered afterwards, that I had mistaken the passage mentioned; that
you were perfectly right in erasing it; and I did not restore it.
I do'nt know what further amendeo I can make to satisfy you I am sure I would only be
too happy to do so if I knew.
Believe me / my dear Yates / yours always truly
George: aug: Sala.
1. Possibly his continued failure to supply copy for the Train.
2. William Henry Wills (1810-1880), assistant editor of. HW and Dickens's right-hand man.
I-ater he filled the same position on lIR. Although Wills is now really only remembered as
Dickens's off-sider his work on HW was highly respected by his contemporaries, as shown by
Thackeray's remark when he was embarking on his Cornhill editorship: "If there were only
another Wills my fortune would be made" (qtd Lohrli 463). Wills contributed articles to early
Punch, and was for a while its regular drama critic. His association with Dickens began in 1846
as a sub-editor on the Daily i{ews, which Dickens edited at its inception for a short period (21
January-9 February 1846), two years later he became Dickens's secretary, and in 1.849 assistanteditor
of. HIl.
3. GAS's chronic debt is one of the main themes of the letters. He was always beset by creditors,
not only in these early Bohemian days but even when he was eaming big money as a famous
joumalist. Yates is seen here as a particularly long suffering creditor. But later, at GAS's own
instigation (letter 1,4), he also sued for what he was owed.
4. Frederick Sala. GAS was the youngest of the five out of thirteen Sala children who survived
to adulthood. Of these, his consumptive sister Augusta died at 26 (Straus 9), and his brother
Charles of a heart attack at 34 (letter 6). The other two were Frederick and Albert.
5. Could be the Reunion Club of which GAS was a member at this time (Life 359), but more
likely, because of emphasis and probable pun, the Savage Club. Uncertainty results from
conflicting information about the foundation dates of the Savage. Ralph Nevill notes in his
26
ltnilrn Clubs that it started in 1855 \ 'ith GAS on both foundation member list and committee
(J04), while Straus documents a letter of 8 October 1857 announcing the "forming of a social
rrrcicly or club, hereafter to receive a suitable designation, and to havi its inhobit ai the 'Crown'
'litvcrn, Vinegar Yard, Drury f ane," signed by GAS as honorary secretary e3Z), which suggests
lltttl a name for the club had not been decided upon at the time of this lettei. The proposed
Ittccting was probably to formalize what had hitherto been a casual anangement for some time,
Itlr as Nevill emphasizes it was a "Bohemian institution." If this letter does allude to an
cntbryonic Savage of 1856 its meeting place is up to conjecture. (Other early meeting places,
tttcntioned by T.H.S. Escott* in his C/ub Makers and CIub Members (269), wlre Maidin lrnr,
nnd Radley's Hotel, Covent Garden).
As to the club's name, Henry Vizetelly speculates that it "was named after the poet
Itichard Savage*, or some extinct tribe of Red Indians" (2: 40). The latter echoed GAS's own
lircctious definition: "A club is a weapon used by savages to keep the white woman at a distance"
(Ncvill 135). In Quite Alone GAS attributes this apophthegm to, the probably fictitious,
Solomon Buck' The Savage Club Papers, a collection to celebrate the club'i tenth anniversary,
claims that a desire for modesty made the original Savages choose to eschew famous names such
ls Shakespeare, Addison and Johnson, in favour of the lesser-known and socially less acceptable
Savage (Halliday x). This accords with the anti-establishment tradition of the club in the 1g60's,
which Escott suggests was due to the influence of "that primitive Savage Robert Brough*,', and
his "bitterness against rank, wealth and social privilege" (270).
(r' Shortened form of amende honorable, a public or open apology and reparati on (OED).
I4t
My dear Yates,
Monday 6 October 1856
39 Rue de la Montagne, Brusselsl
You would have had, believe me, the maidenhead of my conespondence on my retum to
civilised Europe, but I heard you were up the Rhine.
I am glad you liked H.W. I do'nt. The woodman who has not spared the tree has applied
the pruning knife -'Zounds!' the axe - unskillfully, and the parts do'nt^jo[n *91L2 Mem: mum.
You do'nt know how :ut",ful I am obliged to be with those swenJilas *otfy having ffi;
with the Sub-Christopherj while at Petersburg, because I wrote a letter to AlberrSmith,4 which
according to S.C. he showed to the "Garrick men".5 Who are the "Garrick men?" you know
that (setting aside your membership of the club in question) [ do'nt know them from Adam.
There have been some ridiculous paragraphs going the round of the papers "respecting
anxiety forflY flte"' -I_ suppose the "par" must have originitea with some fourpence-halfienny,l
estate mano in that abhoned den of "Piersons"T who not seeing any of .y pip"o in H.W. and
being probably bemused in liquor naturally concluded that I must be in Sibirii, or laid up with
delirium tremens. I had my own private and particular reasons for not having a line oi .opy
printed till I was over the Russian frontier;8 and the people in the office of H.W. have standing
instructions never to know where I am.
By the way, in June last, while in Petersburg I gave a certain Colonel Sabouroff who was
coming to England with his family a letter of introJuction to you. Did he ever turn up? He was
an elderly swell - imbecile but affable - with two very EIIy daughters. I had only a slight
personal acquaintance with^him through meeting him at the American Minister's; but the
daughters were "ticklar frez"9 of a swell Russian family who were very kind to me; so I gave S.
the letter.
27

Respecting "Train" I write without_f3!! $!E week a story for the November number -
shortish - Caled i& Countess Nadiejda".l0 It is Russian,but nothing in the H.W. line. Expect
it next Saturday, at latest.
Will you drop me a line and tell me if Albert Smith be returned to town. I want to send
him a yankee story for his next Mont Blanc.l1
I am due in Iondon on the lst of November,l2 and shall immediately show - please God
not at Piersons.
Christopherl3 himself is very [indecipherable] up in the stimrps, and has written me one,
two, three, letters, expressing approval of the talkee-talkee.l4
I do'nt see much of Bob Brough.r: He hinders me, and I him; and t am growing for a
hundred reasons infernally avaricious, and persistent in turning the hours into gold. I have
something in view and will have it - or M!. I am in tolerable "ease" outwardly, but I have been
in a very indifferent state as regards the works. The pendulum is wrong, somehow. I am not
sufficiently balanced, or else jewelled in the wrong holes. At all events, seriously, I have been
trying to persuade myself for some weeks that I have got disease AI !h9 b4! and in truth some
very alarming symptoms and a French Doctor at Petersburg did very nearly convince me of the
approaching "cooking" of my "goose". But as I have been much better for the last ten days I
begin to think that I have been an Ass, and that it is all "my heart and my elbow".
Write, Oh King, and send us a "Train" will you,
and believe me / most sincerely yours
George: aug: Sala.
P.S. I enclose this in a letter to "One".16
1. On his return to "Civilised" Europe (i.e., from Russia) GAS remained in Brussels for several
weeks, "pouring out for Household Words the somewhat copious storc of information . . . I had
gathered about Russia and the Russians" (l,r/e 301). These appeared as a series of articles
published between October 4 1856 and March 141857.
2. The opinion of. HW sub-editing here differs from that offered in Things I Have Seen and
People I Have Known (189a): "Mr. W.H. Wills was the carefullest of proof readers, and did
everything necessary in the way of cutting down; and, next, Dickens took the revizes in hand
himself, and very often surprized me by the alterations - always for the better - which he made,
now in the title, and now in the matter, of my copy" (1.: 78). And in letter 83 he insists that
Dickens left his Russian papers intact. His exaggerated anger here probably stems from the fact
that he has been severely chastized by HW for both overspending on his trip to Russia, and
failing to produce all the copy they had paid for in advance.
3. Wills. Christopher seems to have been a code name between GAS and Yates for Dickens,
therefore Sub-Christopher must refer to his sub-editor.
4. Albert Smith (1816-1860), journalist, comic writer, drama critic, traveller and entertainer;
also edited the comic paper Man in the Moon (1847-L849) with Angus Reach*. At this time he
was perhaps best-known for his "entertainments" at the Egyptian Hall, where he recreated his
travels in parlour style dramatizations such as The Ascent of Mont Blanc and China. Smith was a
close and admired friend of both Yates and Sala, and a Bohemian. He had been Yates's bestman
when he married l-ouisa on L4 April L853, and had, in fact, introduced the huppy pair (Yates
162). He was also god-father to Yates's eldest son son, Henry Frederick Albert, b. October 1854
(170).
5. In his memoirs Yates devotes an entire chapter to the Ganick Club and its "men." Something
of its cliquish atmosphere can be gleaned from his quotation of Thackeray's eulogy: "We, the
lrnppy initiated, never speak of it as the Garrick, to us it is the G., the little G., the dearest place in
lltc world" (228). At Thackeray's instigation Yates was expelled from the Ganick in 1838, after
lltc publication of a critical piece on him in the second number of Town Talk,l2June 1858. This
lrcgan a feud that continued until Thackeray's death in L863 (Edwards 4). For GAS's opinion on
Y;tlcs's propensity to allow his private feelings to influence his "copy" in this matter see letter 26.
'lln,n Talk ran from 8 May 1858 to 14 November 1869 (BM Cat).
(r. GAS's comment on an extremely down-market newspapennan developed from "fourth
cstate," the phrase coined by William Hazlitt to describe Wiltiam Cobbett's powerful position as
;r political writer: "[he] 'lays waste' a city orator or Member of Parliament, and bears hard upon
lhc Govemment itself. He is a kind of fourth estate in the politics of the country" (Uazlitt 285).
7' Cannot trace, but doubtless some Bohemian dive frequented by heavy-drinking journalists.
tl. GAS lay low in order to escape the surveillance of the Russian police, who had become
suspicious of his motives as an observer. He decided to write nothing until he was out of Russia
(Straus 120). Journey Due North is highly critical of the police as feudal watch dogs in a chapter
titled "The Great Russian Boguey (The Police)' (359-99). His instructions to "never know
where I am" presumably relates to his l,ondon address (es), so that he could keep one step ahead
of the duns.
9. I.e., particular friends: GAS mimics publisher Herbert Ingram's provincial accent (yates 212).
Ingram (1811-1860) was born in Boston Lincolnshire, and became its Mp in 1856. In 1842,
with advice from his then employee Henry Vizetelly (9nI2), he started The lllustrated London
News. He later acquired one of its rivals, The lllustated Times,commenced by Vizetelly in 1855
(DNB). Yates had worked for lngram as editor of the short-lived Comic Times (11 August-24
November 1855).
10. "The Countess" was supposed to be a serial, but soon proved to be another promise of cop1,
that wasn't kept. Yates records that "Fripanelli's Daughter" never saw the light, and "TirL
Countess Nadiejda," another promised serial from the same pen, came to a sudden and abortil'e
conclusion" (2t9). Part 1 did appear in the Train no 11 (November 1856); but there was no
indication how many more parts were planned. Its full title was The Countess Nadiejda:Being
extrocts from the Diary of a Late Tchinovilc, imitated from the Russ of Nicholas Gogol. Th;
episode was accompanied by a foreword explaining that an "imitation" was all the author could
do because of the insufficiency of his Russian. A young Russian friend helped him with the
translation, which was later lost (letter 12, last par). GAS's other identified contributions to the
Train are:
"The Parisian Nights'Entertainment," vol 1 no1 (January 1g56): 40-g.
"Robson," vol 1 no3 (March 1856): 169-76.
"The Paper on the Wall," vol L no 4 (May 1856): 290-5.
"Caviar and Rudesheimer," (verse) vol 2 no 7 (July 1g56): 23-5.
1L. Mont Blanc was one of a number of public "entertainments" that Albert Smith devized
around his travels. They took the form of a parlour monologue performed at the Egyptian Hall,
London, which had been specially decorated for the purpose. Smith, despite his crl'cked voice,
was an admirable raconteur, but he relied on men like Sala and Brough foi the "smarter passages
in his lecture " Uiz2:32I). See also Yates's memoirs 146-50.
12. According to his memoirs GAS actually anived mid-November, and on the first evening
went to see Yates at home in Doughty Street (Zfe 303).
28 29

1.3. Dickens.
14. I.e., his Russian articles. GAS's style in Journey due North, and his other travel collections,
does have the immediacy and intimacy of conversation. Much later, in the preface to Echoes of
/883, he was to refer to his work as "the gamrlity of a veteran babbler," and adds the typical
undercut, that was also to become a feature of his style, "who is uneasily conscious that, ere long,
he may become a bore" (vi).
15. Brough was living and working with his family in Brussels at the time as correspondent for
the Sunday Times (DNB). On Ll November GAS wrote from the same address in Brussels to
Vizetelly: "Do'nt send anything to me to Bob Brough we had had a blazing Row and I expect
there will be murder before long" (Unpublished letter from Harvard University Library).
16. Probably Vizetelly. Both GAS and Yates were contributing to his Illustrated Times.
tsl
strictlv orivate
Wednesday 2L January 1857
1 Exeter Change, Strand
My dear Yates,
Of course you have heard of the great "mill"l between the "Tavistock House Pet" and the
"Taproom Bruiser" which has ended by the "Bruiser" being heavily "grassed", coming up
"gloggy" "hitting out wildly", and at last "going down at the ropes", never to rise again.
Do'nt judge me too harshly. Believe me, Christopherz is not 4[! milk and honey; and my
throwing up the concern, and otherwise behaving in a mad-dog manner originated in a most
selfish and ungenerous refusal to allow me to republish twenty-five out of nearly two hundred
articles - a refusal I thought more worthy our Venetian friend Shylock than the large-hearted
depictor of the sorrows of Little Nell.r
If I let you have the Countess Nadiejda by next Saturday will it be in time for the "Train"
of February?
I am, as I o1g;ht to be, ashamed not to [be] able to speak about -on"y.4 But what am I to
do? Out of collaF - out of credit, out of friends and (more or less) in lunacy
very miserably yours
G.A. Sala.
1. A pugilistic encounter 1825 (SOD) The two appropriately named antagonists are, of course,
Dickens and GAS. Dickens, the darling of the reading public, lived at Tavistock House 1851-
1860, and GAS was well-known as a patron of seedy bars or taptooms.
2. Dickens (ail).
3. A dispute arose between GAS and Household Words over travelling expenses on his Russian
trip, and delays in his completion of the stipulated number of articles. He was dismissed, and
refused permission to publish in book form both the 25 articles mentioned here and his Russian
papers (Lik 304-47). However, in L858 the embargo was lifted. This change of heart could
have been due to an article GAS wrote for the Daily Telegrapft castigating press hypocrisy on the
matter of Dickens's 1858 domestic crisis. "Dickens, it seems, saw the passage, enquired who the
writer might be, and at once in his happy, impulsive way, extended a hand" (Straus 134).
However, as early as 19 September L856 GAS had received a conciliatory letter from Dickens,
which shows that GAS's outburst in letters around this time was rather exaggerated, attesting to
the psychological problems he was ur Cergoing. GAS included the text of this letter in his
tribute, charles Dickens: An Essay, published just after Dickens's death in 1g70.
4. I.e., the money I owe you.
5. Out of regular employment (SOD).
I61
My dear Yates,
30 31
[On mourning paper]
Thursday 19 February 1857
7 Colonnade, New Road, Brighton
I am sure you wo'nt reproach me for the non-forthcoming of my article this month. I was
in the very act of sitting down to finish it when t was summoned by-telegraph to Brighton in
consequence of the awfully sudden death of my dear brother Charles.l He fell down dead on
Tuesday night about ten o'clock, just as he was going to bed. There were the usual post-mortem
examination and lnquest yesterday, and according to the medical evidence, the immediate cause
of death was apoplexy, the vessels in the head being congested to bursting. His hiart however
was dreadfully diseased, being so clogged with fat that it could not work.
I think it was a very great mercy that took him so young (34) before he had known age or
infirmity or pain or poverty and I only hope I may make as good an end of it. t do'nt think he
was at enmity with one soul in the world, and he died in the midst of those who loved him.
The state of mind in which my poor mother (now almost entirely bed-ridden) is in is, as
you may imagine apalling [sic], and aggravated by all the honible accessories of a sudden death.
I am anxiously expecting the anival of my brother Fred from Southampton, and he poor fellow is
ill and like me conscious that he carries this same awful thunderbolt disease aboui with him, I
firmly believe that my mother, infirm as she is, will last us all out. I am coming up tomorrow
Friday morning by the first train with the poor boy's body. He will be buried-on Monday at
Kensal Green with his sister.2 t shall return to Brigtrton ttre same night to come up again for the
funeral; but I will go to the Illustrated Times3 office at five p.m.;ind if you url p-assing by I
should very much like to see you.
You can imagine that I am shaken all to pieces by this most dreadful event, and that I am
so nervous I can scarcely write or think.
Come and see us at the I.T. if you can at 5
most truly yours
George: aus: Sala.
clerk at the Tithes Commissioner's Office, from where he drifted into the theaire becoming well
known on the Iondon stage, notably at the Princess, under the name of Wynn (Hodder :6:). fhe
brothers had been co-authors of a pantomime, Harliquin Billy Taylor 1iSS9, and, a pla,y, The
Corsicans (1852).
2. Augusta*. Kensall-Green cemetery opened in 1833. The first large commercial burial ground
outside London's residential suburbs it comprized 39 consecrated acres, and 15 acres for
Dissenters (Mitchell 128).
3. Weekly (5 June 1855-March 1872), established by Vizetelly. GAS began to work for him on
IT aftet the rupture with Dickens. His Russian articles had prompted Viietelly to offer him "as
much work as ever I could undertake" (Life 308). Yates had- commenced *orking there 30 June
1tt55 and probably helped him to get the job.

17l
[On mourning PaPer]
Saturday morning [2L February 1857]1
L Exeter Change, Strand
My dear Yates,
If it were possible for you to come to my dear brother's funeral there is a seat for you in
the mouming coach as one of the gentlemen invited is engaged fifty miles away.
Will you send me a note to the I.T. before four this afternoon telling me yes or no, and I
will (if I can) before I leave town leave word with the undertaker to apprise you in good time of
the exact when and where.
In haste / yours faithfullY
G.A. Sala.
1. Saturday after his brother's death on Thursday L9 February L857.
t8l
[On mourning PaPer]
Sunday eve [22 February 1857]1
7 Colonnade, New Road, Brighton
My Dear Yates,
I wrote you a note yesterday to the G.P.O. (posted before twelve) begging you to let me
know before four whether you could by any chance make an effort to make one of the mourners
in the coach at poor deai Charles Kerris-on's funeral, as Weiss,2 who was to have come is
engaged to sing miles away. Not receiving any answer, and being obliged to leave for Brighton I
diJ not well know what to do, till I recollected that you leave the P.O. early on Saturday, and had
consequently probably never received my note.
I instructed the undertaker (calculating on your reply) to apprisryou in good time of the
exact time he would send for you: - the poor boy is to be buried at K.G.J at 3, but we must leave
the undertaker's which is in New Oxford St atYzpast one - [ come to town by the train tomorrow
morning that reaches I-ondon at L0 min. to 10. I will call on you at the P.O. at 10, or a little after
in my iay west; if t do not see you there, I will come on to your house in Doughty Street, and
shouid t Cross you on the way will you leave a note for me there to tell me yes or no: as in the
latter case t shall have Zhours to find another friend. But I do hope and trust you will be able.
most truly yours,
George: aug: Sala.
1. Sunday before Charles's funeral on 23 February 1857.
2. Willoughby Hunter Weiss (1820-1867): well-known oPera and oratorio bass; he set
Longfellow's'The Village Blacksmith' to music in 1854; it made a great hit.
3. Kensall Green cemetery.
32
lel
[On mouming paper]
Thursday [26 February 1857]1
L Exeter Change, Strand
My dcar Yates,
I have cried "Wolf" so often about that blessed Countess Nadiejda that I must positively
tlccline to prgslse it anymore.2 Therefore, when you get it (D.V.)3 on Monday you are at liberty
to put its composition down to anybody but yours truly.
I did read the very kind words you wrote about my dear dead brother, and thank you most
sinccrely for them. I wish all notices had been as judicious; but was pained by a long
hlatherumskites paragraph written by Bob Brough in the "sunday Times" - I am sure with the
kindest intentions - which was to all intents and purposes "Eel)pq @Ia"4 and made Charley
out what he was'nt, leaving out that which he was.
My mother, I grieve to say, does not mend either in health or spirits, and I fear will not
rccover from this shock. She leaves Brighton for good and alf and comes up next week to live
with me; so that it is probable that the latter day pamphlets5 of Sala will be written from an
tddress which somebody knows.
I went over last night to the Lyceum, and saw "Leatherhead" which is the most rampant
piece of absurdity ever produced I believe on any stage,6 and which, as it made the audience
(including yours truly) scream with laughter from beginning to end I am compelled (still
protesting against it in toto) to recognise as the beau ideal of a farce. If farces ought to be written
ilt all (which they ought nol) I should like to see many more as genuinely funny as the
"katherhead".
I am nervous about the Baddington PeerageT lest it should be found too full of my d---d
dcscriptions and digressions - tolerable in essay but intolerable in nanative. There will be much
rcjoicing in the camps of the Hittites and the Amorites and the Jebusites if t break down, though
it will be perhaps salutary for this too often turned up nose to be brought to the grindstone of
criticism.
I heard the other day from "One"8 that he had heard from very good authority that Mr
W.H. Wills Esq was in the habit of showing my private letters about to all comers, and that he
had stated that the cause of my quanel with H.W. was the refusal of Mr Dickens to allow me to
rcpublish "Due North" while the articles were in progress of publication in H.W. - to bring out
the book in fact before the completion in a serial form. As regards the letter business I do not
care one of Captain Smith's "tams".9 Wills is a small man all ways whom it is absurd to slate;
and ifhe has been guilty ofviolating the privacy ofa five years correspondence the disgrace and
shame^of such a proceeding must rebound on him and not on me. But touching the real origo
maliru it concerns not this man but his master Mr Dickens; and you have my assurance - and
one that I hope to repeat publicly soon - that the statement of my even having hinted at a wish to
republish "Due North" in a separate form before its completion is a gross and wilful Lie. I was
stupid enough to ask as a favour that which I should have taken as a right - the republication of
twenty five old Articles, ranging from the "Key of the Street" to "Tattyboy's Rents"; and if Due
North had never been written the case would remain exactly the same that Dickens refused to
allow me to republish the 25 articles and attempted to defraud me of my just property in the fruits
of my own brain.ll I t"ll you this as, if you hear a statement similar to that communicated to me
by Vizetelly,rz floating about you may know the truth of the matter.
Very truly yours
George: a: Sala.
33

L. Thursday after My Friend Leatherhead (n7) was produced.
2. Deo Volente = God Willing.
3. The "kind words" were written in Yates's "Lounger at the Clubs" column (If 28 February
1857: 139). Bob Brough's Sunday lrmes notice appeared ZZFebruary.
4. "troppo scrittura": over-written.
5. Alludes to Thomas Carlyle's Latter Day Pamphlers (1850) "The address that somebody
knows" refers to GAS's habit of maintaining secrecy about where he lived.
6. Yates's play My Friend from Leatherhead, produced Monday 23 February 1857 (Yates 190).
7. He refers to his serial The Baddington Peerage which was to commence in 1T the following
month, 21 March. [t ran until 26 December, and was subsequently published as a book in 1860,
republished in 1865. GAS himself calls it "about the worst novel ever perpetrated" because it
"had no plot" (Life 209). Alluding to its digressive quality, 1I editor Vizetelly joked: "in one
long chapter the only advance made in the story was the hero's ordering a cup of tea" (1: 389).
8. Presumably refers to Vizetelly, see close of letter.
9. A passenger aboard The Prussian Eagle, the ship that took GAS to Russia for HW (April
i856). A grumbling captain without a ship, who kept disparaging the one he was on,
complaining that it was "not worth a tam" (Journey 5l-2).
10. Origo mali = origin of evi[, i.e,, it was Dickens who made the first false accusation.
11.. See 5n3.
L2. Henry Vizetelly (1842-1889): instigator in 1855 (with David Bogue) of. IT; publisher of
WG, L858, which he sold a year later to John Maxwell (Viz 2: IO). In 1859 Vizetelly sold his
share in .II to rival pictorial publisher Herbert lngram of the ILN (Yiz l: 426), remaining on as
editor and manager until L865, when Ingram closed it down in favour of.ILN.
t10l
[Embossed seal in left-hand corner]t
Saturday [? May L85112
I.T.
My dear Yates,
I am surely the most unfortunate beggar in the world in keeping my promises. The
infernal comet (1 page) Crystalpalace [sic] Flowershow (1 page) and House of Commons
biography (2 pages) have knocked out 3 cols of mine in the I.T. this week and I draw scarcely
enough tinJ today to cover my home expenses, which are of a sacred nature, and ca'nt be
bohemianised. I am making a tremendous effort between this and next Tuesday to accomplish
an amount of Baddington ahlad that shall make H.V.4 shell out to an extent which rnuy "us" th.
tightness of the present money market; and immediately I touch the tin you shall have some.
D-o'nt blow up till the commencement of the week. On the otherside you will see a scrap
of paper.) You may say that out of f,5.5 I could spare you one, at least, but when I tell you that
seven does not pay my, weekly expenses, as I have now @ establishments to keep up: one
Bohemian (my own)oand one conducted on the rigidest principles of decorum (my
mother's)/you may perhaps have a key to that great social problem as to what I do with my
money.
34
I do'nt exactly understand yo' as to the course I adopted vis-i-vis the Train. t
rlitcttntinued writing for it,d and have done so since in consequence of your utter abnegation of
rrry having a share in it, and having paid up that share (which many of the shareholders, I believe
rlltl not,) by not inviting me to the last meeting. The feeling was purely a personal one; and you
rrrust have understood it as such.
In haste / Yours truly
G.A.S.
I ' Difficult to decipher; looks like Reform Club emblem of rose and thistle Gf MS trtt* 6?)J"r
runlikely since GAS didn't become a member until 1862 (60n6).
2. /Tstories mentioned cannot be identified. However, Flower Show suggests it was Spring, and
nllusion to his new C-avendish Square address (n7) links it with next letter (positively dated 3
Junc), which is from there. This places it in his brother's mourning period; tie fact that it was
written from the IT offire explains why it is not on mouming paper.
.1. Slang. Money, cash, 1836 (SOD)
4. Henry Vizetellyr.
'5. On back of MS: "One / Chapter of Baddington this week - / The amount is f5.5/-[signed]
II.V.'
6' Perhaps the "pad" at 1 Exeter Change (1n1), or perhaps Salisbury Street, which, as Straus
points out was an address only known to a few (134). GAS was continually trying to evade both
his editors and his creditors.
7. 77 Margaret Street, Cavendish Square: "IJt us be genteel or die." See address of following
letter.
tl' Next few letters do promise copy but no contributions by GAS to the Train can be identified
after 1 November 1856 (4n10).
IIU
[On mourning paper]
Wednesday 3 June 1857
(oxrordmarketlrrr""r.rt;*:?;:"rtjt:",1?il:j,:3:::il
My dear Yates,
I do not go often to Exeter Change and your [etter has been waiting there two or three
days.
I think I can manage the thing easily enough by instalments, but I ca'nt specif!, a sum,
income being certain but outgoing uncertain. However t will give you every Satilrclal, as much
as I can possibly spare till the 7Lz is squared up.
Will you drop me a line to the above address (I am living with my mother) and tell me
what time on Saturday I can see you aftgr&gt p.m. or where I can leave the browns3 for you.
When you see my friend Mr Dickins [sic] make my compliments to him, and tell him I
think the last part of "Little Dorrit" very pretty - very pretty in[deid] * * *
. tRest of letter missing]
1' [.e., at the Soho end of Margaret Street, adjacent to what is now called Mirt.t pfu.ryutft.,
than at the fashionable C-avendish Square end.
35

2. L= L. Probably the f7 of next letter (par 3).
3. Le., "pennies." Slang for copper coins 18L2 (SOD).
Itzl
Tuesday 30 June L857
77 Margaret Street, Cavendish Square
My dear Yates,
As my debt to you is one for cash lent to me out of your own private pocket, it would not
be just on my part to cancel it by writing articles for the "Train". I have not replied to your letter
ere this, because I hoped at the conclusion of the week last past to have answered it in the most
satisfactory manner - both to myself and yourself - by sending you some money. I have failed
in my intention of giving you an instalment on three successive Saturdays for the simple reason
that only one chapter of the "Baddington"l having been published for three weeks running I have
been docked of three exact halves of my receipts from the I.T.
It is a source of some pleasurable feeling to me now that I have a chance of extricating
myself from that "position" into which I was supposed to have sunk at the period of my rupture
with H.W.2 and that the severance of my connection with that distinguished publication was
about the luckiest thing that ever happened to me in my life. I have a firm standing on the I.T., I
commence next month a new series entitled "The Streets of the World" in Dublin University
Mug.;3 and an engagement I have just formed with the "Telegraph",4 in which I am writing
almost every day, leaders, bids fair - while it does no good to me in literary fame - to
compensate, and more than compensate in a bread and chees-e point of view for the loss of my
income on H.W. Bentley waits till the Autumn for "Lily") as I must finish the Baddington
before I sit down to that. Nor (though it will take years to relieve me from the stigma of being an
inveterate drunkard) have those amiable and disinterested and immaculate friends whose
drunkenness takes piace within closed doors and over club-mahogany6 instead of taproom deal,
been afforded an opportunity lately of sighing over my depraved habits and ruined prospects; as,
still visiting and intending to visit the lowest of taprooms and smoke the rankest yards of clay
whenever I feel so disposed, I happen to have secured a home for and with my mother where I
can live like a gentleman and live in society more distinguished - in a mere tuft-hunting sense -
than the most indefatigable toad-eaters of the day can ever hope to mix in. I chose to pitch
myself off the social ladder a long time ago into the mud; but I am not obliged to crawl up it,
now, on my hands and knees.
So much, (and perhaps too much of myself) now a word of yourself and of the "Train"'
The seven pounds I owe you ought to have been paid very long since and I will not attemPt to
deny that I have muddled and gaspill6'd7 away seventy times seven the amount. I do'nt think it
will be many days before the reproach of owing you money will be cleared from my conscience;
and I am sure that in common fairness and honesty to you the time of settlement should be
speedy. As regards the"Train" no one has regretted more than I have done, in my better
moments, the continual disappointments, the cruel breaches of good faith which you have had to
suffer from me during my connection or rather disconnectionu with that Magazine. I am
persuaded that you have felt the withdrawal of the aid I might have afforded to you with my pen
iu. .ot" than my often repeated failures in financial punctuality. I am the more persuaded of this
because I believe you to be a man of very generous impulses, but very sensitive to what you
might (ustly) imagine to [be] a slight. That you had an unaffected and genuine interest in me at
thJoutiet of our acquaintance I have never doubted; and I believe that I never did a thing more
unwillingly in my life than admit the conviction that I have ceased to deserve it'
36 37
Here we are at the cofilllonCerri,:nt of a new month; and here I am, not only of Charles
llcade's opinion that "[t is never too late to mend",9 but encouraged and fortified in my
rcsolution by the prospect of prosperity and affluence. Whatever can be done by literary exertion
on my part to assist you in future in the "Train" shall most cheerfully and readily be done by me.
ll would scarcely be worth while perhaps, after the lapse of so many months to finish the
(buntess Nadiejda: indeed I have lost the translation of it in the Russ, and could only fudge a
conclusion to itr still if you wish this done I will do it at once.10 I am utterly ignorant of the state
and fortunes of the "Train", but if they are not prosperous, and if you will only point out in what
nranner I can work with pen or pencil to retrieve them I am ready and willing to do so. It would
llc very easy to allege as an excuse of non-co-operation that I am very busy, and that I have no
time; but I can I!gg! time, and on my word and honour I will. Irt me know as early as you can
how I can best assist you in the "Train". Anything I do I shall consider as an ggth fairly due
to you for my former shortcomings, and not in any way connected with a private loan advance to
me when I was scarcely an accountable agent, a loan which you could ill spare and which should
have been refunded long since.
Excuse the length of this letter, and believe me
my dear Yates / very faithfully yours
George: aug: Sala.
P.S. It would be madness to attempt a serial - regularly organised in the Train at present, as I
have two on my handsr r and Stiffrz of the london Journal waiting for a third as soon as I have
time; but I have an idea for a sketch serial, in the Thackeray-Kickleburyl3 manner, with
illustrations which I could do easily, and in which I could work one notion of my never written
Fripanelli's daughter.l4 "Miss Gimps' Establishment for Young Iadies" is the title.
I. The Baddington Peerage.*
2. See 5n3.
3. Cheyne Brady (b.1817), lawyer, proprietor and editor, 1856-1861, of the Dublin Universit.v
Magazine (1833-1877), asked GAS to write this series for him, "and I foolishly promised to do
so, but ere long I gave up. What did I know of the Streets of the World in 1857?" (Lik 308).
However, a "Streets of the World" series was published inWelcome Guest (5 articles in first half
of 1861) andTemple Bar (27 articles between December 1863 and March 1866). See 28n5.
4. A very significant engagement because it heralded the start of a twenty-five year association
with the Daily Telegraph. By the 1870s a combination of increased literacy, low cost, colourful
reporting and innovative advertising techniques gained for the Telegraph the greatest share of
lnndon newspaper sales. It was the prototype of today's popular press, and GAS came to
epitomize its particular brand of joumalism. This led him to bear the brunt of Matthew Arnold's
tirade against the Philistines in the Pall Mall Gazette. See Sidney M.B. Coulling, "Matthew
Amold and the Daily Telegraph," Review of English Studies 12 (May 1961): 117-78 .
5. "Lily, or the English Governess" for Bentley's Miscellany (1837-68); recorded as a proposal
in the Lists of the Publications of Richard Bentley & Son (Turner L80), but no subsequent
publication shown in Wellesley.

_.i*
6. Probably a reference to the table around which Punch's famous weekly editorial dinners took
place; the so called "mahogany-tree." Evidence from regular diner Henry Silver's diary shows
that the hypocrisy GAS suggests did take place there: his "depraved" drinking habits were
discussed more than once by a gathering that was far from sober itself (41n11 par 3).
7. From the French gaspiller: to waste or squander. Perhaps pun on his name.
8. A cynic might say that the reason for this "disconnection" was that contributions to the Train*
were to be gratis until "success was established" (Yates 21.5).
9. Never Too Late To Mend was the title of a novel by Charles Reade* (1814-1880); published
in 1856 it was a best-selling melodrama in sensational mode, dealing with morality on the
Australian goldfields and the cruelties practised in jails (DNB).
10. See 4n10. In 1859 I/G published a Russian story by Nicholas Gogol, presumably one of
GAS's translations, The Philosopher and the Sorceress. It appeared in trvo consecutive parts, 1-6
April : 237, and 23 Apfl : 252. In 1862 GAS published his version of some other Russian
stories, The Two Prima Donnas, and the Dumb Door Porter: Q4 Tale imitated from the Russian
of Tourguenieff).
It. Make Your Game andThe Baddington Peerage.
12. George Stiff (1807-1894) initiator of The London Journal (I845-19L2), which specialized in
working-class fiction (Sutherland 381).
13. The Kickleburys on the Rhine, from Thackeray's 1850 Christmas Book; a satirical look at
English travellers abroad; their destination a German Casino. Sounds like the prototype of Mak
your Game (17na).
14. See 1n4. Gian Battista Girolamo Fripanelli first featured in "Tattyboys Rents" (HW 13 May
1854: 297-304), as a down-at-heel, expatriate ltalian music teacher in l-ondon. Shades of
GAS's grandfather, an ltalian dancing master in London c.I776 (Straus 4). He surfaces again in
similar vein, but with St Petersburg as his city of exile, in Journey Due North (412-L7). .The
elusive story of Countess Nadiejda, who first came to light in the same book (407) was also
intended as an extension of GAS's Russian experience. He frequently embroiders on the facts to
enliven "reality." The term news "story" is particularly applicable to his style, which
foreshadows modern popular journalism. His aim was a personal view, more impressionistic
than factual, more colour than substance. When necessary he could turn anything into copy. See
following letter where he suggests ideas about using up left over bits from Due North series, and
even writing a story about why he never finished "The Countess Nadiejda."
tr3l
Monday 6 July 1857
77 Margaret Street, Cavendish Square
My dear Yates,
Will you decide at your earliest convenience as to which of the two enclosed propositions
will be most suitable for the August number of the "Train".
The serial sketches "Miss Gimps" etc, as proposed: - but they require comic illustrations.
Or - the disjecta membrar of "Due North" all sorts of essays, tales, notes, sketches etc
appertaining to matters Russian which "one" might call: - "My Pocket Book, in Russian
I-eather". I would begin with an article called "Why the Countess Nadiejda was never finished",
and add a short Russian story I have the plot for, to be completed in that No.
38
Send word please and another o: the T2.
yours very faithfully
George: aug: Sala.
1. Scattered bits, i.e., those not used by HW. The Murderous Ischvostchik by George Augustus
Sala (WG 24 December 1858:557), was presumably one of these.
2. T\eTrain.
Il4l
Monday [?5 October 185211
1 Exeter Change, Strand
My dear Yates,
I am so conscious of having behaved unhandsomely to you, and having broken - not
deliberately but still wantonly - every promise and every engagement which I have given you
my honour that I would fulfil, that the most reasonable course open to you, would be, I am
seriously convinced, to sue me in the county couft2 for the severpoundi I owe you. I wo'nt
appear to the summons, and judgement shall go by default. Irt an order be made for payment of
the sum, and I shall then know that I am compelled to pay it; but I have too deep-founded a
knowledge of my own instability of purpose to build another promise on a foundation of sand.
very faithfully yours
George: a: Sala.
1. A date that looks like "Oct 5" has been pencilled in either by Yates or his son Smedle.f'.
Probable link to "lettre de cachet" of letter 16 suggests it was written in 1857.
2. See letter 16 for repercussions of this advice, which Yates took - it seems to GAS's surprise
and chagrin.
lrsl
My dear Yates,
Friday 16 October 1857
1 Exeter Change, Strand
Perfectly amenable to and simply smiling at any sneer about the "cap fitting" I have a few
friendly words to address to yo,u on the subject of two consecutively-hebdbmadal paragraphs of
silly abuse in your "lounger",l which I consider to be especialty tevelled against myseit anO
Robert Brough.
"Oue diable allez-vous faire dans cette galEre?"2 Is a public newspaper a place wherein
to vent a private pique? If t had sent you some good articles for the "Train", and paid my quota
towards its losses, would'nt you have cried me up to the skies, and talked about my wonderful
daguenotypic pictures of society, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera? Why endeavour to provoke a reply
as to the class to which you are striving to belong (though from any such reply, on lsy g;, I beg
to state once for all, you are perfectly safe; for I have a remembrance of you as my very true
friend. and can let the carping, pettish, fretful detractor
"go by, go by").J
39

Do you want Bohemia to open. upon you with its great guns? Do you want to be utterly
demolished by the saeva indiSnaiio4 of such men as Brough, as Hannay, as Mayhew, as
Edwards, o, u, u ao".o otttil.qual powers.s Do you want to be told that you are gq! a
professionally literary man, that you ute n8! a member of the press; that you have no right to
i'npugn the motives or to blacken the character of men who, whatever they may be in private life,
aoinlir duty, fearlessly, honestly, and ably to the public; - who have served a long and painful
apprenticeship to u thankless craft, and who look upon literature, not as a polite pAssetempg, but
ai a serious mission. Believe me, my dear Yates, that even "respectability" is evanescent, and
that in your own heart (forgive me for writing anything like "copyf in the Watts P-!riflip;' strain6)
you would rather be a Goldsmith than a neau-cterl, ratier a Savige than a Chesterfield.T
If you have anything to say to or against me or any other Bohemians say it at once, but in
its proper place. Do'nt make the columns of the I.T. an arera for the exposure of your personal
piqu"s o, irivate wrongs. @ lgve son linge Salg en famillq'8
Believ e me, tMY dear Yateil Tff:;il::"lv vours
regular weekly 'll.-rtelarY I-ounger" column (30 June
1g55-12 December raoll in the ^IT 3 & 10 October 185?. The first has not been sighted, but the
second includes an attack on the "clever, dirty drunken denisens" of literary Bohemia who "bring
their profession into such contempt that all the members of it are compelled to suffer for their
recklessness and dishonesty" (250).
2. "What the devil were you doing there?"
3. Thomas Kyd (1588-1595), The Spanish Tragedy 3. L2.31 "Hieronymo, beware: go by, go
by."
4. Dreadful indignation.
5. Robert Brouglr*, James Hannay*, Augustus Mayhew*, Sutherland Edwards*: a selection of
the ,,Bohemian" writers with whom Sala identified. Like Yates and GAS these four were part of
the staff of.IT atthe time. Here he metaphorically summons their literary prowess to defend the
collective journalistic reputation implicitly threatened by Yates's criticism. See intro for more
about the role of Bohemian joumaliits in ihe victorian popular press. For a first hand depiction
of ^Its early days see Vizeteliy's memoirs , Glances Back Through Seventy Years (1: 393-96)'
6. Watts phillips (1825-1874): artist, satirical essayist, novelist and playwright (famous for The
Dead Hearr); wroie articles and serials for a number of periodicals including the Daily News,
London Journal, Town Tallg and Family Herald (Boase). GAS describes him as "eccentric,
rather difficult to get on with - but t loved the man dearly" (Life 509).
7. GAS makes his point by refening to two contrasting "literary" pain epitomizing the socially
acceptable amateur, and the bohemian professional of dubious social, but indisputable literary
status. First Topham Beauclerk (1739-1780), an image of the 18th century man of society and
fashion, who trad a literary friendship with Samuel Johnson, and the poverty stricken Oliver
Goldsmith (?1730-1774), who, despiti his obvious faults, was both warm-hearted and generous,
his writing acclaimed for its humorous and tender representations of English life' Next the
disreputab-le, but talented poet Richard Savage (c.1697-1743), undoubted Bohemian model, who
proUaUty lends his rru." to the Savage Club*, and Iord Chesterfield, statesman, diplomat, man
Lf l.tt"o, chiefly remembered for i series of rigidly instructive letters to his son on social
etiquette, that became for his period a handbook on good manners. (GAS satirized these in Zcdy
40
Chesterfield's Letters to Her Daughter, serialized inWG,1859-60). Johnson spans both grcups
:rs he was also a friend of Savage whose Bohemian wanderings he shared during a period of
poverty and hack-work around 1738. In 1744 he wrote The Life of Mr Richard Savage, which
brings the miseries of Grub Street vividly to life.
tl. "Dirty linen should be washed in private."
l16l
Sundayl
Hotel de [?Grand], 9 Ave de la MichodiEre, Paris2
My dear Yates,
My continued absence from England may perhapslead you to believe that I am afraid of
meeting your "lettre de cachet"J in the "Sheriffs Court".4 Pray disabuse your mind of such a
notion. I am merely stopping here because I am in the society of some very dear St Petersburg
friends, and because I am revising the Baddington Peerage for publication in its entirety.) As
soon as ever I come over (which will be about the ].4th December t think) I will pay that
unfortunate f7 - or 18,I think it is now - and only hope that its payment will trample out the last
cinders of the astonishing dislike you seem to have towards me. I must inadvertently have
trodden upon your corns in some extra-extraneous manner to make you its bitter, as (from all
sides) t hear you are against me. Have you been inoculated by Watts Phillips?
yours very truly
George: aug: Sala.
1. Difficult to date; similarity in handwriting and reference to Yates's as probable time of his
return to England places it at end of 1857. Perhaps the tone of the two letters, and the debt that
instigated it, led to a break in their friendship that was not healed until towards the end of the
following year, since there is a gap in the correspondence between positively dated letters 15 and
L7. Although it could just be that letters written during that period are not included in this
collection.
2. "I\e Avenue de la Michodidre was a favourite haunt of GAS and other young "Anglo-Parisian
Cockneys," during his youthful Bohemian days (Iftings I: IL7-L2L). Living in Paris was
cheaper, so it was the place to go when you were down and out.
3. Official order for imprisonment (OED).
4. See letter 1.4.
5. GAS is probably trying to placate Yates, his creditor, with prospects of money from
publication of. The Baddington Peerage, Although it wasn't published in book form until
1860, it is feasible that he had started (or at least thought about) revising it as early as this
because he seems to have found a publisher sometime in 1858. ln his preface to the 1860
edition of. Baddingron GAS says that "its production, under the present auspices, was
determined upon . . . more than two years since" (vii). The publisher was Charles Joseph
Skeet, who had set himself up at 1,0 William Street, Strand in 1855; continued there until
1888 (Brown). See 41,n8.

t17l
[Embossed design of a cornucoPia]
Tuesday 19 October L858
38 Grenville Place, Clarence Square, Brighton
My dear Yates,
Will you do me a bit of a favour? ln your earliest theatrical "I-ounger" will you announce
the advent of a new lecturer at Brighton ilt';"g*;t It4i"ft*t - ,on oiMadame Michau2 the
famous maitresse de danse - fami-ty distinguished for its talents, etcetera etcetera' He is an
admirable mimic, melodramatic, sings, talks French, dances like a Sylphide etc' etc'
The entertainment which is )r la Woodin and P. Horton3, is called "Out for the Evening"'
He gives it at Brighton for the first time on Monday next. Say what you can kindly and you will
really oblige
yours very faithfullY
George: aug: Sala.
I suppose you have heard that our expeditiJn up t-t
" Rhine was a lamentable failure.4 I lost sixty
oounds. I have got a hundred left which I caint touch under a long notice. Dul_nq the winter
;;;il iiJ"rs;ll have me again I must write for the Telegraph, and "]"q og those eternal
seven pounds of yours.6 t nop" ittey have'nt fould
.a.cleverer Jnan
at the D'T' They tried very
hard to do so at H.w. and succeeded-in inventing Hollingshead,T but he is only eightpence out of
the shilling ---
1. Theatrical Lounger, IT 23 October 1858'. 283' Yates's par incorporates all the details GAS
gives here.
2. Michau's mother, Madame Michau, lived opposite GAS when he was a child in Brighton'
She was a dancing mistress, a contemporary of his mother (Life 25).
3. [.e., a "One man/woman" ShOw, Or aS YateS deSCribeS it a "mOnOpolylOgue,"SpeCialiZed in by
both William Woodin (1825-18b8), and Priscilla Horton (1818-1895). After her maniage
Horton had joined forcei with her husband, musician Thomas German Reed (18L7-L888), and
later her ron eUr"A (1847-1895), to present an expanded version of this form of entertainment'
both in the provinces and London, especialty at thi Gatlery of Illustrations and St George's Hall
(1g56-1g7i). F.C. Burnand traces the deveiopment of their "d_rawing room" entertainments into
)pocket-musical-comedies" with the aid of singerkomediayr John Parry (2:331-333)' GAS is
piobably referring to the title of the German Reid's original show "Miss P' Horton's lllustrative
Gatherings" first produced at St Martin's Hall London, 17 Mut"h 1855 (Boase)' Yates had
written the libretto for their most recent show, "After the Party," which had opened the previous
Apil (IT}aAPril 1858)
4. ln autumn 1858, GAS, Augustus Mayhew and Henry vizetelly went on holidays together:
"Our boume was Hombury, the-n the Monie Carlo of Germany, and our purpose was obviously to
break the bank" q,tf, Zig) Their adventures are chronicled in Make Your Game; or The
Adventures of the Stout Geitleman fMayhewl, the Slim Ge_ntleman fYizetelly), o"!^t!" Man with
tn" troncftesr [GASJ, serialized tput-odit"{ly inWG,8January-L? September 1859' published
as book 1860. Also see Vizetell y'i Glances Back Through Seventy Years 2:23-34'
5. Joseph Moses lrvy (1812-1888): German-born Jew; a Fleet street printer who became the
.rri"f p.prietor and "ditot of.the Sunday Times in 1,855-6. He took over the 2d Daily Telegraph
and courier (first issue 29 June 1855) irom its founder colonel Sleigh on \7 September l'855 as
settlement for monies owed. [n lrvy's hands it became Ilndon's first Ld paper (1'856) and
42
cventually the highest selling daily of its time; low advertising rates, due to his invention of the
"box" method, aided its popularity. Together with his son Edward he managed it until his death.
His brother Lionel I-awson (I824-L879) held half the shares of the paper, but never played an
active role in its affairs.
6. See previous letter; this a year later and he has still not paid his debt. "Eternal" would seem
just the right adjective.
7. John Hollingshead (I821-I9O4); started his literary career with The Train in L857 and
became an intimate friend of its editor, Yates (Yates 221,-22). He also contributed to Household
ll/ords, Illustrated Times, Cornhill, Good Words, Punch, Leader, Morning Post, Daily i/ews (as
drama critic after Yates); later manager of Lionel Iawson's Gaiety Theatre (Inhrli 305-06). Play
on words here as Irhrli records Hollingshead's second article for HW (7 November L857) as
"TWenty Shillings in the Pound' (306). His first was "Poor Tom" (1"7 October 1857), recorded in
Dickens's letter to Wills of 26 September L857 as "a pretty little paper of a good deal of merit, by
one Mr. Hollingshead, who addressed me as having tried his hand inThe Train" (lrhmann).
t18l
[embossed design of a comucopia centre]
Hatch him alive O!1
Sunday [7 November1858]2
38 Grenville Place, Brighton
My dear Yates,
Thanks. I:zy! I'fackins!3 do you know that I wrote the three last numbers of "Twice
Round the Clock"4 last week, in spite of an abominable influenza, am now reviewing Carlyle's
Frederick the great,s have a new ieries to do on our Hombourg-Rhine-Frankfort-Rotterdam
cxpeditions,6 and am in love with a new Countess - the Russian one_having indignantly and
contemptuously repudiated me. This countess says 'ed instead of head, / but she is all my fancy
painted her, and when Time hath bereft - but no more.
I am in a fix about the framework of the Xmas number of W.G. Thus, I had concocted
what I thought to be a famous notion: viz: the "Eight Wedding Rings". A man - I go down - ten
years ago to a little duffing watering place on the Sussex coast, say S_hrimpington super mare.
Dutch picture of a place as long as you please d la Dumbledowndeary.S I see in the window of
the half pawnbroker half jeweller's shop a card with eight plain wedding rings. More descriptive
fakement. I go away. Ten years afterwards: that is the day before yesterday I come back to
S.sup.m. Find it transmogrified into a swell watering place: semi Brighton. Humble little
pawnbrokers and everything shop metamorphosed into grand Mosaic jewellers. Old shopkeeper
taken refuge in an almshouse: find him out, smoke innumerable pipes with him, and find out,
somehow, the eight stories appertaining to the eiSfrt couples to whom the eight wedding rings
were sold. In every case or story the parties must have come to Shrimpington, passed through it,
lived in it, or managed somehow to buy their wedding rings at Mr Prawnsby's shop. With this
reservation the stories may be laid in Nova Zembla9 or Walton on the Naze. Two of the stories
and the frame this child indites: one a sniveller the other an absurd extravaganza. One you do,
one Bob Brough (in verse), one Hannay I suppose "the Maltese Cross: a legend of Nix Mangiare
stairs": the rest I do'nt know till I consult Yiz. Iwould propose Hollingshead, Gus Mayhew and
in lieu or penultimate as Gus is too well orr now to do more than
l*t*:?1._HX;rT:rP
Thus my plan. I wish I could say of it: Stet.ll But Robert Brough writes to tell me that
one Hatch has written a book called "Wedding Gloves" in which something very like the same

notion is worked out. I do'nt think myself that it matte$ "a tam", and am not likely to plagiarise
from Hatch: cursed be Hatch and all his chicks: but others may be of a contrary opinion. What
do you say yourself? At all events I have surceased, written to Viz who is at $!ig!g1g[" about
the paper duties to learn his decision.l2 So soon as he replies I will advise.
Can you devise,suggest any better framework? I would to Heaven you could. As to
Hatch I will have his blood. There was a man with a name very like his who was hanged. [t was
either Greenacre or Courvoisier.l3
ls it true that Dickens has banked f5,000 already at Coutts's and that Arthur Smith goes
fifths.l4 The great Panjandrum comes down here on tire 13 proximo. I wondered if he would
give me up my old H.W.r) He is very friendly, now, and even the hound Wills has been
instructed to shake hands.
Do'nt you think "Mr Polyphemus"l6 a good name for Thackeray? I am sorry TWice
Round the Clock is finished. I would have done the penitentiary at Millbank with Hatch in a
solitary cell.
Yours very faithfully
George: aug: Sala.
I hear they are about to dissolve the "Savage Club".l7 Austinl8 and Jerrold are
organising a new spouting club: Hannay to the Fore of course; but they have promised to let me
open on the "Saturda! Review".l9 The article on my "Joumey Due North" was written by
riut"n.2o
1. Parody of fishmonger's cry "Catch him alive O."
2. See penultimate par. Brighton was where Dickens's provincial tour wound up. [t started from
Clifton August 1858 (Yates 290) and was to arrive in Brighton on "the L3 proximo," i.e., 13
November L858 (Johnson 475). This was a Saturday, therefore Sunday of this letter should be 7
November, one week before.
3. I'fackins, like ifecks, a trivial oath;corruption of "in faith" (SOD). It has Falstaffian overtones
(I4torld 1"1 October 1.875: L3:2)
4. Twice Round the Cloch or the hours of the Day and Night in London, featured in the first
issues of WG (lMay to 27 November L858).
5. Thomas Carlyle's, The History of Frederic II of Prussia called Frederick the Great in 6
volumes 1858-65. Must be volume 1.
6. Make Your Game. It commenced in WG 8 January L859.
7. Could this have been his wife-to-be Harriett who was supposed to come from "humble
beginnings"? See letter 29n3 par 2. The phrase "when Time hath bereft" occurs in the second
chapter of Mak Your Game (15 January 1859) when "the Man with the Iron Chest" (a character
who represents GAS himself) is accused of eyeing the lady's maid. The narrator insists "that
throughout his joumey his devotion to Her (with a large H) [sic] remained unaltered (WG L
(1859): 27). If it is Harriet he has some fun at the expense of her dropped h's.
8. [.e., in the same vein as two of the stories he wrote inHouseholdWords: "Dumbledowndeary"
5 (1852):3I2-t7, and "Strollers at Dumbledowndeary" 9 (1.854):374-80. InThings I Have
Seen and People I Have Known he attributes the invention of the n:rme to his editor: "I have lived
for many months in seclusion at a little village called Erith, in Kent, which has now become, I
believe, quite a fashionable place. [n the paucity of my inventiveness I gave to Erith the
blunderingly transparent disguise of "Sherith," but Dickens, with happy boldness, changed the
44
tl[mc to Dumbledowndeary" (1: 78). The village in the coming Xmas number was to have the
xnnlc rags to riches story as its prototype.
9. ln Pope's Essay on Man Tr;mbla signifies the fabulous extreme North, the land of the polar
rltr, GAS uses it to mean any imagined place.
l0' Dickens had established a model for such Christmas editions with those written cottpcratively
by members of the IW staff, and sometimes, one or two other friends. Names
Ittcntioned here all feature in Things I Have Seen and Peopl.e I Have Known as part of the closeknit
Bohemian group witlr whom GAS spent his early journalistic years (L: 109:13).
Robert Brough (1828-1860) was considered thc poet of these brothers-in-literature and
Poverty. His most enduring Poems are the radical and iatirical Songs of the Governing Classes,
published by Henry Vizetellyr in 1855 (Sutherland 88). Brough and-his brother william had
nchieved overnight success when on 20 November. 1g4g actor/manager Benjamin Webster* had
slaged their burlesque version of the Tempest at the Adelphi. He wrote oiher comic plays, as
w^cll contributing
1s
to most of the leading comic pup.o, and briefly editing we:lcome Guest,
rftcr John Maxwell bought it in Novembir 1859. -
Brougtr died at :s, t uui"ng iiteratty drunk
himself to death. Yates pictures him as a brilliant, bitter m-an, frustrated 6y tne fick of education
lhat prevented him from reaching his true potential. Unwilling to be just another hack, he vented
his hatred on those who had wealth, rank, respectability and]above all, the recognition that he
craved' Not surprisingly he was prone to depression, an-d drank heavily to relievelt, setting up a
cycle of ill-health and poverty. In his memoirs Yates quotes a few of the revealing
autobiographical lines Brough wrote on his 29th birthday:
['m twenty-nine! ['m twenty-nine!
['ve drank too much of beer and wine;
I've had too much of love and strife;
['ve given a kiss to Johnson's wife,
_
And sent a lying note to mine -
I'm twenty-nine! ['m twenty nine! (202)
midshipman he had been court-martialled for insubordination and riotous behaviour. Thereafter
hc had made his living by writing, mainly for lewspapers and magazines. His early naval
cxperiences form the basis of his most successful fiGr;ry pieces suth as Biscuits and Grog
(1848), a collection of nautical sketches and Singleton Foitenoy, Rl[ (1g50), autobiographical
rccollections (Sutherland2T4). At 45 he died of alcoholism in Barceiona,'where he was the
British consul (letter L24last par).
Augustus (Gus) Mayhew (1826-1875), like his brother Henryr, was a champion of the city
poor, both in narrative and drama. His best-known work, Ihe breatest plague'of Life, or the
Adventures of a Indy in Search of a Good servant (issuei in monthly numbers, 1g47) was the
result of their collabo,ration (sutherl nd 424). Despiie GAS's apprehension ne &! contribute to
the Christmas issue. See 20n3.
william Blanchard. (Btlt) {".t"]d (1826-1884), journalist, playwright and novelist; became
editor of. Lloyd's Weekly after his father, Douglasb*-death in'lBS7. Like his father he used the
Bohemian world of London and Paris as the Jubject of his plays and novels, such as Two Lives
(1862)' up and Down :f r!: wgrtd (1863) and the Passing il ii^" (1865) (Sutherland 333).
.william Brough (1826-1870); chiefly a comic wriler"speciaiizing in burtesque; he co*
authored with brother Bob the Christmas and Easter pieces for the ,Lo"tpr,i and Haymarket
theatres 1848 to 1854, and wrote many "Entertainmenis" for the German Reeds*. His most
45

successful piece was the burlesque The Field of Gold, which played at the Strand from 11 April
1868 to 27 March 1869 (Boase).
John Hollingsheadr.
Those who finally contributed to this Christmas issue of IAG were George Augustus Sala,
Adelaide Anne hocter, John I:ng, Augustus Mayhew, Frederick Greenwood, and Edmund
Yates
11. It did stand, being the whole Christmas number of.WG 1858, entitled "The Wedding Rings
of Shrimpington-Super-Mare," comprising an introduction by GAS and seven "ring" stories
(two by GAS). See letter 2On2 & 3 for details.
12. Vizetelly was an active member of the "Newspaper and Periodical Press Association for
obtaining the Repeal of the Paper duty" Piz 2: 43). After quite a struggle, and a number of
setbacks, a bill of repeal became law on L October 1861 (60). [t was this, and the earlier repeal
of advertising duty (1837), and stamp duty (1855), that finally made newspaper and magazine
publishing attractive to entrepreneurs like Vizetelly, lngram, Maxwell, lrvy et al. These reforms
combined with technological advances and expanding rates of literacy paved the way for a press
explosion in the second half of the nineteenth century. The complete repeal of the stamp duty in
1855 was the result of a lengthy process, see H.R. Fox Boume, English Newspapers: Chapters in
The History of Journalism 2: 53-68. Also see Alan J. I-ee, The Origins of the Popular Press
1855-1914, chapter 2"The Making of a Cheap hess."
13. Both leading figures in sensational murder trials. James Greenacre went to the gallows on 2
May 1837 for murdering his mistress; pieces of her dismembered body had been discovered in
various parts of London (Cooper 102). Frangois Courvoisier, a Swiss butler, who was hung on 6
July 1840 for the murder of his employer, Lord William Russell (48,79). ln the days when
public hangings were a form of popular entertainment Courvoisier's was what could be called an
"upmalket" affair, since six hundred members of the aristocracy crowded into Newgate Prison to
witness the crown's revenge on the murderer of one of their number. Dickens and Thackeray
were also part of the crowd (8). Dickens was one of those who successfully agitated for the
abolition of public hangings. GAS was one of the press contingent present at Maidstone Jail on
the occasion of the first private hanging in 1868 (7In3).
14. Arthur Smith, organizer of his brother Albert's "entertainments." In 1857 he had become
manager of Charles Dickens's public readings to grcat effect. When he died in L862 Dickens
said, "it is as if my right arm were gone" (Johnson 495).
15. 25 articles from HW were published as Gaslight and Daylighr the following April by
Chapman and Hall. Dickens's permission for their reprinting was announced in the Critic
"Literary News" column 5 March 1859:236. GAS's Russian papers (lourney Due North) had
just been published by Bentley in October.
16. Polyphemus g[g! become their nickname for Thackeray. The one-eyed, man-eating cyclops
could be perceived as an appropriate alter-ego for the voracious satirist, who many critics saw as
having a predatory perspective on humanity. For Thackeray's opinion of his critics see "Preface
to the Second Edition Being an Essay on Thunder and Small Beer" (Work 10: 16L-68). This
letter was written only a few months after Thackeray had instigated Yates's expulsion from the
Garrick Club on July 1.858 (an$. The probable source for the name is ironically Thackeray
himself. ln The Kickleburys on the Rhine (Christmas Book of Mr M.A.Titmarslr, 1,850) he
describes Polyphemus "as of cruel nature and licentious appetite, and to be surc, fond of eating
men and women" (199). GAS was obviously aware of this passage (see PS to letter L2). ulvlr
46
l'rtlyphcmus, the novelist," who "not unfrequently condescends to wither mankind through his
lpcctacles from one of the marble tables at Evans's Supper Rooms,i" had just appeared jn the
lrrtcst cpisode of Twice Round the Clock, I/G 6 November - the day before ttris tetfi.
l'l . This is a bit premature. The Savage Club (3n5) was still going strong in L93i, when it
trtttvcd into "palatial headquarters" (Straus I32), and Nigel Cross infhe Common ll/riter records
Its abandonment in 1,881, twenty-three years after this letter, of its "gentle crawl among the
lllvcms and hotels of the Strand" to its first official home in Lancaster House in the Savoy liOA-
()t)). Cross argues that "the demise of old Bohemia" coincided with the grounding of the-Savage
Ittto a. permanent place of abode. The "new spouting club" GAS mentions i-s probably tie
Arundel, which was set up in 1859 as a breakaway from the Savage ezan\.
Itl. Wiltshire Austin, later to become a member of GAS's staff on Temple Bar:,'He was one of
lhc readiest and most powerful speakers I have ever listenedto" (Life 355;. Sttuus claims that
(iAS himself became known as "one of the most successful after-dinner ipeakers" in England
(l5l)' and George Hodder refers to the "tours de force,for which in his aher-dinner speich-
Ittaking, he has always been known" (369). In Inndon up to Date (1894) GAS jokes about 'that
f:rtal faculty known as 'the gift of the gab"', which was responsiUte iot his being invited to
propose and respond to so many toasts at so many dinners over the years.
Hodder's memoirs, Memories of My Time (L870), provide useful information about GAS
:rnd his contemporaries. Cross refers to Hodder (1819-1870) as a "literary odd-job man,,, whose
only important work was his memoir: "His career as a literary dogsbody b"gun with his acting as
nlcssenger and secretary to [Henry] Mayhew, Irmon and Iandelli, while tliey were planning-the
fint issue of. Punch . . . Hodder is about an obscure an author as it is posiUl" to be without
falling into oblivion" (1.15-1L6). As an intimate of both Thackeray's (secretary and tour manager
,]{ "fr" Four Georges" tour, 1855), and GAS's ("Dear old George Hodder lived to be my intimate
friend' and to do a good deal of useful hack-work for me" (Lik 3Zg), he gives first hand (albeit
white-washed) accounts of their personalities and the contemporary mitieu that fostered their
particular talents. Hodder's "niceties" are often very revealing, e.g., on tour with Thackeray: ,,I
studiously avoided forcing myself on his company , but alwiys iook especial care to select a
caniage he did not ocntrpy, and to plant myself at an hotel he did not p"ttonir. . . . Mr Thackeray
occasionally invited me to dine with him" (273). "Dear old George" knew his place refening to
himself as "a literary dwarf amongst literary giants" (148). The proliferation of Victorian
memoirs means that similar contemporary comment is readilyavailabli, viz. sources used here of
Tinsley, Moy Thomas, Vizetelly, scott, yates, and particulariy GAS himself.
Included :rmong the MSS is a rather enigmatic scrap of paper - identified as the
prompt notes for one of GAS's speeches:
Whisperings of fancy.
The task is to propose your health
gigantic task
Holborn viaduct
you in that felicitous & epigrammatic style
Charles James Mathews
Lydia Thompson
The world appreciates you
I have often thought it a hardship
Advertising tradesman
Crystal Palace

Abscanda Harmonium
benefactor of humanitY
Refonn of the CurrencY
lf I knew you
But I do'nt
My mother
23 years since
physiological fact
corporeality
some other Charles Mathews
It is the same
Ganick C.M. ptus tragic passion - gaiety of nations
Clarissa Harlowe
Seven and sixPence
Freehold estate
To be serious
tag
On 1,0 January 1870 at a dinner held in Willis's Rooms GAS proposed a loast to
actor/comedian Charles James Mathews (1803-1870), who was about to embark on an
extensive acting tour around the world lOlff;Ue had known Mathews and his first wife,
Madame Vestrii, since he was a child because of his mother's association with the theatre,
and because he had worked as a scene painter at the hincess's when Mathews had joined the
company in 1847. ""More than twenty years later Mathews . . . asked me whether I would
render him some trifling assistance . . . a public dinner at willis's tearooms was about to be
given him, prior to his ieparture for Indiai and characteristically enough, he intended to take
the chair himself and to propot. his own health. After that I was to take up the running and
make the speech of the evening: dwelling of course^ il-!oT: detail on the merits of an
incomparabie light comedian anJexcellentiellow" (Life L56-57). GAS's memoir entry helps
explain a few o-f his cryptic speech prompts. The "seven and sixpence" refers to a sum of
,oon"y owed to him by Mathews andnevei paid (he should talk!). GAS took theopportunity
to remind Mathews oi tt ir when they were-discussing the speech he was to make, and was
told ,,For goodness sake, put the seven and sixpence in your speech' Do put it in your speech
. . . the pe-ople will roar wittr taug,ter" (1.57). ;Clarissa Harlowe" refers to Mathews less than
,u"""r*iul iortrayal of Lovetaceln a dramaiization of Richardson's novel' ln mentioning this
GAS makes the point that in this youthful role, the comedian Mathews had played "a
practically serioui character" (157). The word "practically" here perhaps gives some idea of
how he would have used the aneciote in his speech to Promote even more laughter from the
audience, the role of Lovelace being one that could border on the absurdly melodramatic'
iyaiu Thompson (1836-1908) *uJu dancer and actress, specializing in pantomime and
burlesque; famous ior tr"r troupe of Engtish Blondes, which she took to America in l'868, and
subsequently to Australia (ON'n). She was still in America when this speech was given (she
*u, out of England for sii years), so an allusion to her successful oveFeas tour would be in
order on the eve of Mathews departure on a similar venture'
19. This must refer to the unfavourable notice on the just published A J_o-urney Due North
mentioned in n20. Another more favourable one was published in the Times 30 September L858:
9: 1.. Despite some adverse criticism, the public was appreciative and a second edition was soon
on sale in which GAS had a word or two a *y about the critics (see letter 20 last par). I-ater he
48
ncknowledges that SR's* "streams of abuse" no doubt contributed to encourage public interest in
thc bombastic style for which he became so well-known, an institution in fact, like "Horniman's
'lba or Thorley's Food for Cattle, or any much-advertised soap that you carc to know of" (Iile
.1.s ri).
20, SR 6 (11 September 1858): 262-63. The gist of this piece can be gathered from a short
cxccrpt: "And this slovenliness of composition is not the worst literary fault which we have to
impute to Mr. Sala. The whole style of his book, from the first page to the Envoi, is insufferably
inflated and spasmodic. It is one tissue of affected, overstrained, laborious badinage
livcrything is exaggerated and turned to ridicule." We'll have to take GAS's word for its
luthorship as the SR preserves the anonymity of its reviewers (for obvious reasons). He bandies
llatch's name around here in satiric fashion. Hatch becomes the originator of all his misfortunes.
Anybody who has done anything awful is called Hatch - in fact, Hatch should be hung for his
r:rimes like the murderers Greenacre and Courvoisier. Hatch could be Edwin Hatch, a clerical
lricnd of Swinburne's, who wrote for the magazines. He is indexed inWellesley.
llel
[embossed design of a cornucopia centre]
Tuesday [9 November 185S11
38 Grenville Place, Brighton
My dear Yates,
Miss hoctor [sic], rhyme, eh?2 Ma conscience! The fat will be in the fire with Bob
llrough who is pelting away at a poetical story. To console him I have written to tell him that
MaxwellJ is always to the fore, and that so long as he picks up the "nimble ninepence" it does
rrot matter where. Pecunia non olet,4 though Maxwell does and very fishily too.
I had a cold in my head when I thought of Hogshead for our Xmas.) Of course he will be
in the opposite camp; but his having done that goose story in the I.T. last year made me pitch on
Iris name. DrapeP and/or Bridgeman/ certainly. I wish to Heaven that fiend Viz would come
back. When he returns I shall come to l,ondon for the winter.
Ethelred GuffoonS is a chimaera, or a merman or a centaur. That is t based him upon
y.11g, but purposely disfigured ddnatur€d to use a gallicism and pinched him out of your likeness
so as not to make him too personal, but preserved him as a useful link in my com6die humaine.9
Peter Cunningham's "soap" in the I.L.N. is the essence of the dregs of a glass of whiskey
punch over which I teft him one night at Evans'sl0 with Mark trmo"n.ll t-belieue on that
rrccasion I told Peter that Stow Hollinshed and Camdenl2 *ere fools to him, and promised to
scnd articles to the London Journal. Do you know that I have a written agreement with Stiff to
write for the L.J.? [ wonder if t could make Ingram pay forfeit.lS
Michau's entertainmentl4 which you kindly noticed in advance went off very well. He is
rather more like a monkey than_a man, and his scorbutic baboon (in private life) completely takes
lhc shine out of Jim Kenney.r) tt is however really wonderful to hear him imitate Paganini:16
rnake up, gestures and fiddling are marvellous.
Yours very truly
George: aug: Sala.
l. Perhaps Tuesday before Dickens anived on Saturday 13, i.e., Tuesday after previous letter
(Sunday 7 November 1858).
). Adelaide Anne hocter (1825-1864), also used pseudonym "Mary Berwick." She was a
prolific poet with great popular appeal who contributed to a number of periodicals including
49
"

Cornhill, English Women's Journal, All the Year Round and Household lilords. ln the last her
work accounted for about a sixth of the poetry published (l-ohdi 404). Her poem, "Philip and
Mildred (the "Foufth Ring") must have been selected instead of Brough's.
3. John Maxwell (1860-1895), publisher and inveterate founder (and loser) of magazines; some
like The Cloister (Tinsley I: 62) so ephemeral that they have even escaped the attention of
dedicated Waterloo researchers. Those that have been recorded are: 8 May 1858 to 14 November
1859, the short-lived Town Talk with Edmund Yates as editor; November 1859 to September
L86'J.,IAelcome Guest, purchased from Henry Vizetelly; December \86O,Temple Bar, with GAS
as its first editor; 1861, Halfuenny Journal (1 July), featuring lurid fiction for the lower classes,
Robin Goodfellow (6 July) unsuccessful successor to WG, and Sr James's Magazine (ApriD
aimed like 18 at the middle-class; October 1866, Belgravra, his most profitable venture, with
novelist Mary (M.E.) Braddon* as chief contributor and first editor. It is said that his chief claim
to fame was that he lived with, and later manied, Braddon, author of.lndy Audley's Secret and
many other best sellers (Sutherland 423). See 39n5 for further details.
4. Roughly translates as "money doesn't stink."
5. John Hollingshead* no doubt. He was a regular contributor to HW in 1858. He had two
stories published in the Christmas Day issue, "The Innocent Holder Business" and "A Gipsy
King" (Inhrli 307). The "other camp" probably refers to I{l'7.
6. Could be Harry N. Draper or Edward Draper, both contributors to WG. Edward Draper had
been on Comic Times staff, where he began a lifelong friendship with Yates. He had also written
a legal column titled "Iaw and Crime" for IT According to GAS he was "a highly respectable
solicitor . . . not a bohemian" (Lik 367). Henry Vizetelly refers to him as the "doyen of the
Savage Club" (1: 149).
7. hobably John Valentine Bridgeman, another Bohemian joumalist, also mentioned in Yates's
memoirs as a member of Comic Times staff August 1855 (210). He had edited Puppet Show
(1848), a magazine backed by Henry Vizetelly, with James Hannay and Sutherland Edwards as
principal contributors. It was another undercapitalized, short-lived effort, typical of this early
period (Cross 106-7 ). His translation of Gustave Freytag's novel Debit and Credit was
serialized in the first numbes of.WG (1 May 1858-13 November 1858) alongside GAS's Twice
Roundthe Clock
8. Ethelred Guffoon features as a ubiquitous columnist-cum-man-about-town in some of the
segments of. Twice Round the Clock, two of which had recently appeared inWG (25 September:
345, 6 November: 441). Both were obvious satires on Yates's society "gossip-column"
joumalism, which he claimed to have invented (Edwards 4). See intro.
9. GAS probably saw Balzac as a model. Iater he referred to his own novel The Seven Sons of
Mammon* as "my little human comedy." He certainly admired him, and saw in his hectic
working life a parallel with his own, where "literature" had to be subsidized by hack joumalism
to make ends meet (Echoes of 1883: 3). Recent critics have compared GAS with Balzac and
Eugdne Sue because of his interest in the Bohemian undercurrents of city life (Mitchell).
10. Cunningham contributed the story "A Bowl of Rrnchu to Hll1.1 June 1,853. His "soap"
w:rs a puff of Tlvice Round the Clock being serialized at the time in Welcome Gnesr; both
serial and author were rather extravagantly praised (ILN 6 November 1858: 381). Peter
Cunningbam (1816-69) was an author and antiquarian; as a prominent member of The
Society of Antiquarians his contributions to its records provided the basis for numerous
50
newspapet magazine article and bookr. (Irhrli 245). He had a regular feature in ILN, "Town
and Table Talk on Literature, Art, etc" (Hodder 387). It was this that GAS took over on 2
June 1860 under the head "Literature and Art"; and which was to become his famous "Echoes
of the Week" in October L874 (letter 119). [t continued as a column of varied gossip and
anecdote for over twenty-five yean (with a few breaks when he was overseas)] and was
largely responsible _for making his signature initials so familiar to the puUiic (DNB).
Vizetelly describes Cunningham's descent into alcoholism hinted at here 1t: iSa;, atitrougtr
Evans's Supper Rooms, situated beneath Evan's hotel in King Street Covent Garden (lhiigs
1: 86) could not, at least at this time, be described as one otihe "disreputable pubs" or "low
coffee houses" that Vizetelly suggests led to his downfall. Yates gives much praise to
Evans's, "the most celebrated, undoubtedly, in its time" of all the lopular supper-andsinging
taverns: "chops and potatoes - never to be equalled . . . the drink; were ali good . . .
and some of the smartest talk in [nndon was to be heard . . . about the years '5g-'60." Its
plentiful and varied patronage included literary, journalistic and theatrical figures like
Thackeray, Sala, Jenold, Horace Mayhew, Lionel lawson, Albert and Arthur Srn'ittr (109-
111). Evans's is brought to life in Twice Round the Clock Q3O-352). Even Ethelred Guffoon
gets a mention - although he is "never seen at Evans's. It makes his head ache" (345).
11. Mark hmon (1809-1370); editor of.Punch from its inception in 1841 until his dearh, and
with Henry Mayhew (L826-I875) influential in creating iti characteristic brand of humour
(Sutherland 370). while acknowledging Irmon as an exlerienced editor, who maximized the
strengths of his contributors, Yates, citing the demize of Comic Times, describes him as crafty
and manipulative, claiming-he used his position as Herbert lngram's secretary to undermine the
publisher's confidence in the fledgling magazine (and Yates- as editor), because it had been
started, in Ingram's own words, to rival "old Poonch' (200). Vizeteily also notes Lrmon,s
influence over Ingram, and describes him as "certainly one of the most accomplished humbugs of
his time, rude or obsequious by turns as suited his own interest" e: a}e.
12. Stow, Holinshed and Camden, are all antiquaries and historians like Cunningham. John
Stow (1525-1605) wrote noted Survey of Londoi and l{estminster; Cuwringham's -Handbook of
I'ondon followed in its footsteps. Raphael Holinshed (d.c.1580), English chionicler whose work
provided a direct source for Shakespeare (Chambers). Willia. Curl"n (1551-1623), published
the famous Britannia in 1856, the result of his aniiquarian research of the British Isles; other
historical research included the listing of epitaphs in Westminster Abbey (Chambers).
13. Round about this time Stiff had sold the copyright of London Journal to Ingam for the
"large sum of t24,M' (viz 2: 9). Perhaps this itcounts for GAS's throw-awuy"lin" abour a
forfeit here.
14. See letter L7.
15' James Kenney (1780-1849), popular dramatist. "He suffered from nervous affection, which
gave him such an eccentric aPpeamnce that he was more than once taken for an escaped lunatic,,
(DNB). This explains the allusion "more like a monkey than a man.,,
16' Nicolo Paganini (1782-1840), Italian violin virtuoso; famous for his brilliant technique and
dexterity.
51

iiits;;'.
[embossed design of a comucopia centre]
Monday [15 November 1.858]1
38 Grenville Place, Brighton
My dear Yates,
Apologies for not answering yours per retum. t had to wait to hear from Viz on an
important matter connected with Xmas No.
The weddingRings of shrimpington-super-^ur".2 My introduction - rather a long
winded one, and two storiis will be tinisfeA this Wk, so busk ye, busk ye my merry men all:
(vide "Miscellany".)
It does not matter in the slightest degree in what number or person the stories are told.
There is a general explanation and eicuse for their being told. lf you make the jeweller tell yours
he is an o1l 1y1u1 plain of speech, but not wholly illiterate.3 By the way, Shrimpington-supermare
is in Kg$, not Suisex. Halfway between Caesarville (Dover) and St Becketsbury
(Canterbury) - say Sandwich or Deal'
'
C.dis recitings here, of course, were tremendous hits. Town Hall crammed on each
occasion. We heard festerday that Albert Smith was signalled in sight of England's shores'4
I am "down'with the ague, or something very like it, and am writing coPy, so to speak,
upon the hob. So soon as the Xmas No. is off my mind I sh-all come to Inndon - with the more
,.uron that the Sheriff of Sussex, incited by one Willis, officer to the Sheriff of Middlesex has
taken it into his head to be running up and iown in [!E bailiwick5 after me. He has left a polite
message for me at the hotel wherele imagined I was stopping that I had better be "took quietly"
as near next "court day" as possible, as I can then "go through nice and comfortable" otherwise
he told the landlord "ii might be illconvenient for th-e gentleman to lie so long in kwes6 Goal".
County sheriffs officers al*ays imagine that you come down on PurPose to be arrested and so go
"nice ind comfortable" through a provincial lnsolvent Court where they ask no questions, and let
you tell as many lies as you choor". He left his card "Mr Smith, Grand Parade". Fancy a Sheriffs
officer living in a grand Parade!
There will be u n"* edition of "Due North" out at the end of this month with SUg:h a nice
essay oq "brutality in criticism" by the way of preface and with reference to the Saturday
Review./
Yours verY trulY
George: aug: Sala.
t. tutonO"y utter Dickens anived for his performance on Saturday 13 (18n2)'
2. published 22 December 1858. GAS's contributions comprize": The Introduction" ("About
Shrimpington"), "The Second Ring" ("Poor Robin Redbreast: A Story to be Taken with a Grain
of Sali"), ;'The Sixth Ring ("The Journeyman Carpenter")'
3. yates's story was "The First Ring" ("Ellen Munro and Arthur Danell") Other slories were:
"The Third Ring" ("For Which Captain Ketchcalfe was Hanged") by John I3ng, "The Fourth
Ring" ("philip anA Mitarea") by Adelaide Anne Procter, "The Fifth Ring" ("Mr Odonti Redstart
in SlartU of a Wite'; by Augustus Mayhew, "The Seventh Ring" ("The Ring that Went to Sea")
by Frederick Greenwood'
4. Refers to Albert Smith's* return after a trip to Hong Kong begun July 1858. On22 December
he commenced a new entertainment, "China," at the Egyptian Hall, based on his adventures in
the East (DNB).
5. A slightly altered quotation from a segment of.Twice Round the Clock (serialized WG May-
November 1858): ". and the sheriff of Middlesex shall take you, to have and to hold,
wheresoever you may be found running up and down in his bailiwick" (Twice 89).
6. I-ewes is the county town of Sussex, five miles from Brighton; location of the County Hall
and other municipal institutions.
7. Sec 18n20.
T2TI
Thursday [December 1858]1
Queens Bench: tbree in the moming
My dear Yates,
A succession of visitors set in to follow Viz, which made it impossible for me to post
this2 so early as t could have wished. Voilil It may be too good or too bad for the purpose: but i
have done my best. Any additions or alterations I can make t will do if you will call or send.
Bamum3 is an intolerable duffer, and seriousty t think such impudent cynics do a vast deal of
harm and ought to bc demolished; but I have introduced some transparent sophistries to lacquer
up his verdigrised imposrures.
'
Pleaie give that madman's letter to Viz: He has a geat admiration fobo,r Z,/*,n)und
the "Money Bagu) and has written to him to contribute to the w.G. ' '
- O the story my lord the Story. Mv stories are giving me congestion of the brain, anguina
[sic]6 peaoris, and spermatorhea atrox.T
Yours very faithfully
George: aug: Sala.
[Traditional view of the outside of a prison - its heavily fortified door set in a massive stone
wall. Significance of the W that surtrlounts it not known. W.W. Cope could be the magistrate
who sentenced him. Boase rccords William Cope (1813-1885), who was admined to the Bar in
1840.1
t. GAS must have bcen in Queen's Bench Jail sometime during early December 1858. Ponny
Mayhew is recorded as having dined with him there in December (Hen1v Silver Diary 15
December 1858). See following letter n2, and for an amusing glimpse of this debtors' prison see
Twice Round the Clock (99-104).
2. Not included with MS.
52 53

3 P.T. Barnum, American showman and "bull-artist" par excellence. See 22n8.
4. Greek could translate as "the wild ox," which would fit in with "that madman." However, in
GAS's handwriting the Greek characters look suspiciously like "Boys Adventure." See letter 98
where he does the same sort of thing.
5. l/G used small filler pars, usually of a comic or moral nature, to pad out columns where
necessary: "Money Bag" was the heading for some of these.
5. Could be Make Your Game. Although as can be seen in next letter he had plenty of late copy
(and late money), to give him a headache, a heartache etc.
6. Does he spell it this way purposely to indicate his "cnguished" state?
7. [.e "noctumal emissions," a very fashionable complaint at the time. See Dr William Acton's
discussion of it in Steven Marcus, Other Victorians (1966).
I22l
Friday [?24 December L858]1
8 Salisbury Street, Strand
My dear Yates,
I depend on your friendship to do your best to explain to Albert Smith why I (not
designedly,l declare, not even through my usual carelessnessl tttr"* him over.2
While I was in prisonJ you know how much I had to do. I worked nearly day and night.
Since my release I do solemnly say that with the exception of one twenty fours bolt to Brighton
and so on I have not had one proper nights rest. I have had nearly the whole of the Christmas
number of the I.T. to write.4 More than this, before I could get out I had in debts big and small
to pay nearly a hundred and forty pounds in hard cash. I only came on Viz for a portion of this.
A cloud of County Court judgements, a detainer from the Crown - Income tax - had to be settled
- I was obliged to accept an offer from the Critic people of fifty pounds to write reviews in chat5
and leaders in the "IJader" till that advance was worked out. From day to day I won't say that I
had'nt five hours, but I had not five minutes to myself, and I am now under five hundred extra
powers of pressure grinding away at "Make Your Game"; and believe that this continuous grind
will end either in the jaundice or congestion of the brain. I am sold to a triple devil. Like the
courier of St Petersburg6 I am riding three dead horses at once. I had every incentive to do
Albert's work. He told me it was business and it would have helped me materially, but I say
again t could tOldq it. I have even been obliged the last week to give up the Telegraph's always
easy guineas. Thank God I have no dead horse there. Will you like a true friend as I am happy
to believe that you are put this before Albert? [ see the show is out but if he has not got anyone
else to do the story I will do it if he wishes to introduce it now - part L of "Make Your Game"7
goes to press today.
Does your invitation for Xmas day yet stand? If so send hour, and if swell party (white
choker) or not.
I send th-is by messenger, as I presume you leave the P.O early.
BamumS has been here, bothering. Wants me to come and hear him read his lecture
which I promised to do on Sunday. Of course I did not say a word about you or that I knew
anything of it.
Yours very truly
George: aug: Sala.
54
.
secretive Bohemian addresses like Exeter Change (Straui 139). As Christmas Day 1g5g was a
S_ajurda1, presumably this is Christmas Eve - see end of letier invitation to yates's place for
"Xmas day." The fact that he is sending this letter by messenger because he assumes that yates
is leaving work at the Post office early is further evidlnce for t-his.
2. hobably something for smith's new entertainment "china" which
December) at the Egyptian Hall, following his recent return from the
published book the following year (1g59) fo Chtna and Back
had just opened
East (letter 20).
3' This confirms last letter, he b been in jail; although mention of ponny Mayhew's visit to
him there in Henry Silver's diary is the oniy conoboriting evidence that can be found. Not
surprisingly no mention of a stint in jail is made in his owi'memoirs or others. Assumption is
that the sheriffs officer of letter 20 caught up with him and he was imprisoned for a short period
between end November and mid December. According to Straus this was a particularly difficult
time for GAS as his drinking was interferin_g with hiJcopy. His relations with Vizeielly were
particularly strained as work promised for WG and IT was not forthcoming. This letter shows
to be llm taking on more work than he can possibly deliver in order to pa/off his debts; Mcfte
Your Game is a case in point, as was the Christmas number of the It (Straus 13g-39). Vizetelly,
presents a somewhat jaundiced view of lfzG's bohemian contributors such as GAS and Bob
lrough,
claiming that "the editorial bed of roses was by no means devoid of the customary
thorns," particularly when they "used to send in their 'copy; pretty much as they pleased, and with
the coolest of excuses for their repeated shortcomings,, Tiiz'z: 34-37).
once
f, no exaggeration
_For
as four items signed by GAS appeared in IT 24 December 1g5g:
"Mary Must Be Asleep". (438), "Caddy Grampus's- Collecti'on" (43g), "The Christmas Magic
Lantern" (435), "Concerning plum Rrdding,, (Ai3-+).
5' This could refer to an occasional column in the critic (August 1g44-December 1g63) called
"Literary News," or the last section of each number hcaded Diama, Art, Music, Science, etc. or
both' It also has a leading column headed "The Critic" at the beginning of each number. Around
this time there are many items and reviews in the critic that could be attributed to GAS, but
because of the anonymity preserved by journals at this period, there is no way of knowing for
sure which are his, although informed guesses can be made, as some of the Critic pars,
particularly from "Literary News, " are outrageous,'GAS-promotions.,'
9: !" Courier of st. Petersburgwasan equestrian pantomime made famous by Andrew Ducrow
(1793-1842), a celebrated horseman and manager of Astley's Amphitheatr", igzs to 1g41. His
f-eatl which probably included riding three horses at once, were commemorated in se'cral
Sraffordshire figures, and mass-produced items such as brass plates and a ,,Ducrow,, clock
(Saxon 94).
7. Published in 8 January 1859 issue of WG.
8' Phineas Taylor (P.T) Barnum (1810-1891), archetypal American showman, masrer
publicity;
of
partner in the famous Barnum and Bailey circus. GAS first met him in l,ondon at rhe
Ganick Club, and later during his "periodical residences in New york,' (Things l:ZZL). GAS
Ylt
tl America as special conespondent for the DT from November 1g63 to December 1g64
(My Diary in America in the Midst of war), December 1879 to April 1gg0 (America Revisited);
and briefly in January 1"885 on a final journalistic tour that took hi. thiough America and
Australasia, when as well as reporting forthe DT he lectured on his own account. Barnum also
made the trip across the Atlantic a number of times. Here, he was in London to lecture in St
))
(22
He

James,s Hau Regent Street on "The Science of Money Making and the Philosophy of Humbug"
(DAB). An advitisment in the D4Friday 24December 1858, p1.:2, proclaims: 'St. James's Hall
December 29. Mr p.T. Barnum's address (with pictorial illustration) on the Science of Making
Money, also an original definition of uumbug." The "bothering" Barnum's lecture.was a great
succ"is, and was repeated "sixty times in that hall, and in other parts of Great Britain" (Barnum
qtd Brisbane couriir 11 May iAasr r;. Pity GAS hadn't taken it a bit more seriously: Barnum
died worth 5 mitlion dollars, while GAS died almost penniless, saved from penury by Inrd
Rosebery, who ananged for a pension of f100 a year to be ganted him from the Queen's civil
List in 1895, the year of his death (Straus 282).
l23l
[Embossed shield with inside "Goodman 407 Strand"]
Thursday [6 January 1859]1
8 Salisbury Street, Strand
My dear Yates,
Very happy to dine with you on Sunday, 6 p'm. I am sure'
Albert Smith's story posted to him same day as this'
The Morning Star man is an ignorant and malevolent ass.2 I saw Mahony - Father
troulr-'yJr;;td"il;. the first time at ih" "Glob"". He lives in the parlours4her.g. He said he
thousht the Xmas No of W.G. admirable and, as he is about as insulting generally, as ten late
l.rrola.5*ultiplied by eleven Johnsons6t thought the praise kudos. The funniest thing is that a
mutual friend, who shall be nameless sweam from internal evidence that you wrote the Moming
StarTarticle yourself. Of course I laughed him out of the notion.
Yours very faithfullY
George: aug: Sala.
@asinjuredonSaturday9March(followinglettern1').
2 The Morning Star (I7 March 1856-13 October L869, then absorbed into the Daily News), had
devoted almost one whole column on L January 1859 to a scathing review of the WG Xmas
number, singling out, for special criticism, GAS's introductory story "The Wedding Rings of
Shrimpion-r--up"i ruut.," ani Yates's contribution "Ellen Munro and Arthur Darrell." l-etter 25
reveali that iti author, "the ignorant and malelovent ass," is kicester Silk Buckingham, here
reviewing literature, but also the Star's drama and music critic. He sneers at GAS's constant
harping Jn his Russian trip, and mocks his "meandering" nanative and excessive attention to
trivial -facts about himself. And he questions the moral suitablility of Yates's story for a family
magazinesuch as IAG purported to be (its sub-head was "A Magazinc of Recreative.Reading for
Ali), since it is aboui an- invalid wife who dies of a seizure aftcr she has caught her husband
flirting with another woman, whose bnrtal husband, thinking himsclf dishonoured, tums her out
of their home (2: 10).
3. Francis Sylvester Mahony (1804-1866), best known by his pscudonym of Father Prout; after
failing as a jesuit he turned to the Bohemian joumalistic world of London, contributing first to
Frasir,s Magazine in 1.834. His amusing and satiric pocms and papers did much to establish
both Frasert and his own reputation in thc popular literary sccnc. He owned a share in the
Globe newspaper, and was its Paris concspondcnt (DNB).
4. Supper rooms? or brothels?
56
5, l)ouglas William Jenold (1803-1857), father to GAS's friend Bill*; playwright, joumalist;
nrng,nzlnc proprietor and minor novelist. He was famous for his inepressible and scathing wit
rrrrf r:ontributed to Punch from its inception (17 July 1841) to his death. In 1845 he started
I*ughn Jerrold's Shilling Magazine, and in 1,846 Douglas Jerrold's Weekly Newspaper, neither
rrl wlrich were successful; from 1,852 to his death he edited Lloyd's WeeHy Newspaper. Jenold
war n champion of the working classes. The outspokenness that GAS alludes to is said to have
derlvcd from the hatred of tyranny he developed though being enrolled in the navy at the age of
lerr,
fi Snnrucl Johnson was noted for his outspoken bluntness.
7, Allcr giving up his "Lounger" column in the.IT Yates continued in the same vein with "The
lilfincur" inthe Morning Star, but this was not until around L864 (Edwards 57). However, as his
Irrenr

certify that Mr G.A. Sala is suffering from severe injuries to the face, which necessitate absolute
mental rest for some days." This "rest" period must have gone well beyond the realms of
Vizetelly's patience as further instalments of. Make Your Game failed to arrive, and he resorted to
the foflbwing kind of editorial comment in subsequent issues up until 26 March: "The
continuation of. Uo*" Your Game is again postponed. Day after day the writer has promised to
supply it, but after continuous delays, it has been again found necessary to send the number to
1nuittin" without waiting any longer for Mr Sala's MS" (WG 1859:192). These tactics, together
with a solicitor's letter (Straus 142) eventually brought results, However, in September, after
nine sporadic episodes, Vizetelly seems to have given up. The final inconclusive episode on l'7
September canies a rather abject admission from its author that his "stewardship (as conductor of
thii performance) has not been accounted for with that amount of fidelity which the great
impalpability the rublic has the right to expect" (1859: 568)'
2. l.e.,because he can't come to dinner tomorrow Sunday, as invited in previous letter.
12sl
My dear Edmund H.Y.,
I was told you had called, and am very much obliged to you.
As regards the "rights" of the story:
"Story God bless you! I have none to tell Sir
Only, last night, a drinking at the'Chequers'
This poor old hat and coat that you see got
torn in a scuffle'
I should be glad to drink your honours health in
A pot of beer if you will give me sixPence
But for my part I never love to meddle
ln Politics Sir".2
I am quite well again, and at work, albeii bab&93 for life. I shall be exceedingly glad to s€e you
aftemoon or evening as I cannot leave the house for some time.
The "Morning Star" criticism was from the inky finger of Silkworm lricester Square
Buckingham.4 I am glad it proceeded from so low a cad, and not from any writer for whose
opinion one need, eithlr of us, care a copek. And t am specially glad that our "mutual friend"
was labouring, as I endeavoured to convince him, under an elror in judgement.
most faithfully yours
George: aug: Sala.
1. Following "nose" incident.
Z. From "The Needy Knifegrinder" by George Canning (1770-1827). A parody of Southey,
originally published in the Anti-Jacobin, a short-lived political magazine (1897-8) of strongly
Tory outlook, which included much pungent parody and satire (OCEL).
3. balafr6 = SCarred.
4. See23n2. fuicester Silk Buckingham (1825-1867), lecturer. playwright, historian, dramatic
and musical critic on the Morning Srar. Among his literary works are a "Memoir on the Life of
Mary Queen of Scots" (1844), and the comedy play The Merry widow (1863).
58
Tuesday. [January 1859]1
8. Salisbury Street, Strand
l16l
Monday [31 January 1859]1
8 Salisbury Street, Strand
My tlcar Edmund H.Y.,
Pourquoi vous non comez see moy? vous proud? vous nong aimez associer avec un man
t;tti it son boko split? vous very much busy engaged? bong. Moi toujours at home, scrivez le
r'ol)y ct rider le dead cheval jour et nuit: oh yes: oui.z
I read you in I.T. last week. The lines anent Cunningham t think are about the funniest I
ever rcad in my life: - genuine satire, for there is something legitimately to lay hold of in this
Ittlolcrable "bunkum" about the "eminent whiskey drinker and fomicator", as the "Tablet" calls
llunts.3 The Thackeray verses were very ctose ani telling, but, to my mind, malevolent and their
prrltlication illjudged. No good comes out of this Nazareth.5 I,et Polyphemus alone. Do'nt show
yrttrr soreness. If you must shoot at him let your affow be cleft, and hit some other eyrie at the
rntttc time. It is capital fun pitchforking a man, but it is exceedingly difficult to do it d la
I llrnrodias "with steel in myrtle dressed".o And, depend upon it, these direct personalities are a
violation of the trust reposed in us all as public writers. A man has re rigfrt to allow his private
feclings to influence his "copy". I think I have a write [sic] to speak; for in a dozen years I have
lntlulged in as little personality as any man who has stained an equal amount of paper; and when
I havc been occasionally betrayed into illnatured covert allusions, I have always regretted and
ctttlcavoured to atone for them. The people I have abused downright I have never seen. What
would you have said if, at the time of the Tavistock House esclandre,T and when I was still H.w.
r opyrightlessu I had published the famous epigram
"With tongue and pen few can like Dickens fudge
But now in vain for virtues cause he pleads -
The world his virtues in the end will judge
Not by his Household Words, but Household Deeds"
... ^ Tuk. my word, durable literary hostilities are not possible now-adays. I shall sleep with
willsv yet - (takingcare, myself, to be outside the blankets) - and I shall see you walking irm in
lrnt with Thackeray up Pall Mall and take off my hat to you;10 and twenty ylars hence you will
Ittove for the expulsion of Timothy Brough (Bob's eldest born) from the Red Hot poker Club for
rlcscribing the pattern of your necktie in the "Half Farthing Candle". (By that time we shall have
rr rcally cheap press).
Take all in good part as I mean it. Will you come and talk a minute afternoon or evening.
I ncver go o9!. And, can you get me an order for the Adelphi, some night this week? Tis feri
lrcy of minell-
Yours very faithfully
George: aug: Sala.
l. Week after Thackeray verses published in lllustrated Times Saturday 29 January, 1859 1Vt
3: l5).
J. GAS, who was partly educated in France and "spoke French like a native" (Straus 30),
crrjoyed using this crude mixture of English and French, "Norman-French" as he calls it in Tv,ice
Ikrund the Clock (90), where he pokes fun at court reporting: "I have read the great case of
Stradlings versus styles, respecting the piebald horses and the horses that were pied, and haye
;xrndered much over the notable conclusion by the reporter - 'Je heard no more purc" qu" j'etais
;rsleep sur mong bench."'
59

3. There had been a concert at the crystar parace to cerebrate the centenary of Burns's birth' with
poetry competition ""Jr""ol"gr. ri* rr'ig iunuuty 1859: 7l' under the heading "The Burns
-centenary papers,, d;;,h]fii, in "-uri;; r,/;' and canied some ve$es by the "Lounger at
the Clubs', (yates), *-;'Oi",o Bums" Uy'e?ui'fu*ingham' F'S'A' and "Milk and Honey" by
W.M. T--ch---Y.
4.TheTablet:Catholic(Sullivan204)journal(16May1840-1900).
5' See Yates (223_247), andYiz Q: |-4-15) for details of the ''literary squabble'' between Yates
and Thackeray . It did not end wiih Vxes(eip"i;i9-" from the Canitt< CluU in 1858 (4n5)' but
waskeptaliveonrnu"x"ruy'.partby:"-i:;;ii"JalusionsinTheVirginians(1859)toYatesas
',Young Grub-streeii.;;;;fl?ies,s side uy int.*ittent sarcastic references in the /T to
Thackeray'ssatiricalstyle,ofYhi:lthe.versesmentionedhereareanexample'Theyarearather
;;i ;#"n of Thackitay's " Bouillabaisse" ballad'
Mitk and HoneY \ BY W'Mf---ck---Y
A sPot there is near l-ondon citY -
And London citY is a Place'
Which, though sometimes appearing prett!'
Is reallY loathsome, low and base -
e spot-fy flowers and shrubs surrounded'
A flirting hall, a booth, a mast'
Where little boys in art are grounded'
And bigger men are gound in heart'
The Crystal Palace its nice name is'
And - there, before I scarce can speak'
I feel the burning blush of shame is
Encrimsoning mY honest cheek!
For, truth to tell, this Crystal Palace'
Nor crystal, nor Palatial shows-'-
The poison drains into the chalice' -
The viPer lurks beneath the rose!
Ah, brother! do You thus deceive me!
And yet, old honest rogue' you re right!
I know the world would not believe me'
Unless I told it DaY was Night'
I show the vices which besmirch you'
The slime with which you're covered o'et'
Strip off each rag from female virtue'
Ani drag to tight each festering sore'
All men alive are rogues and villains'
All women drabs, all children cursed;
I tell them this, and draw their shillin's'
TheY highest PaY whentreledwo$t'
I sneer at every human feeling
Which truth suggests, or good men praise;
60
The tongue within my cheek concealing,
Write myself 'Cynic' - for it pays!
Ah me! thus can the skilful wizard
At human nature safely scoff,
So semi-natural is my vizard,
You can't tell when 'tis on or off!
So let us pray, where'er we may be,
That the world's word in justice can,
When falls the curtain on our play, be
"He lived and died a gentleman."*
'lhc author would appear, in the flow of his generous emotion, to have forgotten his original
subject. ------L. at C. [,ounger at the Clubs]
(r. Harmodias: Athenian hero (8.C.51,4), who killed a rival Hipparchus with a dagger he had
hidden among the myrtle boughs he was to have canied in a festival procession.
7. Alludes to Dickens's association (begun in 1857) with actress Ellen Ternan which led to the
breakdown of his marriage in 1858. Although Dickens moved to Gadshill in May 1857,
'favistock house is the place associated with his wife Catherine and their domestic life together.
It. 5n3.
(). "the hound Wills" (penultimate par letter 18).
10. This was not to be; Thackeray and Yates never made up. Dickens took Yates's part in the
"Garrick affair," creating a break between himself and Thackeray that was not healed until just
hcfore Thackeray's death in 1863. For a further light-hearted, but insightful look at the club
sccne, and "the awful committee that, with dread complacency can unclub a man for a few idle
words" (Twice 21.4) see "The Fashionable Club, and the Prisoners' Van" (200-17). The tone of
tlris segment's significantly juxtaposed head is repeated in GAS's description of the Queen's
llcnch debtor's prison, which he presents as just another club (99-104) (of which, as we know, he
lrccame a member).
I L [.e., "for a friend." Again a take-off of Herbert lngram's accent (an9).
l27l
Tuesday [19 April 1851;1
8 Salisbury Street, Strand
My dear Edmund H,
Your pamphlet2 has not come to me. [f sent to the Telegraph it will be collared. Send
onc on here. t shail indoctrinate Lowe3 about it (he hates W.M.T:4) for "Critic"; but entre nous I
tkrn't think l:vy means to comment on it on [sic] D.T.
Can you give me or get me an order for the Adelphi) for tomorrow? I want it very badly,
;urd do'nt know anybody connected with T.R.A.o
Viz and I are at loggerheads about W.G. of course about copy.7 That Telegraph is
killing me; but^I must stick to it now, tooth and nail, for Viz and I are two, and we shall probabty
Iurve a lawsuit.8
"F.Chapman9 lchapmun & Hall) has sent to me about an entertainment for George
lllrkertu the singer, who, he says will pay very well. I have declined as I have too much by'
61

threequarters to do already. Have you any objection to my recommending you? lrt me know
this immediatelY.
"streets of the World" at last coming out in Dublin University' Cheyne Brady wrote to
offer "my own terms".ll
Yours very faithfullY
George: aug: Sala.
where he mentions that he forgot'
Tguy:
when requesting a pass to the Adelphi Theatre foritre following day, that it was Ash Wednesday'
Easter Diy was Sunday 24 April in 1859'
2. Mr Thackeray, Mr Yates and the Garrick Club: The Correspondence and Facts' Printed for
Private Circulation, 1,859 @dwards ltem 153)'
3.Jamesl.owe(d.1865),editor(1843-1863)oftheCritic*(DNB)'
4. William MakePeace ThackeraY'
5. Yates had a special relationship with the Adelphi since his father (Frederick) had been a
famous manager there. The family, in fact, lived in a house adjoining the theatre during Yates's
childhood (Yi'tes 8). T.R.A. = Theatre Royal Adelphi'
6. Theatre RoYal AdelPhi.
7 See 24n1,Pat2'
8. Were there any legal proceedings? Straus asks this question (142), d :ot*9es that "there
probably were, thougTiiis OouUtfrf whether the Courts were ever troubled'" This, in fact' not
true. GAS was sentenced to the debtor's fti.on in December-(letters 2L,22). Unless Straus had
access to this "ort"rpono"nce it is quite'possible that he-didn't know about this jail sentence'
since GAS had conirived to be anested in a provincial town (letter 19) in order to avoid
publicity.
g. Frederick (Bocsecalls him Edward) chapman and william Hall, founders of chapman and
Hali, pubtishers 1830-1.938. Publisned Oictens and many other major Victorian novelists'
L0. George Barker, a tenor of considerable repute (Life 56)'
LL. 12n3.
t28l rhundaY [21$#l,tT:]:
My dear Yates,
IamanAss.IforgotwhenlaskedyoufortheAdelphiorderthatWednesdaywasadies
irae.2 The discovery "ifry mistake immediately suggested a leader against Ash wednesday'
vide "Jollywag".3
(Very private) why does'nt Irvy comment on your pamphtet (of which I think the tone
is aamiraUte)t'Ou"tiJ moulne bi piqggi4 t could have got a rattling leader out of it'
I have written to Fred chapman anent Barker. You know him; write by all means'
62
Can you do the needful for Adelphi; or failing that, any other theatre for tonight?
Yiz and I are not quite so redhotpokery.
Dublin University accede to stunning terms, and No 1 Streets of W. "The Kings Road
Brighton' positively appears on April 1.)
Yours, apologising for boring you.
George: aug: Sala.
l..Thursday before Sunday 24, Easter Day.
2. Dies irae = Day of wrath, first words of latin hymn sung in Mass for the dead, part of the
Easter ituaL(OED).
3, Irader in DT 22 April 1859 about the hypocrisy of such "holy" days (esp Good Friday) over
Easter when the public is fryd into melancholy - all pleasures being closed down - and their
day is spent in "languished apathy" or church-going. Such "lukewarm piety surely represents
indifference" or at least "religion enforced by an act of parliament."
4.. What's the matterwith him?
.5. WeUesley Index (vol 4) documents no contributions at all by Sala to Dublin University
Magazine. However, "The King's Road, Brighton" appeared as the first "Streets of the World" in
WG at the beginning of 1861 (1: 15), followed by "The Palais Royal, Paris" (126), "The
Montagne de la Cour, Brussels" (182), "Queen Street, Portsea" (238), "Drury l-ane, London"
(672). And the series was continued in TB December 1863-March 1866: "Ia CannebiEre,
Marseilles" (10: 5-14), "Pall Mall, I-ondon" (183-190), "The Passage des Panoramas" (335-
341), "Snargate Street, Dover" (479-484), "Berlin - Unter den Linden" (1,L:34-40), "Windsor -
Thames Street (189-195), "Munich - The Maximilienstrasse" (330-335), "Liverpool - Church
Street" (479-485), "Hamburg - the Alster Bassin" (L2: 35-a\, "Bologne - the Rue de L 'Ecu"
(184-191), "Frankfort-on-the-Maine - the T*;il^ (333-340), 'St Petersburg - the Balschoi-
Morskaibchoi (477-483), "Cologne - the Thurnmark" (13: 34-41), "Venice - Riva degli
Schiavoni (183-191), "Venice - The Grand Canal (347-353), "New York - Clinton Place into
llroadway (14: 30-37), "New York - Broadway ltself'(176-184), "Havana - Calle del Obispo"
(331-338), "From Boston in lancashire to Boston in Massachusetts" (477-483), "Montreal
Canada East - Notre Dame Street" (15: a3-50), "Washington D.C. - Pennsylvania Avenue"
(182-188), "Mexico - The Calle San Francisco" Q39-347), "Genoa - from Feder's Hotel to k
Fontane Amoroso" (489-494), "Milan - the Corso San Francisco" (16: 38-45), "Algiers - the
slreet of Bab Azzoun (188-197), "Glasgow - the Trongate and Buchanan Street" (338-3.16),
"Glasgow - the Trongate to Argyle Street" (489-496).
63

t29l wednesdaY [1859]1
43 BromPton Row, BromPton Road
If you y4[!t come the herring and paunch will be on the back of an old pair of bellows at
530.2
1.4r1*rr'iffi ''*'*
' &.tht
,*r#Iirut i * i
lo&ng w uYatlito J onff Jrn) f
folbtt I
(vr{u d tnli /f,f 5
farrn ih pnrraar irlr|f rrr-tttn)
' E
Jclct - '?
q-i.L
l"-- --r*
l2-t L bsla ts!lr,.'
My dear Edmund H,
I have an "Idea" which, if canied out immediately - I have no time to do it save in
collaboration would put money in both our Purses and gain us much kudos.l Shall you be at
home on Sunday (forinoon) oris it asking your Transparengy to much to ask you to dine with me
at this'umble "Uoar on that day? Wiliyou drop me a line to above address' I am going to
Burton-on-Trent tomonow but shall be back before Friday'
In haste / most faithfullY
George: aug: Sala.
p.S. It is worth while your coming to diruier, if only to see the Sampson of Bohemia having his
hair combed by the meekest of Dalilahsj [sic]'
May of following letter. ln this lener and the
next two he refers to
preparation of a book for publication. Irtter 34n2 the mystery' and why immediate
"ns*t$
action was necessary'
"some sort of plan being hatched by himself and Yates regarding the
2. GAS sets out the menu for the proposed meal in Yates's honour' In English it might tmnslate
something like: "skewered tripe )r ia cat, whelks, small penny eel pat6s, kidney pie ]r la Clements
Inn, soldi-en (usually known as red henings [i.e., redcoats]), shin of beef soup (worrells), Dutch
cheese, un"ookrd raw tumips, Tobacco, Gin, Rum, dessert - penny vanilla ice creams'"
ln his newly domesiicatcd state GAS seems to have cooking on his mind. The menu is
probably a parody of one from Mrs Hannah Glasse's book, Tfte Art of Cooking Made Plain and
Eory, ai a Lady (lt+1,which he had recently acquired. on the afternoon of his wedding in fact'
He rounded off the description of the big day quoted in n3, with: "[ walked over Southwark
nriOg" to my work at ni Oaily Tetegriph; und on tl *1y,- at a second-hand booksellers I
bougit for sixpence a copy of the firsiedition of Mrs Glass's Cookery-book, of which scarcely
half]a-dozen copies "r.'kno*n to be in existence, and it is now worth a $reat deal of money'
So you see I secured two treasures in one haPPy forenoon" (Life 334-5).
GAS was a keen and disceming cooi, perhaps because his mother had insisted that all her
children receive quite a sophisticated-"culinary training," which included "the making of soups,
artistic dressing of u"g"t"ftes . . the preparation of entr€es, and the confection of pies and
puaJing., (Things Z: iZt1. He wrote 'fbod" articles for Belgravia and even produced his own
64
cookbook, The Thorough Good Cook: A Series of Chats on the Culinary Art and Nine Hundred
Recipes (1895). He made sure that Harriett became a dab hand in the kitchen too (with the help
of that Victorian necessity a cook, of course). "My wife's capacity for cooking developed with
surprising rapidity. She became, as the years passed along, a veritable cordon bleu . . . we
concocted a number of lunches and dinners which won the admiration of some of the most
distinguished gourmets in London" (Life 338-39).
3. His bride, Harriett, who, according to his memoirs, he manied in L859 soon after the "nose
incident": "Mr Jehoshaphat (24n1), with his well-directed 'facer', administered with the
diamond-ring-bedizened fist, did unconsciously as much good as it was possible for one human
bcing to do another. My wound healed rapidly. I think that in a fortnight I was able to leave the
house; but meanwhile I had been seriously thinking that it was about time to bid good-bye to
Bohemia. So, after a few days holiday with my mother at Brighton, I went and manied the girl
ofmydreams...whentheceremonywasatanend...Iputherinahansom,andbadeher
cngage some nice, quiet, furnished apartments at Brompton" (Life 334).
This places the marriage in early part of the year, which doesn't accord with the DNB's
wcdding date of September 1859, although it does fit in with the hints he gives about the newly
married state of his alter ego, "The Man with the Iron Chest" in Make Your Game, serialized from
tl January inlVG. h this story, as in many others, GAS's life intruded into his art. Straus casts
some doubt on the fact that the union was ggt legalized, as he was unable to find any records
(145-6). And GAS himself does seem rather vague on the subject: "Of the whereabouts in
Southwark or Iambeth we were eventually united, I have not the slightest remembrance." Straus
suggests that such secrecy stems from the fact that Harriett came from humble beginnings Qal.
So much for GAS's egalitarian Bohemianism, which over the course of these letters does seem to
falter in the face of a growing desire for fame and fortune. There are hints that life with GAS
wasn't always a bed of roses for poor Harriett (see letters 60, 73 for examples, and William
Tinsley's comment 63nL2). However, married or not, for twenty-six years she stuck to her
Bohemian through thick and thin. Irtter 90n3 reveals the text of a very affectionate letter she
wrote to GAS in 1871, eleven years after their marriage. She died suddenly of peritonitis in
Melboume, Australia, on New Year's Eve 1.885, while accompanying him on one of his man5'
overseas tours for the DT.
t30l
Monday [30 May 1859]1
43 Brompton Rd
My dear Yates,
I will send you the sketch of opening of book tonight - that is I will begin chap 1 and
indicate points to follow up with that will make it as easy as accepting a billz
yours very faithfully
George: a: Sala
P.S. I have been away from the Telegraph a week finishing up some work. Ted lrvy3 brought
me yours on Saturday.
1. Envelope: Postmark I-ondon SW / 2 /My /30 / 59 onfront: Brompton on back.
Address: Prepaid / Edmund H Yates, Esq / Doughty Street / Mecklenburgh Square /W.C I
G.A.Sala Esq.
2. 34n2.
65

3. Edward lrvy-I-awson (1833-1916), the son of a Jewish printer, who became I-ord Burnham
in 1903; he assumed the chosen name of his uncle Lionel by Royal warrant in 1875. His father
was J. M. kvy* founder of the DT In the early days they managed the paper together, but he
gradually took over the reins, becoming virtual head of the whole organization, and principal
proprietor after his father's death in 1888. tn 1857 he had asked Yates, who was working for him
at the time, to arrange a meeting with GAS, whose work on Household Words and the lllustrated
Times he admired (Straus 129). Years later Yates was to write of Iawson inthe World: "He is a
man of great natural ability, with a special aptitude for organization, of indomitable courage and
unflagging zeal. He is a political power and a social success; his means are large, his hospitality
unbounded" (LL December 1878: L0). Iawson knew the newspaper world from the bottom up,
his first job after leaving school being drama critic on the Sunday Times, then owned by his
father, and he never lost his hands-on approach to journalism. He had an aptitude for hard work
and rarely failed to read and pass the proofs of every leader. His paper was immensely successful
because he understood how to sell news to the people, thus his influence on the press led to its
democratization as the DT led the movement away from the ponderous stiffness of the Times
presentation towards a brighter, livelier style.
t3u
Saturday.[25 June 1859]1
43 Brompton Row
Dear Edmund H,
If Monday next will suit it is my dies non.2 [ will meet you at the Waterloo (?) Station at
5.10 Monday aftemoon. I can get a bed at an hotel and come back Tuesday morning. Will have
all ground plan - already commenced indeed - drawn out. Write a line and say if this
anungemeniwilt suit; or I shall be at home at the Paphiun3 bo*". afternoon and eve tomonow
Sunday
faithtully
George: aug: Sala.
I do'nt kng Ormesby [sic]4, though I was introduced to him the other night at Munro the
Sculptor's;s but t think him i very adhirable writer - the best man on "Frasers" [sic]6 - author of
"Hints for Vagabonds". I met ThackenyT at the L.F. FeedS and honified him by teiling him that
I could teach the talking fish to spout as well as Gladstone.9
1. Literary Fund dinner identified by "lrader" par of Critic 25 June 1859: 605, as "last
Wednesday" i.e.,22 June. The 25th was a Saturday, presumably this Saturday.
2. dies non, legal term = "day off." Short for ktin dies non judicus, day on which no legal
business can be done (OED). GAS is refening to Saturday, his day offfrom DT. He claimed that
for nearly 25 years he contributed trvo leaders a day, except on Saturdays.
3. [,ove nest. Another arch reference to his newly manied (?) state. "Paphian" describes sexual
love, especially illicit (OED).
66
'1. John Ormsby (1829-1895), one or the landed gentry gone Bohemian. tn the DNB he is
tlcscribed as a "denizen of Bohemia, but of the cultivated and scholarlike Bohemia." A BA from
'l'rinity College, Dublin, he had also won the silver medal for science from Inndon University;
ltlmitted to the Middle Temple, but never called to the bar, he became a journalist and author,
particularly interested in Spanish political and literary history. He contributed travel articles to
h'raser's, Saturday Review, Cornhill and Pall Mall. His "Hints for Vagabonds: by One of
'lhemselves" appeared over five issues of Fraser's,August, October 1858, Jinuary, Maich, April
I tl59 (I\tellesley 2: 441- 43).
5. Alexander Munro (1825-1871), sculptor and member of the Royat Academy (DNB). tn 1g63
GAS was to dedicate The Advennres of Captain Dangerous, to him "in tokln of sincere and
admiring friendship."
6. Fraser's Magazine (1830-1882); took its name from its publisher, James Fraser, but its style
was the creation of William Maginn (1793-1842), who although never its editor, imbued its
literary criticism with the indignant moral tone of Blaclcwood's, *ith whom he had previously
bcen associated. The contributions of such men as his lrish compatriot Francis Mahony ,'Fathei
Prout,"* C-arlyle, Hogg and Thackeray were among those which brought Fraser,sto the forefront
of English monthlies (DNB).
7. William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863), joumalist, editor, novelist. In Things I Have
'Seen and People I Hy_9 Known GAS paints an ambivalent, although largely sympatheiic picture
of the great satirist (Chapter 1,, "The Real Thackeray"). This tone is ianied through in these
lctters, where on the one hand he makes fun of "Mr Polyphemus," and on the other wams yates
against carrying out a vendetta against him (letter 26). Dispite Yates's antipathy GAS remained
"on the friendliest terms with Thackeray" and was often a guest in tris home (Straus 158). For his
part, Thackeray, according to George Hodder's report, had a high regard for S'ala's work: ,,There,s
one m:rn . . . who is a very clever fellow, and that is Sala. That paper of his, "The Key of the
Street; is one of the best things I ever read. I couldn't have written it. I wish I could" (2gi). And
as editor of. Cornhill he commissioned GAS's "Hogarth" series to begin in its second issue.
8. Seventieth Anniversary Dinner held on 22June,1859. The Royal Literary Fund (17gg- ) was
Britain's principal charitable institution for authors, but not without its problems and detractors.
For an historical overview see "Literature and charity" (cross 8-37). GAS himself was forced to
apply to the Fund in June 1873 (115) because of a lingering ana OeUititating attack of erythema
(letter 97n2).
9. GAS's memoirs recall a busy day reporting for the DT which included a visit to a ,,pseudomonstrosity
at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, called the "Talking Fish," . . . merely a big seal,
whose unusually strident bark might, with the help of a little imagination, be construed into'How
d'ye do?'and 'What's_o'clock?"' Evening found him at the annual dinner of the Royal Literary
Society at which Gladstone, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, gave a speech, which he "with
the sublime impertinence of youth" condensed into about twintylines in the DT the following
day (Lrfe 325-6).
67

I32l
Friday, 19 August [1859J
Daily Telegr aph, 253 Strand r
My dear Yates,
The verdict in the abominable Smethurst case (t think Charley did 1,2; is expected to be
given tonight. I shall be kept at the office waiting for it till late, in case a decision is anived at, in
order to write a thunderer (!)J on the case. C;onsequently am compelled to crave your indulgence
relative to Brompton Square this evening.
I have nothing to do tomorrow Saturday, after two p.m. - will meet you anywhere. [f not
say if I can see you on Monday, or if not I shall send you what I have done.
Write a line that I may get it tomorrow morning.
In haste
G.A.S.
1. Written from work on official stationery, but he is still living at Brompton Square.
2. No, Tommy did it. Next day the press canied reports of Dr Thomas Smethurst's conviction
and death sentence for the murder of a woman he had bigamously "married" for her
money.(ftzres 20 August 1.859: 12. L). He was later pardoned because the circumstantial and
scientific case against him was inadequate (Altick, Deadly 7). As features of the joumalism of
the Victorian period such sensational trials captured the public imagination; even the
conservative Times devoted three full page columns of minute detail including verbatim
testimony and judgement. This sort of "copy" provided ready-made plots for novelists like
Mary Braddon (Lady Audley's Secret), and GAS himself used bigamy and murder as the frame
for his Baddington Peerage.
3. "The Thunderer" was an epithet usually reserved for the Times.
t33l
Friday [October 1859]1
2 Manchester Street, Maine Parade, Brighton
Dear Edmund H,
Here as above for the next ten days only. Could not get pass or leave for longer. Your
presence a sunshine in this peculiarly shady place. Get a pass?
Yours moistly
George: a: Sala.
I think this child on Polyphemus's Mag.2 Old gentleman at Smith & Elders3 sent for wish to see
yours truly.
Three nos of Chesterfield4 letters done. Only twelve to come. Is TWice Round Clock
out?5 I have contracted with Maxwell for copies, and of course you shall have one.
L. "Iady Chesterfield's L.etters" commenced in the week\ WG 6 October 1859. Thus October
would be feasible here. The fact that George Smith and Thackeray were recruiting contributors
for Cornhill (Polyphemus's Mag) from September is also significant. According to Eddy in The
Founding of Cornhill Magazine (1970) they were all secured by mid-November for a Christmas
publishing date (18). Although the first issue is dated? January, it was in fact on the bookstalls
on 23 December (41).
68
2. He was engaged to contribute a series on William Hogarth: "William Hogarth, Painter,
Engraver, and Philosopher: Essays on the Man, the Work, and the Time," in 12 parts: only 9
appeared, February-October 1860.
3. Smith, Elder and C-o. (1816-L9I7), publishers, 65 Cornhill, an address made famous by the
magazine named after it. "Old gentleman" could refer to George Smith (1823-1901), who was
only ?3 when he took over the business after his father's death in 1846 (DNB). GAS could be
drawing attention to the fact that if he was to become a contributor to Cornhill his publisher
would be a man of 35, only four years older than himself. However, it could also refer to editor
Thackeray (1811-1863). He apparently looked old because of his prematurely white hair.
Thackeray was 48 at this time.
4. "Lady Chesterfield's lrtters to her Daughter," spoof on Lord Chesterfield's Letters to His son
(15n7); serialized inWG 8 October 1859, and continued sporadically into 1860; 1"4 letters in all;
published as a book in 1860.
5. Twice Round the Clock: or the Hours of the Day and Night in London; serialized in WG I
May-27 November 1858. Here he refers to the book, published by Maxwell 1859; announced in
the Athenaeum 22 October as published "this day" by publishers Houlston and Wright (543). It
was also "noticed" very briefly in the same issue, p 531. This is also evidence for dating letter in
October.
t34l
Friday evening [OctoberA.lovember 1 859] 1
2 Manchester Street, Maine Parade, Brighton
My dearEdmund H,
We come up tomonow for winter campaigns. Of evenings I can very well afford to spare
sufficient houn foi "Boney"2 if with our mutual multitudinous callings away we can time them.
Must live neilrer town than Brompton lodging, hunting tomorrow as we shall not have enough tin
to go into a house till-mid November.
I was in London, Monday, saw Smith of C. Thackeray imposed no condition beyond
pressing Smith (he was in Swiizerland T3) to secure me. i am to do Hogarth beginning
cautiouily with a series of 12,4 and if the public likes them to continue ad lib. Thackeray's idea
is anything gossiping about H's times; and I begin with "little boy Hogarth" at school. Twenty
four pages a month. The terms they give me are really princely. Mum please even at hinting
thereat in print or otherwise as they have a maximum price per sheet for other contributors who
might grumble.) My terms however have reference to early publication of sheets in America.
- -Cutiously, ai the same time W!!lE is hungry for copy for Christopher.6 So it is a queer
world and my eyes arc sore.
In the Welcome Guest as you see I am doing lady Chesterfield's lettersT - half through
indeed with them already. The Telegraph I am not ass enough to neglect, as it is fine wheaten
bread and stilton cheese g;h, but the other pennyworths I do not mean to touch. Everybodys
Joumal8 duff, the Editor duffer the chances of its success dufferer.
Write directly you wish to Ted kvy's Chambers, Danes Inn. I will make a scramble on
to "Boney" at all hazards.
Yours always
George: a: Sala.
1. Week after last letter, 10 days holiday almost up, either end October or early November.
69

2. The "idea,' of letter 29; a book on which they were to collaborate' No record exists of its
publication, although there are two extant MSS' One by GAS titled "Boney!!! or' Britain
invaded at last." \ Book the First \ The Invasion \ (1) \ Foreign affairs' And another by Yates
titled ,,of the state of l-ondon during its occupation by the Ftench." This "Boney" is' of course'
Napoleon the Third, not First.
Invasion scares in the 1.850s had prompted Yates to join the Volunteers' ^I\e Daily
Telegraph promoted the Volunteer movement, which was "at first either violently opposed or
contemptuously sn""i"J ut." GAS gives instances of it becoming the butt of htnch cartoonist
John Irech. However, the movement transcended such criticism and grew into a force of more
than eighteen thousand. When it was reviewed by the Queen at a colourful ceremony in Hyde
park June 1860 GAS covered the occasion for thl D2i Public enthusiasm was fuelled by the
',vague but widely sireaO apprehension that France meant mischief towards the British Empire
@ife 3a6-a7). The ,Lr", ur" a"pict"O in the early chapters of George Meredith's Beauchamp's
career (1875). The timing of the proposed publication of. "Boney" was obviously- important if
GAS and yates were to cash in on the nationalistic hysteria of the time' Although it seems to
have fallen through GAS still made a killing on the day, for soon after his report of the Volunteer
Review appeared in ite Telegraph the Tinsley brothers olfut:d him "liberal terms" to publish it
as a shilling book,,4 Narralive-of the Grand Volunteer Review in Hyde Parh on Saturday the
Twenty-Third of June (349).
The publishing'fi# of Tinsley Brothers (1858-1878) comprized, Hy:t9 (?-1866)
and William (1831-1"902) Tinsley, of whom the more comPetent Wiltiam died in his early
thirties. GAS,s Seven Sois of Maimon (1862) was the first novel they published' The same
year they made a coup with t{.r. gradoon's Lady Audley's secret. william founded Tinsley's
Magazine in August i862, *ith Yates as shareholder and editor until c' July 1869; although
never really successful it continued on until 1-892, even surviving the firm's in
-bankruptcy
iaza 1r+anr;. (Vol 7 of the Victorian Fiction Reasearch Guide series indexes Tinsley's
uogo)inr1. wittiuln Tinsley's 2-volume gossipy memoirs, Random Recollections of an Old
fuitirn"r 11900), have bein a useful tJut.. of information for these annotations' His
somewhat ipiter'l comments often reveal the more sordid aspects of the intriguing literary
scene that emerges from the letters..
3. Le., it was Thackeray, who was in Switzerland'
4. Only 9 eventuated (33n2)'
5. Eddy inThe Founding of Cornhill Magazine records George Smith on the subject: "Our terms
were lavish almost to tn? point of reckle-ssness. No pains and no cost were spared to make the
new magazine, the Uest periodical yet known to English literature" (20)' Eddy also gives a
summation of the events that led to GAS's employmint on Cornhiry (23-24)' As to "Mum"'
GAS wary of Yates's press-gossiping asks him to keep his mouth shut'
6. Copy for Alt the year Round Dickens's new magazine, which incorporated Household Words
30 April 1859 (lns)'
7.33n4.
8. He was rigbt! Everybody's Journal (editor w.H.D. Adams) had a short life - I' october l'859
to 28 Januaty-f AOO (Handlist of English andWelsh Newspapers).
70
t3sl
Tuesday. [18 Octoberl859]1
2 Bedford Street, Bedford Squarez
Better tell the truth and say Bedford Street, Tottenham Court Road
DearEdmund H,
At home here. Not so far from you.3 At home every evening after 6. Astleys last night
eh? Give old gentleman peppers.4 Whenever the D.T. send me to the theatre they have cause to
be sorry for it.
6 Yours in a "careworn" manner.
George: aug: Sala.
(n4).
2. GAS must have rented here for a short time in last months of 1859 until he got enough "tin"
(first par previous letter) "to take his wife to a little house of their own" (Straus 157), i.e the "new
Paphian Bower" at 19 Alexander Square (letter 38).
3. Yates then lived in Doughty Street.
4. The show that produced all the excitement was the opening night (17 October 1859) of
Garibaldi, "an original historical drama in four acts by Tom Taylot Bq., with great equestrian
effects" (Df 18 October 1859: 3). Garibaldi was a hippodrame full of horses and gunpowder
explosions, typical of the grand-scale productions at Astley's Amphitheatre, which had
originally been designed by horse-trainer and theatrical entrepreneur Philip Astley (I742-I8L4)
for circus performances. A rather suprising venue for Taylor, whose forte was in much more
sophisticated theatre with an emphasis on polished dialogue. tf GAS is refening to himself as
the "old gentleman" here his "peppers" could derive from the fact that the women performers
wore revealing tights, and rode astride, not sidesaddle. (The villainess of his novel Quite Alone
(L864), is an equestrian performer in circuses, including Astley's (1. ch 12).) Or perhaps the old
gentleman is his boss Joseph Levy, a friend of Taylor's, who perhaps would not be too pleased
with GAS's remark in his Dlreview that the horses were the better actors in a play that "dragged
on for three and half weary hours."
t36l
Saturday morning [1859]
2 Bedford St, Bedford Square
Dear Edmund H,
At home tonight after 7 or before if you like. Tell you all about Polyphemus's mag.l
dined with him on Thursday.
Yours ever
George: a: Sala.
I. Cornhill. Thus he dined with Thackeray.
7t

it pay either. [n August 1.861 he incorporated WG into his new ld weekly venture Robin
Goodfellow, edited by Charles Mackay (1814-1889), which had commenced 6 July and only
lasted 13 weeks (Wolff 118). Its only claim to fame is that it serialized the early chapters of M.E.
Braddon's Lady ,4udley's Secret. Maxwell had better luck with the further downmarket
Halfpenny Journal he launched about the same time (1 July), and which ran until 1865 with
Braddon doing most of the work, contributing seven, and perhaps eight anonymous novels (119).
6. "heaching in Playhouses": must be a piece by Yates, but it hasn't been located. On Monday
t6 January a short article appeared in the Daily News about "Special Sunday Services," which
dealt with a "new series of Sunday services in various London churches," and it seems in
playhouses. The writer, who could have been Yates, since he was the Dif drama critic at the
time, comments on the novelty, and relative theological worth of the proceedings in the Victoria,
Garrick, Britannia and Sadler's Wells theatres and St. James's Hall (3 :2).
7. Godfrey Tumer (1825-1891); studied art, then tumed to joumalism; associate of Sala, Yates,
Hollingshead and Brough; connected as both editorial staff and contributor to lllustrsted
Times,Spectator, Morning Chronicle, Leader, John Bull, Illustrated Times, Comic Times, Train,
Daily News (lnhrli 451); his longest position was with the DT - December 1860 to his death
(Boase\
L OED defines "galimatias" as confused language, meaningless talk, gibberish, and attributes it
to Montaigne. Presumably this is what GAS thought about Turner's article. The allusion to
Rabelais intimates the sort of language GAS himself would like to use to describe Tumer, if we
take as an example part of John Oxenford's contribution, "Francois Rabelais," to TB vol 2 June
1861: "A Billingsgate fisherwoman is conventionally assumed to be an accomplished mistress
of the art of vituperation; but her vocabulary would be utterly exhausted before she even
approaced the rich store of abuse which (following Rabelais) Sir Thomas Urquehart [Rabelais
translator] puts into the mouth of the bakers of lrrn6 when they refuse to sell their cakes to the
subjects of Gargantua." There follows a long paragraph of descriptive name-calling e.g.,
"prattling gobblers, mangy rascals, drunken roysters, slabberdegullion druggets, lubbardly louts,
ninny lobcocks, scurvy sneaksbies, blockish grutnols, dodipol jolt-heads, ninnie-hammer flycatchers,
noddiepeak simpletons, flutch calf-lollies, codshead loobies, gnat-snappers, lobdotterels
etc, etc etc"(322).
9. Florence Nightingale (1820-1910); reformer of hospital nursing, famous in the Crimean
Campaign (1854-1856). She wrote often and well on her interests in nursing and hygiene
(DNB). ln her own time her name had become synonymous with self-sacrifice and social
commitment, thus GAS is being rather iconoclastic here, and in modern terms chauvinistic.
Although he wasn't the only one. Nightingale's acerbic style, her domineering personality and
her strong convictions about the conelation between successful medicine and hygiene must have
challenged both the military and civilian establishments. Turner's article refened to is a review
of her latest book Notes on Nursing, published in 1860.
140l
Tuesday 7 February L860
19 Alexander Square, Brompton
My dear Edmund H,
I am concerned to hear of your trouble,l the more so as I have myself been obliged to go
twice down to my mother at Brighton lately. She is exceedingly ill, and, though I hope and
believe that she will live for years, is quite bed-ridden.
74
Of course there has been a great bother and commotion about your article on the
cornhi[;2 and I even heard rumouo o] Hannay and Greenwooo3 ,rtrJ*r*i a r*ign from the
I.T. in consequence. The 1st No of Hogarth was uphill work: the Second wif I trust, be better. I
am drawing an illustration on wood for No 2, but do'nt know whether it will be inserted till
Thackeray returns. I mention this because, when No 3 appears, and if the iltustration also
aPPea$, you might say something about it. You will know it by the G.A.S. in the comer.4
A combination of circumstances - one of them a violint mental rust and desire to read
books instead of writing copy - has kept me from the D.T. for three weeks, to the honor and
amazement of the tribe of S. who cannot imagine that any surcease in the process of brainspinning
is possible when they s€e a man who can do trvo leaders in a day and an art exhibition a
public dinner and a theatre all by one a.m. However, Mrs Sala following the examples of the
Knight's lady in the Tales of a Grandfatheri and'serving up to me one evening a pair of
unmended bluchers - in lieu of spurs - for dinner, gently ieminded me that it was-timi to go
moss-troopering6 again
hay write immediately you are at liberty to say when you can come, and meanwhile
believe me / Yours most truly
George: a: Sala.
L. Yates's mother was seriously ill too. She died 3
GAS's mother (letter 42)
2' This could have been one of a number of pars written by Yates in the 1I around this time. He
was really enjoying himself at the expense of Cornhitl and its editor Thackeray.
3' hobably Frederick Greenwood (1830-1909), who was to become one of the most famous
Victorian journalists and editors. He had trained as a printer and publisher's reader, but by the
1850s was writing ex-tensively for magazines including wG and n ow 266,309). tn 1g6t he
became first editor of the Queen; after Thackeray's res-ignation in rgti he rrip"a edit Cornhiy
with George Smith and others, and was nominalli its soli editor from 1g64 to 1'g69 (wellestey 3:
322); in 1865 he b:"ry:-!tt editor (again for George smith) of the evening paier palt Malt
Gazette (Cross 99); in.1880. he took up his last editoihip at tire head of the -newiy established
St'James'Gazette. or it could be Jamei Greenwood,* his younger brother (more of a bohemian),
who also wrote fot IT at this time.
4' In his memoirs GAS describes Thackeray's lack of enthusiasm for this wood-block until
George Smith interceded. It did appear in No) of Hogarth (Cornhitt March 1g60). ,'Mr George
Smith gave me five-and-trventy pounds.-...by, his glenerosity did not end there. The drawing
with my name attached.to it was produced in the gr{at iditioi de luxe of the works of william
Makepeace Thackeray (Ltfe 3$-a). Yates's "Literary l-ounger" gave a notice of Cornhig no 3
and included "in his ttpagily of artist [Sala] has also made "-rnort successful hit - his engraving
of Hogarth when Mr Gamble's apprentice iJtrtt of life and character" (n rc March 1g60:153).
5. Tales of a Grandfather (L827-30) by walter Scott; a history of Scotland.
6' Moss-troopering, from moss-trooper, one of the freebooters who infested the mosses of the
Scottish border in the middle of the 17th century QED). Thus Mrs sala reminds him that it is
time to go out after plunder again, i.e., after money' i.e., get back to work.

t4u
t. ft "
ptoyut; a weekly l.ondon dramatic and literary journal (2 January 1860-20 July 1861)'
2. Not included with MS.
3. John Hollingshead.*
Tuesday 27 March 1860
1,9 Alexander Square
My dear Yates,
Did you ever see the "Players"?t If not [?read] and yell at the enclosed2 and Pass to
Hogshead.3 I have laughed so at the joke that my gout is cured.
you might do me a good turn in the notice of present Cornhill by pointing out that
discursive (as t know) the preceding papers have been, no single fact in W.H.'s life (this is the
fact) has been omitted;4 thut all his great works were executed between 30 & 50, and that in the
present No. I am tracing the early squibs and booksellers plates he did, generally ignored by
ihose who only take him up at the Harlot and Rakes Progress. ln fact he is now in his
Yellowplush -fr4t and Fitzboodle stage.)
S is going wildly into-framing and glazing and requests me to ask you for one of
your Herbert Watkins photogaphsb of yourself. Can you get or give us one?
Maxwell is bringing-out the Baddington which ha[s] been thoroughly revised and half
rewritten, the standing liberal [?sum],7 and seems to me more incomprehensible than ever. t
have written a prefaceiexplaining to the critics that it is the worst novel that ever was written.8
I have untied that Routledge long-lost bundle, and am revising his first volume
complete.g I shall write and give him a couple of original unpublished articles complete as a
bonnebouche, when ready do you mind taking proofs and squaring him? There is another forty
pounds to come which I can draw on revision of Vol 2. I had fifty, and my neglect in not getting
at leasi a second set of the papers was about my last Bohemian insouciance' Tell him that the
papers have improved,like old wine, by keeping.
I hear poor Bob Brough is in an awful state dying and hard [up]. I trust my information is
not quite u..*ut".10
When [can] y9y come up. Not next Saturday there is another r * * cum Smithian spread
in Gloucester Squirell * * * every evening shall be at home'
[Yours] alwaYs
George: aug: Sala.
4. As instructed Yates did mention him in hisl"I "Literary Lounger" 7 April 1860: "Mr Sala still
gossips pleasantly of Hogarth . . . His very discursiveness, however, is rich in apposite anecdote
ind quaint illustration. Throughout the series each simple fact connected with Hogarth's life has
been introduced at the proper time . There is a plethora of information in the present
instalment, somewhat strongly seasoned, perhaps, with French and I:tin expletives, as is the
fashion with the great master [Thackeray] under whose banner Mr. Sala now marches." Yates
ends with a tribute to GAS's powers which have "raised him to an eminence which, in my
humble opinion, will never be thoroughly allowed until after his death." Although this sounds
like a generous "puff," in letter 44 GAS accuses Yates of "slating" him about his use of French
and I-atin .
5. The Harlot's Progress (1730-31) and The Rake's Progress (1733-35) are remembered as
Hogarth's most famous works, and have come to epitomize the satiric style of his art. What GAS
76
means here is that his earlier works have importance, for in them they carry the germ of his
greatness; analogous to the position that Thackeray's early contributions to Fraser's, "The
Memoirs of Mr Charles J. Yellowplush" (1838) and "The Fitz-Boodle Papers" (1842-43), hold
in hig oeuvre.
6. Herbert Watkins photographer; a leading exponent of "microphotography," a popular fad that
started in 1859 with a tiny portrait of Charles Dickens, whose detailing received much acclaim
(Gernsheim 318). His brothers, John and Charles, had a studio registered in their names at 34
Parliament Street, London at this time (1857-1876). Their work was often featured in the Z^l/,
and can now be found in many collections of cartes des visites of the period. The Victoria and
Albert Museum photographic collection has a number of examples which include portraits of
many of the characters in these letters.
7. Assuming the transcription is correct, this could be ironic comment on Maxwell's terms of
payment. However, it was not Maxwell that published the 1860 edition of. Baddington
mentioned here. See following note.
8. This preface appears in Skeet's three-volume 1860 edition of. Baddingto4 not in Maxwell's
one-volume 1865 edition, which carries no preface. Even though GAS extensively revized his
Ilserial (February to December 1857) for Skeet's publication his preface suggests that he did not
have much confidence in the novel since he asks himself why he did not "bury the dreadful thing
for ever" and admits that "many kind and judicious friends . . . have been candid enough, on
many occasions, to express their opinion, that the 'Baddington Peerage' is the worst novel that
ever was written." (See 9n7 for Henry Vizetelly's opinion.) Such contrived self-drepreciation
became a feature of the prefaces GAS often attached to subsequent works e.9., Rome and ltaly,
L869, and Echoes of Eighteen Hundred and Eighty-Three, 1884). This was possibly a reaction
to the constant barbs of The Saurday Review (for examples see SR critiques of. Baddington 9
June 1860: 746-749; Chesterfield 7 July 1860: 21), and later Matthew Arnold's "Philistine" tag
$zna). Paradoxically in this depreciation lay his defence. He always admitted that his critics
had a point, particularly with the prolixity of his style. However, he also reminded them that
popular opinion was on his side, as shown by the interest in his Echoes column, the geat
following of the DT and the success of republications of his special conespondent articles. "[ do
not write to please the critics," he says in the preface to his Life and Adventures, (which ran to
three editions after his death) "but in the humble hope of interesting the public" (x). See intro for
discussion of Amold's antipathy to GAS as a purveyor of mediocrity through the pages of the
Daily Telegraph. See also Philip C-ollins's introduction to the 1971 edition of. Twice Round the
Clock.
9. hrblishing firm of Routledge, Warne and Routledge, founder and chief proprietor George
Routledge (1812-1888). It is difficult to work out just what this "long-lost bundle" refers too.
In 1856 Routledge had offered f250 for a number of his I1T,/ articles, including those that made
up the "Journey due North" series. However, Dickens refused to part with the copyright and the
deal fell through (Ltfe 305-7). Iater, after the rift with Dickens had healed, A Journey Due
North was published by Bentley in 1858 (2n4), and 32 other items from HW by Chapman and
Hall as Gaslight and Daylight in 1859 (Irhrli 423). "I\e republishing of the latter by Routledge
seems to be what GAS refers to as "the first volume" that he was "revising complete," while "Vol
2" is Lnking at Life, or, Thoughts and Things,42 items published by Routledge in 1860 (4?4),
the year of this letter. The next few letters show that he was having trouble fulfilling Routledge's
order - which must have been more than the 42 articles finally printed.

L0. Bob Brough died 26 June (46n5). Earlier in the year he had taken over the editorship of.WG
under its new owner Maxwell. DifB mentions that GAS had also been an editor in its early
stages when Vizetelly was the owner. However, Vizetelly does not corroborate this, which is
quite understandable, since Sala and he were "redhotpokery" (letter 28) so often over missed
deadlines. ln Vizetelly's memoirs the reader is left to assume that he alone was both proprietor
and editor (Yiz2:9-10, 34-37).
11. "Smithian spread": part of letter missing, but perhaps it reads "Thackerayian cum
Smithian spread." GAS refers to George Smith as "a very munificent publisher" and a
"festive bibliopole" (Things L:29-30). Once a month the contributors, literary and artistic
were invited to a "sumptuous banquet" by their publisher at his home, tl Gloucester Square.
It was a "gossipy" New York Times story (reputedly by Yates, based on some remarks by
Trollope, a co-employee of the Post Office) about one such dinner that threatened a rift
between our two correspondents in letters 51, 52. Straus (156) suggests that the social
exposure at these dinners was instrumental in opening up a career path for GAS by
introducing him to the influences of the wider literary and publishing world. It was probably
GAS's association with literary lion Thackeray in the success of early Cornhill around this
time, for instance, that prompted Maxwell to engage him as editor of his new venture, Temple
Bar, in December. IB was a generously-sized (144 pages) monthly with much the same
format. as Cornhill, but without illustrations. Such social get-togethers also provided the
means of professional interaction crucial to newsgathering in its pre-phone, pre-fax period.
Editors like Dickens, presiding over the Household llords table, and Mark Irmon over the
"mahogany tree" of Punclr, established the "dinner" as a publishing institution; its function in
successful magazine production is higfulighted by Adrian in his biography of Mark Irmon.
Adrian claims that the Wednesday night dinners at Punch's Bouverie Street offices, sponsored
by publishers Bradbury and Evans, had a lot to do with its phenomenal success, because of
the esprit de corps they engendered, and the editorial ideas that flowed freely under the
influence of good food and drink (61-79). See also Punch editor (1880-1906) Frank
Bumand's Records and Reminiscences: Personal and General (1904) volZ: L-L2.
An interesting flow on from the Punch dinners is the unofficial diary of proceedings kept
by Henry Silver, a Punch staff member from 1.848, who was admitted to the inner circle of "The
Table" in 1.856 after the deaths of Gilbert i'Beckett and Douglas Jenold. Silver's report of an
exchange on 2 March 1859 between Ponny (Horace) Mayhew and publisher Evans gives insight
into how GAS's somewhat tarnished Bohemian reputation affected his peers - with a little
disgust and a touch of envy: Ponny: "There's Sala, too. Another d----d clever fellow." Evans:
"If Mr Sala had been a gentleman he should have had a seat at the Punch Table." Ponny: "Well, I
envy these Bohemians. Wish I was one of them."
l42l
[On Mouming paper]
Sunday 15 April 1860
1"9 Alexander Square, Brompton
My dear Yates,
Of course you have heard. My poor motherl died on Tuesday last. I am glad that I was
with her in the last. She owed scarcely anything, and we found four pounds in her purse. She
had had a long talk to me on the Sunday previous, and when we came to open her will we found
that it containid only the wish I had already anticipated: that she should be laid by her children2
in Kensal Green. There was unhappily, emergency in the matter, and I had not time to ask
78
anyone to the funeral save our family lawyer who was ill and unable to come. Else I would have
--"d you, and I am sure you would have strained a point to come if possible. As it was my
brothei Fred only and myself followed - all that was needed; - but Edward kvy begged to come
in his brougham and brought us home. The behaviour of the Irvys has been throughout
surprisingly t ind *O considerate. Indeed, everybody has been kind in good wishes, good deeds
und mna of"rs: Wills, Smith, even the flinty Maxwell. I was glad to find ^after my mother's
decease that she was in the receipt of a stipend from Lady Marianne AlfordJ and of a regular
yearly donation from the Queen;4 and, as in my Bohemian days I had sometimes been too
wretchedly poor to sbnd her money every week and my brother has a large family the poor dear
old lady was never hard up.
I am at home every evening, and, on non theatre nightss you my be able to find half-anhour
to come up here. Thank God no work is behindhand.
Your always faithfullY
George: aug: Sala.
L H"ntiett" Catherine Florentina (1789-1860), born in Demerara, Guiana, West lndies, the
daughter of a wealthy plantation owner. As a young child she was sent, according to colonial
.urto*, to be fashionably raised in London; at 18 she was forced to fend for herself after her
father, having lost all his money, was forced to withdraw his financial support, and at 23 she
married Augustus John James Sala a dancing master, the son of her landlady. A talented amateur
singer and pianist she took up a musical career to supplement the family income, and after her
hu6and's iarty death at 38, she maintained herself and her five surviving children through
teaching, stage performances and "benefit" concerts (Lrfe 4 passim)
2. Augusta and Charles (letter 6) are known to be buried there, although 8 other children died in
infancy.
3 A daughter of the Marquis of Northampton, who regarded herself as an artist and patron of the
arts (Cross 160).
4. Her education at a fashionable school in Kensington gave "Madame Sala" (as she came to be
known) the advantage of the patronage of rich and influential friends, including the Queen (Zrle
22). GAS talks about Royal 10 guinea donations towards the benefit concerts she organized each
year in london and Brighton(Ltfe 22). Presumably later she was put on the regular Civil list.
5. Yates was drama critic for the Daily News at this time. He had began contributing to the DN
occasionally about 1856, then became sole drama critic and assisted in book-reviewing. He
remained on the staff until sometime after 1.860, and was still accepting casual assignments as
late as 1.873 @dwards ttem 141).
I43I
[On Mouming paper]
Wednesday [18 April 186011
L9 Alexander Square, Brompton
My dearYates,
Many thanks for your kind letter. So far from squaring it with Routledge I have written
him a letter which he has not answered, offering to do iU in my power to mend the mischief.2
He is in a much better position than last year: my name being decidedly 50 per 7o better known
for bad or for good than in 1859. t wish that in your way back to W.C. you would call on him,
and endeavoui to settle matters. The forty pounds coming to me would be a blessing' I have
79

J
been working so hard to get out of debt; 11d the inevitable exPens'es of Death - from Brighton to
Kensall Green with mouming cost me f60 - have thrown me back again' But for the really
noble conduct of the Irvys, and some money luckily to the good at All the Year Round3 I do'nt
know what I should ftuutton". hay therefoie look in on him and communicate
Yours ever
George: a: Sala'
died (previous letter). See first sentence'
presumably in reply to Yates's condolences'
2. See 41.n9. Clues "mischief' and "since L859" suggest that ROutledge were upset about
something to do with their propos"A ,e-puUlication o{basttght and Daytight' or further IW
urri.l", tJbe inctudedinl'ooking at Life, or Thoughts and Things'
3. Fresumably two stories soon to be published inAYR: "Slow coaches" 2 June' 3: 184-188' and
;rUynt""t Van Frig" 30 June, 3:284-288 (Oppenlander29l)'
144l
My dear Yates,
Routledge is Doctor o'Duff.2
[on Mourning paper]
ednesday ltate April or May 1860]1
19 Alexander Square
fffntnllook
at his assignment.
150. I had remanet 140
(signed) Cocker.
They made a false accusation against -" of ..'ffithem articles already published'3 I never told
them that all the Shadows4 were mine'
Thereca,ntbeanymistakeabouttheamountunlessheorMorganfalsifiedtheagreement
they read over to me. gzo quotha! cttup*un g*e me €60 for 25 articles and half admitted it
was much too little.
IamreadytogivethemlbrEef,5articles-oftheH.W.formandsubstance,butlmust
know when they will sJnd the p'o-ft, agd the sum I am to is f40'
rys1ve
Why worry V""*"fi"Uout th?;-bi; Hogarth book? There is nothing on the engraving'
and besides Pri;:t"il;J""ff",ll,ti;r*a
from B on r. rhere are-6 partners in Allsopps6 who
all ask you to come and dine and go out hunting at once' ForsterT is the courier of Beerisburg
and toaiies all the six partners simultaneously'
' Without Prejudice to Routledge
tu"t toHorge:
aug: Sala.
over
[following on back of Page]
See here, Doctor y"t"s.'iou slated me last monthS about French & I-atin expletives in W'
Hogarth and accused me of imitating W.M.T.9 therein. O hater of Potyphemus! ca'nt you see
that what is affected in P. is natural to me? How often am I to repeat tha!.u.R to.fourteen years of
age I could'nt speJEigtisfr propertYlthat I came from France to an English school of which the
master was a madman and taught us German, spanish, gymnastics, playing on the fiddle and the
water cure, and no English grammar u, uiiilti -iu"ty dulnow I commit the grossest solecisms in
English composition; but if you like l-will send you the volume of the Family Herald containing
my first published essay A.D. 1845,rr in which you will find plenty of foreign "expletives".
Surely I was not imitating Thackeray then. I write this because in deference to the
animadversions of critics as perveme as yourself I have gone carefully thro' No 4 of W.H. and cut
out almost Evgly foreign "expletive". And please to observe that if I have quoted in the original
tongue a bit of Italian biography of Hogarth it is because the passage is singularly musical and as
copiously ters€ as a Iatin par from Tacitus. Surely it is as allowable so to quote half a dozen
lines as to follow the plan of the operatic critics.
"Madlle.Pizzicatol2 was loudly applauded in the stress she laid on the exquisite passage
uPoz-zo di Borgo
Tu sei birbante"
and again in the ritornello
"Cotta fanciulla
Mi piace di baciar"l3
Knowing (the critics who copy the quotation from [?Maquioni's] book of the words) about as
much of ltalian as I know of Hebrew.
1. I-ate April or first days of May (before 4th of letter 46). See penultimate par where he
mentions the 4th instalment of Hogarth (published in May Cornhill).
2. 1.e., inefficient, stupid: duffer. The O' because he was lrish, thus doubly stupid!
3. See43n2.
4. In fact Dickens's good friend Charles Knight (L791-L873) had been the author of six out of
the eight "Shadows" that had appeared in HW during 1851-52. GAS's contributions were
"Shadows: Day and Night' 24 luly 1852, 5: 450-2, and "The Shadow of a Dutch Painter" L8
September L852, 6:6-L0. These, plus "Our Doubles" 10 July,5: 388, a similar treatment of the
paradoxical fortunes of the great, were published, along with other HW articles, by Tinsley in
Dutch Pictures and Pictures Done with a Quill in 1861 , with Vizetelly bringing out a new
illustrated edition in 1883. For all his grumbling GAS didn't do too badly with his I17
copyright; including the one already mentioned there were six publications, three with second
editions. The other five were: Accepted Addresses 2 eds., 18621631' After Brealcfast; or, Pictures
Done With a Quill, 1864; Gaslight and Daylight, 1859; Looking at Life; or, Thoughts and
Things, L86O; A Journey Due North, 2 eds., 1858/59. See Inhrli 423-424 for list of articles that
finally compizedl-ooking at Life.
5. Yates had accidentally spilt a cup of tea over the "fifty guinea Hogarth" folio that George
Smith had presented to GAS while he was working on the Hogarth Papers. He amusingly relates
this disruption to his wife's afternoon tea ritual: "But woe is me! The teacup slipped from
Edmund's hand, and four of the choicest plates in the 'Maniage dr la Mode" were saturated with
tea" (Life 350).
6. Allsopp and Sons, Burton-on-Trent, a big brewing firm.
7. Perhaps John Forster (1812-1876), Dickens's friend and biographer, or, because of "toadying"
reference, politician William Forster (1819-1886), Liberal MP. Courier of Beerisburg play on
the Courier of St Petersburg (22n6), an equestrian drama produced at Astley's Theatre, in which
Alexander Ducrow thrilled audiences by riding a number of horses simultaneously.
8. See 41n4.
9. William Makepeace Thackeray.*
80 81

10. "Bolton House," Turnham Green; headmaster was John Godfrey Dyne who followed the
method of Swiss educator Johann Pestalozzi (1746-1827), which encouraged the use of the
senses as a conduit for leaming, "encouraging self-development and disregarding all arbitrary
and unreasoning instruction." In his memoirs (unlike here) GAS calls this an "excellent" school
and devotes an entire chapter to its exposition (131-139). ln an 1892 Strand Magazine
"Illustrated lnterview" he says: "I was sent to a school where lectures were object lessons. We
found something to learn in the green fields and flowers, knowledge in every article of furniture
in the house, from the piano to the fire-irons. Why, I read my Greek Testament in a laurel
grove!" (a: 6a) Could this be where his rambling and eclectic style sprang? From this
description Dyne's methods certainly seem unusually unregimented and comprehensive for their
day (contrast with Dickens's Mr GradgrindinHard Times).
1.'1. Family Herald (1842-1900+); from the 1850's to 1880's one of the most widely circulated
"family" papers, specializing in "escapist" short stories and full length novels for the indifferently
educated reader, who wanted to vicariously enter the life of the rich and aristocratic (Altick
Common Reader 360). GAS's first published essay was a short story called "Choo lno Kwang;
or, The Stags of Pekin." It was an. "apologue burlesquing the railway mania and the exploits of
one George Hudson, then known as the Railway King" (Life 176-77).
L2. Pizzicato: a musical term used to denote plucking rather than bowing of stringed instrument
like violin. This must be a send up, could a singer really be called Mademoiselle Pizzicato. [t
could be a play on Mademoiselle Piccolomina, a diva of the day. A piccolo is a small flute.
13. Carlo Andrea Poz"zo di Borgo (1764-1842) was a Corsican Count; a rather unscrupulous
foreign service agent, who intrigued for whatever country made it worth his while. He played an
important part in the diplomatic negotiations between Austria, England, Russian and Prussia that
brought about the downfall of Napoleon I (Escott Diplomacy 234). Yates's criticism of Hogarth
must be "playing" on GAS's mind. Sounds like pure Sala improvisation on a theme. Origins of
the "exquisite passage" cannot be discovered, but it reads:
Pozzo di Borgo
You are a rogue
and again in the refrain
lnfatuated young girl
That I love to kiss
t4sl
[On Mourning paper covered with blots]
Sunday flate April or May 1860]1
19 Alexander Square
My dear Edmund H,
I was sorry to have missed you; but was out at a business dinner with Barleycorn2.
[indecipherable because ink blot obscures the word] you see there is use in everything, even in a
blot. tf you will write about Routledge to 3 Danes lnn - another blot, and another converted into
a portrait of Peter Cunningham. Blot 2 is intended for the scops strix or horned owl, I shall get it
when I come on Tuesday to Chamben.
In haste to save train
Yours
George: a: Sala.
Turtle [blot that looks like a turtle]
82
Another blot by Jove. I will never write another letter with a quill pen.
Hogarth is all right. I mean the big book.3
l. As last letter, late April / early May L860. Both letters linked through mention of the Hogarth
print edition over which Yates spilt his cup of tea. Perhaps GAS is using the blots staining this
letter to have a dig at Yates.
2. Suggestion that he drank too much whisky, since "John Barleycorn" is the personification of
malt liquor (OED). If he has just anived home it could account for all the blots, and the tipsy
tone of the letter. Could Barleycorn and eWhill have any link, i.e., the dinner was a Cornhill
one? He does mention it was about "business."
3. He differentiates between his "Hogarth" papers in Cornhill and the book of Hogarth prints.
146l
[On Mourning paper]
Friday [4 May 1860]1
19 Alexander Square
My dear Edmund H,
Many thanks for the trouble you have taken in the Routledge affair. Here is the "office".
If you will get the copy I will return it to them with the three new articles promised within ten
days. But they must be [indecipherable] too to get it, as to serve me out they would like to suit
their own convenience in sending it.
Furthermore the,y may add to swell the volume if not already included in my list [of]
H.W. articles followingz
The last crusader 1,852
An exploded Magazine L854
This they may have Waiter! 1856
Mr Popes Friend 1854
I am uncertain as to this The Golden Calf 1854
Colonel Grunpeck &
Mr Parkinson 1855
Yours very faithfully
George: aug: Sala.
P.S. I hope you will be at the C.D. junior, dinner on Monday.3 Wittr regard to poor Bob Brough,
of whom I am afraid there is gg hope, Shirley Brooks4 is trying the Literary Fund. tf that fails
we must try a private subscription. I have already given Mrs Brough four guineas I collected and
what I could do, temporarily, myself.)
1. Friday before Charles Dickens Jnr dinner Monday 7 May 1860 (n3).
2. None of these were used by Routledge in the forthcoming Inoking at Lik: or, Thoughts and
Things, and the dates given by their author are unreliable when compared with l,ohrli:
The Last CrusaderIllT(18s3) and An Exploded Magazine HW (L853): both republished by
Tinsley in Accepted Addresses in 1862.
Waiter! HW(1856): reprinted by Tinsley inAfter Breakfast; or, Pictures Done with a Quill in
1864.
Mr Pope's FriendIiTZ(1855): not reprinted.
83

The Golden Calt HII/ (1854): reprinted by Tinsley in Dutch Pictures; with Some Sketches in
the Flemish Manner in 1.861.
Colonel Grunpeck and Mr Parkinson HW t855, not reprinted.
3. Young Charles was given a send off on Monday 7 May before leaving on the 20th for a
business trip to Hong Kong. (Dating: trip mentioned in "Frhoes from the London Clubs" New
York Times 26 May 1860: 2.) He had been working for the trading firm Baring Brothers for
several years and was travelling to China with the view of setting himself up in business in the
tea trade (Johnson 482). However he was not a successful entrepreneur, and in L867 after the
failure of another venture in the paper trade, which resulted in bankmptcy (550), his father took
him on toAYR, and left him his share on his death in 1.870 (576).
4. Charles William (Shirley) Brooks (1816-74), novelist, playwright and journalist; worked first
on ILN and the Morning Chronicle (as a parliamentary reporter); in 1851. he joined Punch (as
"Epicurus Rotundus"), and became its editor after Mark Irmon's death in 1870. His
comic\satiric novels include Aspen Court (1855), The Gordian Knot (1860), The Silver Cord
(1861) andSooner or Later (1868).
5. Bob Brough died 26 June 1860. The Literary Fund* declined to contribute so a benefit
concert for his widow and children was given at Drury Lane on 25 July at which GAS read what
Straus describes as "some moving verses of his own" (158). They were published in 'IAelcome
Guest (1860 2:370). A few lines give an idea of their sentimentality, as the dead Bohemian is
likened to a fallen warrior in a long series of heroic couplets:
He drew the glaive for justice, honour, truth;
He fell a vet'ran, though in years a youth.
He mov'd your mirth - uy, sometimes, too your tears;
He wore your harness, bore your shield for years.
His wit and fancy brought him nought but bread,
Your soldier yet deserves a mite, though dead.
The conscript's widow weeps, his children mourn;
'Tis yours to help the feeble, the forlorn
[Etc...etc...etc]
The same issue of WG contains a memoir of Brough by GAS (348]. As already noted (1n4) he
also completed Brough's unfinished serial Marston Lynch for publication as a book. Straus
suggests that it was largely due to GAS's efforts that an annuity was purchased for the penniless
widow and three children (158). One of these, Brough's son Lionel (1857-1906), became a very
successful actor-manager in Australia when he joined forces with Dion Boucicault Junior to
form the Brough & Boucicault Comedy Company after arriving in L885 under contract for a year
to J.C. Williamson (ADB).
84 85
I47l
[On Mourning paper]
Tuesday 22May [1860]
19 Alexander Square, Brompton
My dear Edmund H,
I shall be most happy Friday at 6.30.1 Shall you have bronchitis tomorrow?2 I have
clephantiasus [sic] of the troglodyte gland, and Doctor Darling has recommended the air of the
Surrey downs: medicinis lobster salad and dust with Mo6ts mixturelii3
very faithfully
George cheamgate Sala.
Why is an Admiral's full dress tile4 like the surety of a cetebrj.ted hostlery much frequented on
the evening of the Derby Day? Because its a C-ock-hat, sutt'n.5
H.Mayhew.6
t. Yates has invited him to dinner on Friday 25May,2 days after Albert Smith's death on
Wednesday 23td.. See next letter.
2. GAS is tempting Yates to take a day off with him in order to attend the Derby at Epsom in
Surrey, travelling out through Cheam (see signature).
3. Sounds like a deliciously boozy race day picnic lunch prescription - two parts champagne
"dusting" each portion of lobster.
4' Slang for hat. 1823 (OED); here an admiral's formal "cocked" hat. GAS used this same
analogue to determine the profession of his protagonist in a burlesque he wrote for the Gaiety
Theatre, Wat Tyler, M.P. (produced November 1869): "I settled in my mind - from the slang
analogue for a hat, a tile - that Wat Tyler should be by trade a hatter" (Life sII-Iz).
5. The C-ock at Sutton is the name of a pub featured in Seven Sons of Mammon (160) i.e "cockhat,
sutt'n" = Cock at Sutton, and its surety is that, like the admiral, it is certain (sutt/n) to be
"fuII" on Derby Day.
6. Henry Mayhew (I8I2-87); brother of Horace (Ponny) Mayhew and GAS's Bohemian friend
Angus (Gus) Mayhew; novelist and journalist; co-found er of Punch with Mark Irmon, and for a
short time (I84L-42) editor in its early yean (1841-L842. His major work was the journalistic
seies London Labour and the London Poor, fnst published in the Morning Chronicle in 1849,
and continued in various forms and publications over 15 years to create a classic study in urban
sociology (Sutherland 42). He also seems to have concocted silly riddles.
t48l
[On Mourning paper]
Thursday night[Z4 May 1860]
19 Alexander Square
My dear Edmund H,
I expected and indeed hoped you would put off your dinner. It woutd have been
impossible to be cheerful with poor A.S.r above ground. t had a letter from him at the end of the
week, so tremulous in its handwriting and so expressive in this break off "but I am knocked up
altogether" that Mrs S made me go down to North End2 on the Monday forenoon to enquire. Hi
was then, they said better. Did he play on Monday nightt3

I missed the Telegraph notice, being at Epsom.4 Is it well done, and by whom*? You
will do the t.T.5 On the fint of June t begin a weekly col, vice6 that unfortunate Peter, in the
Illustrated News,7 and shall do my best for poor Albertis memory.
Faithtully
George: aug: Sala.
*I make a point of not asking.8
1. Day after Albert Smith* died on Wednesday 23 May 1860. It is thought that he contracted
pneumonia walking in the rain to the Ganick Club after a performance of "China" in the
Egyptian Hall* on 12May.
2. Smith's home at North End Lodge, Fulham.
3. More than likely. Yates records say that Smith would not abandon his performanse, even
though he had to cut out the songs because of acute bronchitis. On Monday 21 he was ordered to
bed by the doctor, but it was too late (257).
4. Derby day,23 May. GAS refen to Smith's obituary notice.
5. Albert Smith's obituary, "Lounger at the Clubs" IT 26 May 1.860: 328. Yates also contributed
"The I-ate Mr. Albert Smith" to Welcome Guest,2 (1860): ZI6-L7.
6. In place of.
7. 2 June Supplement ZN 1860: 534. GAS's column "Literature and Art" (later to become his
famous "Echoes of the Week" [119n1]) replaced Peter Cunningham's "Town and Tabletalk on
Literature, Art etc." The last section in this, his first Z.l/ contribution, is a eulogy to Albert
Smith, or as he calls it "a humble garland we lay on an early tomb."
8. Perhaps because it should have been him - but he'd taken the day off to go to the Derby.
I4el
[On mourning paper]
Sunday [End May 1860]1
19 Alexander Square
My dear Edmund,
I am hard on to the Routledge. A deal of it is done; the whole would have been finished
ere this but for the Hogarth, which has nearly been delayed to smashing point through the
instrumentality of your friends2 Messers Fuller ind be d--dio them.
'Tis now three weeks since that much against my wish, Mrs Sala let the book (Hogarth)
go. The cup of tea on the margin did not matter one penny-piece. I thought that a week at most
would see the book back; but not hearing anything about it up to last Saturday I went to Fullers,
and asking rather firmly about it was treated with much insolence by a shopman who told me
that the book "was all in pieces" that it was a "most disagreeable job" which they had undertaken
"out of kindness" and that it would take "another week to finish", and that it would not be given
up "unless I paid for it". Thereupon I gave them a piece of my mind; told them that if the book
was not sent back within another week I should send a policeman for it, and I believe frightened
an old maid into hysterics. You would have been quite as much annoyed as I was, under the
circumstances. The three weeks they detained the book were precisely those during which I
wanted it for the Cornhill purposes. The Museum was closed from the first to ttrelightn of
May.3 I was in despair, and without being able to verify half my notes I was compelled io send
my article in.
86
Now mark the sequel, and mark whether I was right in my impression that Messers Fuller
:rrc rank duffers. Yesterday, Monday, on a wet afternoon, they send a man with the book on his
back wrapped in a piece of damp green baize with the enclosed cool letter.4 tt appears that
tluring these three weeks they have never touched lhe book. [t has been sent back exactly as it
wcnt. No; it seems somewhat dingier and more blunted about the edges.s Thus; the story which
thc shopman told me on Saturday was a pure British tradesman's lie; and I have been deprived for
three weeks of the use of a book to me almost invaluable, because Messers Fuller had not
thought proper to "consult their binder". Why did'nt they consult their binder in the first
instance? I think that these people have used you and me most scurvilji, and you may depend
upon it that t shall give them and their Gallery of Fine Arts a leg upo at the first convenient
opportunity.
Yours always
George: aug: Sala.
l. He mentions British Museum Library closes 1-8 May. Must be end of May - three weeks
after letter 45. He is talking about no 5 "Hogarth" published in June.
2. "your friends": Yates had arranged for the book to be sent to Fullers; a firm in Rathbone Place
who "undertook to take the stains out of old books" (Life 350-D.
3. The British Library, situated in the British Museum in Great Russell Street. Itstill closes
down for a week each year, but the time has changed to the first week in November.
4. Not included with MS.
5. Memoirs carry poignant note: "Alas! my 'Hogarth', which was sold with the rest of my library
during a two years' absence in foreign parts between 1865 and 1867, never recovered its pristine
beauty" (Lik 35I).
6. Not meaning a helping hand, more like a lifting of the leg, i.e., "piss on them."
ls0l
[On mouming paper]
fuesday moming [5 June 1860]1
19 Alexander Square Brompton
DearEdmund H,
I shall finish Routledge this week. Only one number more of Hogarth to do. 3 to appear
but the last will be honibly summary. I am however to have any space, and lots of plates in the
republication.2
I am glad you saw the "New" col:3 I ca'nt help making it prolix and cranky, and perhaps
it will be better as a contrast to the fwang of poor Peter's banjo; but you have no idea of the good
it does me in the way of influence. I must take care not to say anything about people's noses. Du
reste, I have one of my own not only-rubicund but split.4
Grand dinner at Greenwich5 yesterday given by Massa Titmarsh6 to the fashionable
world. I-adies galore. I felt very much ashamed at having come down by rail, and said the wheel
had come off my brougham.
Mrs S has been exceedingly ill with this infernal weather; but now, being convalescent,
begs to know when you will come and dine an evening here. Any day to follow this will suit us.
faithfully yours
George: aug: Sala.

P.S. I am sorry to hear so many of poor Albert Smith's quondam friends talking very
uncharitably about him. Did his will really leave so much to be desired? /
1. Tuesday after his first column appeared in ZlV Saturday 2 June 1860 (n3).
2. "Hogarth" was not republished until 1866 by Smith,Elder (Straus 287).
3. "Literature and Art" in ILN (8n7).
4. Not surprisingly he had a thing about noses after the damage done to his own (letter 24).
ln the Baddington Peerage* he gives a prescient picture of what his nose was to become:
"He had a flaming red nose, set amidship in his face - a nose that was a very cairn of crimson
cherry stones, a very standard rose-tree of grog blossoms" (76). And in Temple Bar his
article "Noses: a chapter out of Lavater" extols the virtues of large noses over small (July
1862: 194). Like the Swiss physiognomist Johann Lavater (1741-1801), whose work
inspired his piece, he attempts in his own amusing way to elevate physiognomy into a
science. later on we shall see that his own nose had its good and bad points, gaining him
both ridicule and reward to the tune of f500 (see intro and letters 89, 90). He often made fun
of his nose himself and, according to Straus, in general never allowed its peculiarities to
disturb him except on one occasion which is worth mentioning since it epitomizes his quick
and often outr6 wit: on meeting a young guardsman who had spoken disrespectively of his
nose his greeting was: "Are you the snot that ran down my nose" (138).
Mary Braddon's Dead Sea Fruit (serialized Belgravia August 1867-September 1868)
hints at the reason for the fiery hue of that nose, in the depiction of her character Daniel
Mayfield, a "wholly recognizable sketch of George Augustus Sala" (Wolff 184). Pondering on
the high-earning Mayfield's impecunious state she wonders how he spends his money: "Did he
consume fifteen-hundred a year in tavern parlours?" (Ibid). The Table talk at Punch's weekly
get-together on 30 December 1861 was on the same subject, when in the context of GAS's
unreliability and habit of disappearing for months at a time (presumably on a drinking binge),
Shirley Brooks described the end of his nose as redder than that of his cigar (Henry Silver's
Diary).
5. hobably at the Ship Inn, Greenwich (Yiz 2: L3, Things 1: 38). [t seems to have been a
favoured press venue. Yates's memoi$ mention "fish dinners at Greenwich" as being in vogue at
this time (103).
6. One of Thackeray's pseudonyms in Frazer's Magazine - Michael Angelo Titmouse. In his
chapter on Thackeray inThings I Have Seen and People I Have Known GAS calls him "hotean"
because he "used to baffle me by donning such aliases as 'James Yellowplush', 'George Savage
Fitzboodle', 'Ikey Solomons, Junior', 'Major Goliath Gahagan', and at length 'Michael Angelo
Titmarsh"'(1: 9).
7. Apparently Smith had hinted to his friends that they would be remembered in his will. But,
(and Vizetelly answers GAS's question here), "all these expectant legatees were doomed to
disappointment, for to none of them did he bequeath so much as a penny-piece" |/iz l:322).
88
tsu
[On Mourning paper]
Monday moming [2luly 1860]1
19 Alexander Square, Brompton
My dearEdmund H,
The ugliest rumours are current accusing yog of the authorship of the article in the New
York Timesz adverted to by the Saturday Review.r If you will give me a plain denial of the
imputation I will contradict it categorically in the illustrated News, in the Critic and in the
Telegraph - if the proprietors of the last journal will permit the insertion of the contradiction. If
you cannot do what I seek you will understand at once the uncomfortable hitch in our relations of
friendship which must arise, my name having been mentioned in connection with the Cornhill
Magazine. Irt me add that when my remarks in the lllustrated News bearing on the scandal
were written (i.e., last Tuesday)4 I naa not the slightest clue to the name of the author of the
article in the New York Times.
I hope that like a good fellow and an old and valued friend you will enable me to clear up
this unpleasant affair'
Most faithfully yours
George: aug: Sala.
1. Monday afterlL/Vcolumn "Literature and Art" Saturday 30 June 1860: 620 (n4).
2. "Echoes from the l,ondon Clubs" (From Our Own Correspondent. London, Saturday, May
12) New York Times 26 May L86O 2. This is a rather bitchy dig at Inndon social and artistic
circles, plus a disparagement of Cornhill, its editor Thackeray, and publisher George Smith.
Smith is referred to as "totally unread; his business is to sell books, not read them," and it is
suggested that he doesn't even know who Dr Samuel Johnson was. [t was presumed that
Yates sent the copy to America, sincc his animosity to Thackeray was well known. The story
goes that it was Anthony Trollope, gossiping about a Cornhill dinner he had attended, who
inadvertently supplied Yates with his ammunition. As the article was not signed there is no
hard proof, although following letter 52 suggests that he did not deny authorship. The "unnamed"
Special London Conespondent of the NY Times struck again on 1.8 August (London
21 July) with a recap and vindication of everything he had already said in criticism of
Thackeray. He asks directly "[s the story tnre? Can Mr Thackeray deny it?" The Nf Times
goes on to print a selection from Thackeray's August Cornhill "Roundabout Paper" in which
he castigates, in a far from roundabout manner, both the NY Times for its gossip, and the SR
for advertising that gossip, which he insists is utter fabrication. Thackeray finishes with a
warning (very similar to that which GAS had already given to Yates in October 1857: letter
15 last Par) ". . . woe be to you, if you allow private rancors or animosities to influence you in
the discharge of your public duty" (2: 3)
3. In "Newspaper Gossip" SR 23 June 1,860 (9: 799-800). Yates's retaliated with a thinly-veiled
attack on the SR in his "Albert Smith: In Memoriam," prefaced to a new edition of Smith's Monr
Blanc (Inndon: Ward and Lock, 1860).
4. ILN 30 June 1860: 93 (ILN came out on a Saturday). Here GAS calls the NY Times columnist
a "transatlantic cad," and accuses him, or his London informer, of publicising "a farrago of the
paltriest gossip mingled with the foulest lies." The SR, he claims. is just as bad because its story
does nothing more than encourage prurient public interest on the grounds of deptoring it. But hg
didn't let the story alone either. InILN 28 July L860: 93, he calls attention to Thackeray's August
89

Cornhill "Roundabout Paper" (n2 par 2 above), in which Thackeray "administers a quiet, but
condign castigation to the imprudent scribe who, on the principle of the ostrich hiding his head in
the sand and so thinking nobody could see his tail, imagined that by publishing his tittle-tattle a
few thousand miles away no one in England would ever read a syllable of it." Of course, by that
time he knew that Yates was the culprit.
Henry Silver's diary reports Punch Dinner conversation about all this on 5 July 1.860, in
which John Irech uses some even stronger words to describe Yates's actions: "Yates writing
about Thackeray in New York Times - can't be a gentleman. Wants kicking. No use using the
kid glove style of argument with a Bohemian - must take to the bludgeon to make any
impression on such a pack of * * * " (typescript of transcription damaged here, but what he said
is probably best left to the imagination anyway). Funny that GAS, the epitome to Punch crew of
Bohemia, was on the "gentlemen's" side. Or was it just because he was looking after his own
interests as member of. Cornhill staff? Next letter shows latter to be the case.
ls2l
[On Mouming paper]
Tuesday night [3 July 1860]1
19 Alexander Square, Brompton
My dear Edmund H,
I am very sorry that it is as it is; but, from my liaisons with Cornhill you will understand,
as a man of the world, that I ca'nt uphold you, that I have no alternative, and that there is an end
of the matter.
_ Still, I am not going, from my glass-house here, to throw the first stone at Doughty
Street2 - or indeed to throw stones anywhere or at anything save at the Saturday Review3 and
the American Press, against whose London and Paris correspondence I have a very ancient
grudge for wanton and malicious calumnies published concerning myself.
You will understand, therefore, that the unavoidable cessation of intercourse to which I
am pledged is entirely, as the lawyers say "without prejudice" to our mutual appreciation of the
fitness of things. With you, personally, I have not the slightest bone of contention; and I am sure
you would always be readier - in public and in private - to do me a good than an evil turn.
This nonsensical business4 will blow over, I suppose, some day; meanwhile I must
subscribe myself
"Your obedient seryant"
George: a: Sala.
L. Day following letter 51, orweek later.
2. I.e., Yates's house.
3. "I was subjected from L860 to L867 . . . to periodical streams of abuse in the columns of the
Sarurday. My fint impulse when I read my Saturday at breakfast was to sit down and pen a
polite note to the editor p.D. Cook] . . . telling him that he was an anonymous coward, liar, and
scoundrel" (Life 357). GAS 'threw a few stones" at his tormentors in his preface to Robert
Bough's posthumously published Marston Lynch when he noted that Brough's final work (other
than the unfinished Marston Lynch),Which is Which? or, Miles Cassidy's Contract, was ravaged
by the SR, which "thought the fact of the author being on his deathbed, too favourable an
opportunity for making a savage onslaught on him" (ix).
4. It might be nonsensical, but this "business" had filled quite a few columns; an example of
how the enclosed world of the press is able to generate its own copy. Growing public interest
90
in press "gossip" indicates how readers, especially those of the burgeoning middle class,
enjoyed such insights into the life of those they considered to be the "literati." Doubtless
social prestige on "cultural" matters was to be gained by the ability to converse on such
subjects (no matter how vicariously). The SR was particularly partial to instigating this kind
of controversial feedback to encourage interest in its pages (Cross 98-99). And, as GAS
discovered, in the pages of those it targeted, for he came to realize that as far as his public
image was concemed "any publicity was good publicity" (18n19). Founded by rich,
conservative landowner, politician and classicist A.J. Beresford Hope (1820-1887), the SR
set itself up as the leading intellectual periodical of the day, and as such was the most virulent
and consistent enemy of "upstart" Bohemian writers. lts position was analogous to earlier
critical reaction to Irigh Hunt's Cockney poets. All part of establishment "culture's" defence
against the rising tide of popular influence that threatened to overwhelm it. The Review's
"reviewers" were classically educated university men, in the main dons, clever young clerics
and barristers, not paid hacks like those at whom they aimed their criticism.
Sequence of the Yates generated "Cornhill scandal" goes like this:
26 May - Comments about Thackeray et al in "Echoes from the London Clubs" in NY
Times.
23lune - rehashed with comment in SR's "Newspaper Gossip."
30 June -GAS's first par in his "Literature and Art" col in ILN.
28 July - GAS's second par in Z.tVcolumn.
August - Thackeray's "Roundabout Paper" in Cornhill castigates gossip perpetrator.
L8 August - "Echoes from the London Clubs" in NI Times with a tongue-in-cheek
justification of its initial article goes over the same old thing all over again, and reprints
Thackeray's C or nhill comments.
ts3l
[On Mourningpaper]
Thursday nightl
94 Sloane Street, Knightsbridge
My dear Edmund,
I have written to Maxwell, giving up Temple Bar,2 and be d--d to it, for good and all.
"[n infancy our hopes and fears
Were to-o-o each other known"
So writes the pleasing poet in "Artaxerxes";3 but there would be no end to our friend McSwell's
hopes and fears and ishould be wonied to death before Christmas. We will meet Don Duffero4
at L.30 Saturday to see what he has to say for himself, and on Monday I will break fresh ground
for the Mag.5 '
Faithfully yours
George.: aug: Sala.
L. Difficulties arise for dating here since he speaks of "giving up Temple Bar" and this would
seem to place it at a later date. Yet mouming notepaper ties it to his mother's death in April
1860. Address places it in 1860+ period before he moved to Slough. His memoirs state that he
decided to move there in 1860 (365) but this may not be entirely reliable. Was he already having
trouble with Maxwell, even before TB got off the ground in December 1860? Clue for this is the
quotation "in infancy etc"; also mention of Christmas. This must refer to Christmas 1860 as
following letter, the last in the mourning group, is positively dated as 16 May 1861. 1860
91

watermark is further evidence (arthough not entirely reliablc cithcr, since note paper can be used
at a later date.
2. TempleBar (1.860-1906) o'as I shilting -9ntll{.l"gchcd bv Maxwcll with GAS as editor
and Conductor, and Yates as his sub-edit"id,I, 3-C1' -fttttt is unccrtainty as to how long GAS
remained in the editor's chair, or fro* ti"t, o'ort f" did whilc hc was there' His name
disappears off the title page of TB bound toiut"t at vol 7 (March 1863) and in Things I Have
Seen and people t nir[iio*n,he recollects that Yates took ovcr as edi.r when he went to the
United States in November 1863. Vurrr'r-rn"noirs suggest that he did most of the work even
when GAS was editor: "My old friend c";;;G;'iuISA" n"O undertaken the editorship' and
had expressed a wish, in which rrrrr r"rux*"ii"on"irrro, that I should act as assistant or working
editor,, Q6l),and "Sala had so much titerary ana iournalistic work that' beyond giving his name
to the cover and the supervision to tfre priirteJ sileets, he left 'ott oi the detail to me" Q63)'
Iater in the wortdhe refers to himserf o s"rut assisiant and irte, ego (3'lTu"ry 1878: L2)'
See Wellesely 3:386-391., "Templ, n*,-e frndon Magazine for To:wn'and Country Readers'
1860-1900" for a comprehensive overview of the magazine' -
Wolff seems to capture the atmosiiere 9i
ti"-g"tionship between Maxwell and his
employees during this period: "outside.the window of Maxwell's shabbv.littf.:it* in shoe
I-ane, off Fleet Street, there stood in the l;; fifties half a dozen hungry younq journalists drawn
up in a rank like cabs, eager for a-commission' When Maxwell *uitiOone he would open the
window and shout, and up would *t" G"o,ge Augrrstus Sala or Edmund Yates or Percy
Fitzgeratd - *ho"u", *u" i the head otif,, quJ* * tftt -TgPent - and proceed to edit a new
periodical, write a series of articles, or produce a guide book'(8O)'
3. Artaxerxes:. z. (1g15 version printed in lnndon by lowndes, held in Fryer Library'
University of eueensland.) In his n'.tJobeS recalls thii Enelish version of the opera by Dr
Thomas Arne (1710-1288), who translated the libretto "Artasefu G72g) of ltalian lyric poet
and briltiant improvizer Pietro Vt"tustusio liiilt-nff,/1' .It was the first ltalian style opera
performed in lnndon (L762)._ As the a theatricat mother, GAS remembers standing
"rtilo "t
behind the curtain during its Lg32 ,"*on,'in *rtur she performed, until he knew the words off
by heart (Life 57-58).
4. Don Duffero = Maxwell. This is easy to work out considering he is always calling Maxwell a
duffer.
5. ,,break fresh gound for the Mag." Mag.= Temple Bar' Dating - this reinforces idea of first
stages of the magazine, perhaps fer
fiit issue-has been prepaied (n1)' In his memoirs Yates
th3
uses the *rn" ptr*" inlonnection with lit ti", issue; "Sala Utft" griund with an instalment of
"Travels in the County of Middlesex" (261')'
ls4I
Dear Edmund'
[on Mourning paper]
1 o',clock ftrursaalff,HJ#fl?
Smash! inevocable smash. I am overwhelmed. I have seen and heard nothing
of you since last month. I know nothing;f tf'" iunt number' I only know that this is the 16th
ani that I have not finished Mammon'J
A set of ill luck has come uPon me that wretched brother Albert of mine has been
discharged fr". ri;;;i,i'*t.i" irr"iJ r,. *"r safe and I have been raising Heaven and Earth
92
to get him off to India. Austin5 has let me in for a bill of f35; the d--d- printing and publishing
company mulcts me in a banknrptcy contributory of, tLzstt That duffer M. has been in Paris -
and I do'nt see how I am to get to Texas. You will see by the Telegraph report of the Literary
Fund dinnef ttt" pleasant occupation which kept me chronicling small beerT until 2.30 this
morning when I might have been progressing with Mammon. I am going to leave aback [sic]
and rush home, go at it all this afternoon and night and the whole will be finished I hope and trust
by L2 tomorrowl But tomorrow is the 17th. Eleleu! Eleleu! Ai Ai.8 Will you write by this
night's post to me at
Uptori Court9
Upton-cum-Chalvey
near Slough
Bucks
that I may know tomorrow morning how far T.B. is [?uncertain]. Maxwell's silence makes me
apprehend some sinister designs. Why did I begin Mammon? Why? Why?
And so no more from / Yours ever
George: a: Sala.
The new chapters are
xvi. The Sexagenarians (this is a screamer I believe a sort of boarding house where Dr
Smethurst might have met Miss Banker;.10
xvii. Lady Bountiful: (This is Magdalen Hill in London doing social [?service] and
meeting Ruthyn Pendragon in a model lodging house).rr
xviii. The Derby.rz
1. GAS occupied chambers here during TB period. He shared the premises with Rudolf
Gustavus Glover (Yates 263) of the War Office (Life 363), who remained a lifelong friend. He
was not a writer, but interested in literature (Hodder 373); an interest no doubt fostered by his
father, who had been a government librarian (37L).
2. Day after the Royal Literary Fund meeting 16 May 1861 (n6). Actually must be early hours
of Friday 17 Nday.
3. The Serten Sons of Mammon,serjalized in TB January-December 1,86L; republished in 3 vols,
l862,by Tinsley brothers. Their first "serious venture" in 3-volume fiction, which although it
gained lavish praise at the time, being compared with Balzac (Straus 161), has not survived its
period, fulfilling William Tinsley's hindsight (1900) judgement that "it had few elements to give
it long life" (Tinsley L: 5l-52). GAS thought it was the best of his novels and in his preface
called it "my little Human Comedy."
4. Presumably the "Middlesex County llnatic Asylum" at Hanwell, famous as the first British
mental institution to turn from archaic restraint methods to more humane treatment of the insane,
under the guidance of physician John Conolly (1794-1866). The troublesome Albert turns up
later in the West Indies as a pirate (letter 63), and then in Hawaii, as a missionary (letter 138).
5. Perhaps Wiltshire Austin (L826-I875), a member of the fB staff at the time (see 18n18). He
was the "son of a West lndian gentleman . . . a most remarkable man; handsome, richly lettered,
witty, humorous." However "he managed to muddle away a life full of promise and died
prematurely" (Life 355). According to Vizetelly, Austin sacrificed a successful career as a
barrister because of his "fondness of ignoble ease and convivial indulgence" (Yiz 2:49). T.H.S.
Escott describes him as "ultra Bohemian" (Escott, Masters741). See letter 63 for glimpse of
Austin's "degeneracy. "
93

6. Literary Fund Dinner reported in Times 16 May, 1861' As GAS's "two thirty this morning"
shows the annual dinner *u, marathon affair:- Cross reports that the form of the dinner
"
(inaugural 1793) had become remorsclr.r, more,or.less to the precedent set in l'800'
"onforrning
when 314 male guests managed to drink zqa ;ttl"r oiport, 69 bottles of sherry and quantities of
beer, porter and punch. Courses *rr" pun"i*ted by songs, glees and poetic recitations' Nearly
everyone made a .p"""ft, ending in- a triott of the guests still managed to enjoy
-toast.
themselves! l:dies;;;rffi;"pto."aingt from the gallery; where they were allowed light
refreshments, including temonade (19)'
7. l.e.deating with trivial matters. Ftom othello 2' l' 16Oz "To suckle fools and chronicle
small beer."
8. Eleleu is the cry of Bacchus' Ai ! Ai! = Woe! Woe!
g. GAS's country residence - rented, of course: "I felt quite baronial when I settled the terms for
taking Upton Court loiu-yr*'; (Ljti-166). He commuied by train to London every day excePt
S";;;e"y; from Slough Station to Paddington (368)'
10. Protagonists in a sensation murder trial in 1859 (32n2)' Dr Smethurst was accused of
mura"ringiis wife after bigamously marrying Miss Banker'
l.l.MagdalenHillandRuthynPendragon,twoofthemaincharactesinMammon.
12, on publication these chapter headings became:.xvi, Mrs Caesar Donkin; xvii, The
Sexagarians;xviii,nutottft"Deluge'TheyappearedintheJuneissueof'TB'
tssl SaturdaY moming [June l'861'1]
Upton Court, U. cum Chalvey, not Slavey
My dear Edmund,
^
Du Chailluz is t think a Franco-American Maxwell;3 but till somebody has been to the
country, and, comint u""r. rry prgvgsl him to be a liar I think it would be
corlru.lna"iTi*nd
unjust to play into the hanis of the nJ,t ;td iogiilf ttt" British Museum whose mental
horizon is at the end of a glass-case. tt was'a simplelfeelilq of itlsgga that prompted me to give
him the mention in vtamion,S - ,eme-u"ting too, ttrat dbyssinian salab was stigmatised as a
liar by almost every savant of his time; *Jiftit Boiremian Sulu *ut accused by several donkies
[sicJ of our own time of never having gon. t rtt ", than Ostend in his Joumey Due North'7
Can you mafe it convenieiito look in at Clements lnn on Tuesday next' anytime
between t2 arrd5 barring the half hour between 1 & 1.30. It would fill too many Pages to write
all I have to say on T.B. I am getting on .iu*intly with. next-Mammon and hope to finish early
as I want to write * *-fno i"int"n
"r.uy (XhilUitions) [sicJ for July No' Unless indeed ygg
iu". *, when I witl writi ott tottttting etse'8
Heard v"" ;i;;;;;rui?iJ"* see vou' Glover and I came down in a tranquil
"f Hansom, and bivouackeJ on the'frin. fotyptremus came uP, an9 we treated him to a tumblerfull
of Mose'e. with his usuar charming,n#tit" of politeness and insult he drank half himself and
gave the rest tqlhgCabsag!!!
We are anxiously expecting you at Upton Coul for the Ascot week'10 Let me know in
time what day you as we might arange a traP reasonable to the course
;;;;;t-irig'down
from Slough.
94
Damn Austin and his articles.ll
Miss Braddonl2 has a good notion for a tale when for Better for Worse is completed.
Pray come to Chambers on Tuesday if poss: / faithfully
George: aug: Sala.
1. Chapter 18 of. Mammon containing reference to Du Chaillu published in ZB May 1861: 145-
77,but letter must be in June since it is after the Derby on Wednesday 29 May (par 3); perhaps
Saturday L June.
2. Paul Belloni Du Chaillu (1835-1903), born in Paris or New Orleans (thus reference to
Franco-American); explored West Africa, and published findings in his Explorations and
Adventures in EEntorinl Africa (1861), which made an important contribution to geographical,
ethnological and zoological science, particularly in relation to gorillas. These were initially
received with much suspicion by a scientific establishment defending its belief in "divine
creation" against the vigorous onslaught of the new guard "evolutionists" such as Charles Darwin
(1809-1882) and T.H. Huxley (1825-1895). (Darwin's revolutionary On the Evolution of
Species by Means of Naural Selection had been published in 1.859, and the agnostic [he coined
the word in 1869] Huxley's popularist lectures against its critics were designed to shake science
free from fundamentalist influence by emphasizing mankind as an integral part of the
evolutionary process, inextricably linked to its primate ancestry.
3. [.e., a liar.
4. ln context here play on Baboon, also probably means Gabon, part of West Africa that became
the territory of French Equatorial Africa; resumed its name after gaining independence in 1960.
5. Du Chaillu mentioned apropos of his fabricating his explorations.
6. Abyssinian Sala ?? No reference to GAS visiting Abyssinia can be found.
7. The surveillance of the Russian secret police had forced GAS to delay sending off his
"Joumey Due North" articles until he reached Brussels on his way home. This gave rise in
England to rumours that he was in danger, even that he was dead. When his articles did start to
appear (4 October 1856) the rumours changed to suspicion as to whether he had really been to
Russia at all, and he was accused of inventing his copy (Straus 121).
8. h fB July 1861 issue GAS contributed a signed preface, The Seven Sons of Mammon (chaps
I9-2L) and the "something else," 'ln loco parentis.' No record of anything by Yates (Wellesley 3:
3e4).
9. Derby Day 1,861was Wednesday 29 May.
10. Ascot 1.861 commenced Wednesday 24luly.
11. C-ould be either refening to articles written by Wiltshire Austin* for TB around this time, or
by his brother Charlcs, a known contributor of articles to the Saturday Review criticizing GAS
and the DT. \\e anonymity of writers in the SR makes it difficult to identify more than two of
these articles, and both of them are of a later date. However, this letter does fall into the 1860-67
period when GAS tells us that he was under SR attack (Life 356-58). Merle Bevington in The
Saurday Review 1855-1868 identifies Charles Austin as the author of "Jupiter Junior" (SR 28
March 1863 15: 400-402) and "Jupiter Among the Bottles (18 April 1863 15: 491) (333). cAS
also names Austin as their author. The first was "a slashing article castigating the young and
aggressive Daily Telegraph," which criticized its florid style with its overuse of classical
allusions, insinuating that they were "mere appropriations from lrmpriEre's Classical Dictionarl'
95

and armorial bearings in Burke's Peerage" (Lrfe 356); the second made fun of an extremely
digressive article th"i hua ail the hallmarks of GAS's style but which he refused to acknowledge
(ibid). As both were attacks on GAS it is possible that Austin was also responsible for
"5-5ir
scathing Si reviews of a number of GAS's books prior to this letter, namely The Baddington
peeragZ, g June L86O, Lady Chestefietd's Letters to Her Daughter, 7 July 1860. More of the
same iollowed in later r"ui"*s of. The Seven Sons of Mammon,l. February 1862, and Captain
Dangerous,3 October 1863 (67n4).
lZ. Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-191.5), destined to become the "Queen of the Circulating
Libraries," the most consistent of Victorian bestselling novelists (Sutherland 80). She went to
live wittr I8 publisher John Morwell soon after their meeting in 1,860, and bore him 5 children
before they wlre married in 1874, after the death of his insane wife. As William Tinsley puts it :
"Mr Maxwell had good reason to be proud of his wife and the fortune she made for him" (1: 63).
The Tinsleys had ieason to be thankful to Braddon as well, since their republication of- Lady
Audley,s Siqet in three-volume form (1S62) resulted in t10,000 worth of orders (Sutherland
630). Edward Tinsley built a villa at Barnes (Tinsley 2: 291) called 'Audley Lodge" on the
proiit. (yiz 2:137-38). See letter 74 for GAS's comments on Maxwell living off the profits of
his wife's writing.
There is some confusion over the authorship of For Better, For Worse, which was
serialized in Ig December 1860-September 1861.. Wellesley cites it as being ediled by Edmund
yates both in its serial form and later as an anonymous novel (1864), purported to be by a former
euaker lady, wife of a provincial clergy man "who had never written previously for the press"
(Vates 2Ofi Uut that latir in 1894 the TB lndex volume 100 attributed it to Braddon. ln fact vol
i00 mentions her three times as the serial author. S"" PP 14,43, and 151, where under the head
"principal Stories in Temple Bar" are listed, among others, The Seven Sons of Mammon by
George Augustus Sala, and For Better, for Worse by Miss Braddon. Yates's memoirs ten years
earlie-r (1gg?) maintain that the two-part The Mystery of Fernwood was her first contribution to
the magazine lwetlesley 3: 393). Wolff in his biography of Braddon lists For Better, For Worse
as a pliy, unpublished but peri'ormed, based on her novel, Like and tlnalike (a68n12)' GAS's
amUguous ,ifrt"n"" in thil letter doesn't help much since jt is not clear from his sentence
whetier it is Braddon, or somebody else, who is the author of.For Better, For Worse.
The Mystery'of Fernwooi, presented in two parts (November-December 1861) and
signed "The authoi of.-Indy Audtey'i Secret etc," was presumably the 'good notion" referred to
here.
ls6l
Lines to mY Publisher2
A wretch whose neck suits Samson's axe well:
Iha! is the rhYme I find for Maxwell
A knave who sweats his wretched hacks well
Oho! another rhYme for Maxwell!
When him the Tonga Murray whacks well
I'll sit upon the corpse of Maxwell.
96
Saturday Morning [?September 1861]1
14 Clements lnn
My dearEdmund,
In discharge of my duties as Editor,3 to the performance of which you may have to swear
some day I send you the correspondence concerning your department of Temple Bar. How
carnestly I hope that the circulation will go down this month and that Maxwell's creditors wo'nt
wait much longer!4
Grieve not about your Alpine holiday. You shall depart, by cock and pyes you shall by
the twelfth, and in the December number of T.B. Mammon will be completely finished in a
manner to dissatisfy everybody.6 _
I am going to a whitebait/ at Greenwich with G. Smith today. A lawyer neighbour at
Slough is also bidden to the feed but it is more about Hogarth,S I fancy than anything elie.
I have an hour & a quarter to spare every morning before Telegraph, and shall always
devote them to T.B.letters & forwarding to you
Salut et fraternit6
tHarmodias9 Sulu
rHarmodias slew the tyrant "with steel in myrtle dressed". lrt Duffero beware my green stuff
with the trenchant blade beneath! aha! looed! Aha, lobwormll0
l. See pt 2; Yates went "on a long tour in Switzerland" autumn 1861, returning late autumn
(Yates 265).
2. Wishful thinking about what he'd like to do to Maxwell. See letter 59 which also mentions
Murray, one of the two protagonists in the "Frightful Encounter in Northumberland Street"
between Mr Murray, an ex Hussars officer, and a bill discounter, Mr J. Roberts (Times 13 July
1861). The DIs report of the same day was headed "Terrible Tragedy in the Strand" (3. 4). A
more recent analysis of this "mysterious and bloody indoor battle" is given by Richard Altick in
Deadly Encounters (1966). Roberts died of his injuries. A post-mortem examination revealed
that the blows he had received to the head had caused a blood clot as big as a pigeon's egg to
lodge against his brain (56).
The name "Tonga Murray" probably refers to the fact that before he died Roberts claimed
Munay attacked him "with the tongs like a demon'(59). GAS wasn't the only person associated
with ?3 who felt like murdering Maxwell, around this time another IB contributer, the poet
Robert Buchanan,* announced that if Maxwell was as offensive as usual "he had bought a thick
cudgel and intended to beat [his] brains out" (Wolff 99).
Samson probably refers to Marmaduke Blake Sampson [sic], City Editor and writer of the
Times money article ("Money Market and City lntelligence') 1848-1873. If this is so Sampson's
axe fell when notice of Maxwell's bankruptcy appeared inthe Times on 1,4 September 1861 (n3),
around about the date of this letter.
3. See 53n2 re his "duties" as editor. These letters seem to suggest that he was, during 1861 at
lcast, actively pursuing the task.
4. Maxwell mortgaged TB arld his other magazines L5 October 1862, and executed a deed of
assignment of all his estate and its effects 1. December 1.862 (Boase). "Ilte Times records his
lranknrptcy on 14 September 1.861.. Sutherland maintains that he sold ?B "around 1862" to GAS,
who retained ownership until 1866. No evidence found in these letters. In fact on the contrar)'
since GAS seems so hard up. Straus corroborates this: "in the summer of 1862 he was brought . .
. almost to the portals of the banknrptcy court" (164). GAS's memoirs show that in 1862 he was
toying, in his highly unrealistic fashion, with the idea. That is, he was casting around for
someone with money, who could provide the necessary finance, since Maxwell "was not
indisposed to sell the copyright of the magazine for a round sum." He tried Yates and his newly

acquired friend "that elegant littirateur" Alfred Austin (later created poet laureate 1.896), but to
no avail (377-79). It seems likely that TB remained Maxwell's property until January L866 when
he sold it to Richard Bentley (1794-1871), who held the mortgage on it, for t2,750 (Wolff 138-
L39,453n54).
5. I.e., by God it will be done (SOD). And it was. Yates's memoirs refer to the trip as "a long
tour of Switzerland" with his wife and Alfred Austin Q65).
6. GAS probably having a dig at his reviewers here. Piece on Mammon (SR 1 February 1862)
satirically rebukes him for killing off his impossibly wicked, but impossibly beautiful and
charming heroine, instead of reprieving her.
7. Whitebait dinner at Greenwich; presumably the Ship lnn again (50n5). Such dinners were
historically all male affairs where liquor flowed freely, although female encroachment is evident
in GAS's report of one in August 1863, the last time he saw Thackeray alive: "the occasion was a
whitebait dinner at the Ship [Inn] Greenwich. hdies as well as gentlemen were present" (Things
1: 38). kdies present in similar situation at the Ship in GAS's novel Quite Alone (1864) too -
but not very resoectable ladies!
8. GAS fint had the ambition to write a "Life of Hogarth" in 1855. He sought the advice of
Thackeray, who had dealt with Hogarth in his "Irctures on the English Humorists" (1851), and
was given a letter of introduction to publisher George Smith (Things L:23-27). Although Smith
showed interest nothing was ever published on as large a scale as originally mooted, although
Smith and Elder did publish the 1860 Cornhill "Hogarth Papers" in book form as William
Hogarth: Painter, Engraver, and Philosopher: Essays on the Mary the'llorlg and the Time
(1866).
9. 26n6.
10. He compares Maxwell to a large earthworm, used for fishing bait (OED). Iooed is the word
that signals "pay the penalty" in the card game "Loo."
lsTl
Friday Noon [December 1,861]1
Clements Inn
My dearEdmund,
Surely I am the unluckiest beggar in the world as regards dining with you. Mrs Sala and
self are engaged to dine with My Tommyz tomorrow evening, at your hour, in Spring Gardens.
Cannot you manage to look in on me at Chambers between 2andS p.m. Bring AustinJ with you
if you will.
Here stands T.B. at present. Not seeing you I was compelled to take some action to get
Maxwell to accept the money for the copyright of Mammon,4 which he has done; cash paid,
assignment given, and I trvo hundred and fifty to the good, clear. To get this I was obliged to
consent to his terms for the New Year to this extent: that the f20.L6.8 per month is to cease and
determine, but that I am to have 30/- per page for a[I I write in lieu of f,]. for all after 16 p.p.5 this
iE gA! !g affect ig agy way big selling lhg magazine if Sg minded. On Wednesday, the day I saw
him he was cock-a-hoop about T.B. Tomonow he may be saturnine and saleable but depend
upon it, if a cheque be put to his head like a loaded pistol he will, after a short struggle about the
back stock capitulate.6^
98
Pray come tomorow if you can. The outer dool will be closed, but shy e peluy (to be returned)
througtr !!g letteg g[i! and I shall know who it is.7
G.A.S.
1. Yates has returned from Switzerlund. Mom
brothers, December 186.1. Publication o'ate is obviously very ctose
and :T"*":[:Tjt he has just wrestled il"IyleY the copyright from Maxwell, who was perhaps holding f; ;;;;
money.
";,
2' An engagement he could not afford to miss, since My Tommy, a wealthy retired solicitor, was
a bill-discounter' and GAS was certainly in debt. However, there didn,t seem to be any enmity
between them. My Tommy was "the cheerfullest and most generous of hosts,,, and he kept the
identity of his debtors to himself (Things 2: 47-48). See"letter l3ln7 for more about this
mystery man.
3' Presumably Yate's new-found friend Alfred Austin (1835-1913) poet, critic and joumalist on
standard and Quarterly Review; created poet I:ureate in 1g96.
4' See Lift which seems to give another version: "I had just finished my novel of ,The Seven
sons of Mamrnon'. Maxwell had relinquished his rights of "deadlock,, on th" ,fulu"ution, or
the fiction for a hundred pounds; and rinsley BrothJrs, of catherine street, hJ'gi""n me five
hundred pounds for five years' right of issuing the Romance" (377).
5' It sounds as though GAS was no longer being paid for editing TB; only being paid for his
contributions.
6. 56n3.
7' This-novel way of gaining admittance to GAS's and Glover's chambers in clements lnn is
recorded by Yates in his memoin (263-a).
I58I
My dearEdmund,
Thursday [c. January 1g6211
Hotel de Lille et d'Albion, Rue St Honor6, paris
C'an you find a moment to let me have a line !y retum. as I leave here on Saturda],.
have another
I
weeks holiday but am not certain whethei-i rtrutlgo down to Tours, or
and
come
run
back
down to Brighton. t am a little better, but my liver still in a state or
keeps the
which
blood in the head and renders an apoplectic seizure unpleasantly prominent "Lng;rtion
on the
T:dt'2
I am quite rcsigned and only *unt ,o tast out another year when I shall be
debt'
entirely out
I have
of
alreadv done wonders in that way which peopre little dream (b,
shallow3 a
"i -- Master
I owe yQ[a thousand, less nine trunoieo
"na nin"iyy. My life is insured for gi5 but
hundred
the office hold the policy for a loan of trvo fifty. In be off with it.
^y"iitshall
what t wish you to tell me about is that hypocritiLl bandit Maxwell. when he smashed
he agreed to pay me a minimum of ten pounds a wiek, cash down, on delivery of copy, pending
his being in a position to make a fresh -years .nj"g"i*i for T.B. Tiri, *"nt on very
satisfactorily for some- weeks, copy in hand, money In-trr" oirter, but a fortnight .in"" on .y
taking him the first chap of Dr Forster (which r rrua scal"* and which clme to over the
stipulated amount) he began in a most insolent manner toGGt the number of lines in my M.s.
and to express doubts as whether there were ten pounds worth there or not. This of course I
could not stand' I flung the cheque in his facc, told him he was an impudent fellow, and walked
ttut of the room'5 I want to know whether you have seen him, and what kind of bedevilment he

is up to with T.B. - I am indifferent as to continuingwith it or not, but wish to know which way
the cat jumps. Do this like a good fellow. I ca'nt help chaffing you now and then but a jesting
Pilate I shall ever be, and you know you have no sincerer friend than
Yours always
G.A.S.
Mind I go away from here on SarurdaY.
t. CeS."ntions that he wants "to last out another yeat" at opening of letter, intimating it is the
start of a new one, i.e., January. Braddon's seialAurora Flood started in IB January 1862 issue
(ns).
2. He fully expects to suddenly drop dead like his brother (letter 6). The trouble with his liver
probably stemJ from the fact that he was drinking heavily. Although Thackeray is reported to
hal e said around this time that he thought GAS was "getting out of the mire" (Henty Silver's
Diary 1,9 February 1862), quite the reverse was true. John Irech's reply "that he can't keep from
drink yet" was obviously more to the point; 1862 was a tenible year for our hero; he was plagued
with debt and disillusionment more than likely brought on by his drinking habits.
3. Shakespeare's foolish provincial justice in the comic interludes of 2 Henry lV. Ironic
coincidenci that Shakespeare put Shallow in chambers in Clement's Inn like GAS (Act 2.2. 13)
gives added humour to Yates's observation that "the n:rmes above the door, Mr. George Augustus
Sala, Mr. Rudolph Gustavus Glover, was highly suggestive of a farce" Q63). Allusion to Henry
lV also appropriate because the fiery nose of Bardolph became a prominent Sala feature.
4. I.e., he had weighed them. Like many editors Maxwell often considered weight and volume,
not context, the criteria for payment (Wolff 99).
5. Not surprisingly "Dr Forster" was never published. It was to have been a grandiose
collaboration between GAS and M.E. Braddon, "the legend of Faust and Mephistopheles adapted
to modern life, but with a concurrent legendary setting in Germany . . . the Misirables would be
the model and Goethe's Faust the plot . . . Aurora (GAS's nickname for Braddon based on her
Aurora Floyd character) would be tremendous at dialogue and love-making, and the painting
and decorations would belong to me" (undated letter from Sala to Maxwell qtd Wolff 116).
Iater each did write a novel based on the Faust legend; M.E.B. Gerard; or, The World, the Flesh
and the Devil (3 vols., London: Simpkin, 1891); GAS Margaret Forster: A Dream within a
Dream (2 vols., I-ondon: Cassell, 1895).
t59]
SaturdaY Morningl
L4 Clements Inn
My dear Edmund,
la DUi! ps!!E conseil .2 gnreflection I think that I should be a d--d fool to give Maxwell
the advantage over me, and I shall consequently go on unto the end of my tether. If the scoundrel
had not grossly insulted me by giving me the lie when I have Miss Braddon's word that he
opened, siquestrated and tore gp a letter addressed to me by a lady, and had done the same thing
before, thui taying himself open to a criminal prosecution the shindy would not have assumed
such dimensions. As it is it was only by a mercy that Maxwell and self did not finish our little
difficulties ir la Major Munay3 * * * [rest of letter has been cut away]
1. Dating difficult; but must be related to TB and Maxwell. Perhaps relates to the argument over
the Dr Forster MS in previous letter letter. The Sala / Maxwell partnership seems a recipe for
disaster as both had volatile personalities. As the "drama" of these letters unfolds Maxwell could
be seen to be the "villain of the piece." However, we are getting a very one-sided view of their
relationship. Wolff provides evidence to show that both Maxwell and GAS had belligerent sides
to their characters. [n fact, he says "nobody could hope to remain always on good terms with
Sala" (186), or the overbearing Maxwell (99). Things must have improved later on, as he tells us
that c.1865 the Salas moved in the same social circles as the Maxwells, and around 1880 were on
their guest list of "celebrated people," like Robert Browning, Oscar Wilde, Whistler, the George
du Mauriers, the Hepry Iaboucheres, Bram Stoker, Henry lrving, Lord and Lady Lytton etc "
(263). And in L871 Maxwell offered to be a character witness for GAS when he sued Hain
Friswell and publishers Hodder and Stoughton for defamation (letters 89,90).
2. \\e night brings counsel, i.e.,I thought about it ovemight.
3. hotagonist in "The Northumberland Street Affair" that made sensational headlines in all the
papers (see letter 56).
t60l
Wednesday [after 1,3 March before 3 July I864L
14 Clements lnn
My dear Edmund,
I cannot gg home until the draught for f25 which Maxwell authorised De,
unconditionally, to draw, and which he deliberately dishonoured is p{d. Mrs Sala came to town
this morning in despair at our good name being ruined in a placez where we have lived for
fifteen months in competence and honour without owing one single penny to landlord or
tradespeople. It is breaking her heart. Will you make an effort today to obtain the cheque from
Maxwell. If I can get it before Mrs S goes home (at 6.30 p.m.) I can send it to Windsor tonight.
If not can you pay it out of lrvy'sJ 160 for as I have (at extreme expense of f20) squared
Thompson4 for three months with easy terms for the repayment in instalments of the 1200 I think
the f50 that was to have been given to the dwarf might be divided between Seale and the
tandlord.S At any rate see what you can do. I shall be heie till 5 o'clock, and at 6 t shall be at the
Reform.6 Will you let me know by commissionaire (if you cannot come yourself) either here or
there
Yours
G.A.S.
P.S. Just answer this question in swell etiquette of which I am ignorant as a pig. I-ady Mildred
HopeT (the Beresford Hope gaff) has sent me a card for an Assembly at Arklow Hour" on the 3rd
of July. It is [sic] etiquette to acknowledge receipt of invite and accept or not to answer but go?
1. Linked to previous letter through references to IB and Maxwell, but difficult to date. [t must
have been written after 13 March L862, when the Dl[B records that GAS became a member of
the Reform Club (see end of letter), and before 3 July (see PS).
2. Upton C-ourt (54n9): Windsor is the market town nearby, where Mrs. S would probably go
shopping. GAS is writing from his chambers in town.
3. Could be any one of the DI Irvys, or perhaps "my very old and valued friend, Jonas Irvy (no
relation), banister-at-law, and these many years past deputy-chairman of the I-ondon, Brighton
and South Coast Railway" (Things l:21).
4. C-ould be the "demon dwarf Thompson" he mentions in letter 72. This Thompson could well
be John Thomson a friend of Swinbume's, who in tum was a friend of GAS's. See letter 90
100 101

where GAS writes that he has received "a characteristic scrawl from Swinburne." Thomson was
a young pimp, associated with the notorious Verbena Iodge, a brothel in St. John's Wood
negent{ ^park, *h"re "two golden-haired and rouge-cheeked ladies received, in luxurious
furnisnea rooms, gentlemen whom they consented to chastize for large sums ' ' Swinburne
much impoverishelcl himself in these games" (Edmund Gosse qtd Iang 5:245). Perhaps this is
also why GAS was continually broke. If Thompson jg Thomson, proof that the two men knew
each other can be found in one of Swinburne's letters when he asks Thomson if there is any news
of Sala (hng 2z 139). Dates fit, as editor I-ang estimates the friendship started around 1861 and
continued for a number of years (ibid xxxvi).
5. GAS's "book-keeping" sounds like an extreme case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
6. Rising in the world. GAS was proposed for the Reform by Charles Mackay, then editor of
ILN, and seconded by Thackeray, who came up from the country to "whip uP supporters on the
day of election" (Escott CIub 227). He is now a member of the least Bohemian of l-ondon clubs
(Siraus L63). But still a true Bohemian as far as his financial state is concerned.
7. Wife of A.J. Beresford Hope*, proprietor of.the Saturday Review; well-known for many years
as a leader of I-ondon society (DNB). The Assembly mentioned here was probably to do with the
restoration of the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey. GAS was invited to sit on the
Committee of Restorati,on and he attended a number of meetings, including one in May 1,862
(perhaps "gaff" mentioned here), where Hope asked him to speak (Life 374). They must have
6."o*i quite friendly because in a letter of 7 August l862,he put the hard word on Hope for a
loan to get him out of the money troubles so dolefully adumbrated in this letter, and others
around this time. [t was refused politely four days later (Strausl61-67). Did GAS have no
shame? How ironic that he would make such an appeal to the proprietor of his b€te noir, even
though, as Cross points out, the "bitter war between the Bohemians and the Saturday Review"
had iroved towards a truce in the pages of. Cornhill since Thackeray, its first editor "had friends
in both camps" (99).
t6u
[embossed Reform Club crest in left ]
Monday 5 May [1862]1
My dear Edmund,
Thursday and Fri_day - Exhibition & Academy werc as you may gather from a glance at
the D.T. each a dies non2 with me, and on Saturday I was too fagged to write letters.
You do'nt know how damned hard up I have been. I can get no money at all out of
Maxwell not even the state_of my account. He does not answer my letters; so you may imagine
how much incentive I have to go on with T.B. of which, thank God, in seven months I shall be
free.3
You will draw f5 off Jerrold's article in this month which I gave him on a/c, and it will
come off my LL2.IO to you. The balance I will send you the minute I touch ready money.
Yours always
George: aug: Sala.
orr"r4
I am going to read at Slough - close to my own crib - on Thursdays next for a Mechanics
LOz
Institute and a rehearsal for myself.
Dr Pantologos
Down with the Ague
SlYboots6
If you could spare the time you could very easily run down by % past 6 train with me -
the Gaff is at Eigbt, and, if you declined sleeping at Upton Court there is a train back to I-ondon
at 1,1. p.m. But if you will sleep you can leave at 9.],5 in the morning and be at the P.O. by 10.10
a.m.
Irt me know for Mrs Sala's sake. Your presence would be very valuable to me as you
could give me hints about reading.T
1. Jerrold's article appeared in May L862 issue of 18 For details see following letter.
2. Dies non = short for dies non juridicus non judicial day; day in which no business is done
(OED). I.e., day off
3. His name ceased to appear on title page of TB from November 1.862, seven months after this
letter.
4. Rest written on back of page.
5. 8 May, near his home, Upton C-ourt.
6. "Dr Pantologos" HVI/ L0: L-106 (L6 September 1854): "Down with the Ague" [?]; "The
Perfidy of C-aptain Slyboots" WG SMay L858, p25.
7. Yates had made hiS first appearance on a lecture platform in autumn 1861,. "It was a great
success . . . I had found a new means of money-making" Q66). GAS hopes to do the same.
162l
Monday [12 May 186211
Clements Inn
My dear Edmund
Theophile Gautier [sic]2 now here has offered me the exclusive permission to publish in
T.B. his critique on the English pictures in the exhibition - to which I have said S as I think
them calculated to do good to the mag. The copy will be to hand on Wednesday and the
[?portion] first published will exceed six pagcs - the notion of payment was about "cent francs"
for a paper but this is exclusive of Ey workr on it - He is a very wonderful fellow as you well
know, if prgpgdypuffgd as I shall take care to do.
I have had several offers about readings at ten guineas a time to begin early and [sic] June
and continue. I read t'other night at Slough with great 6clat, but want a few hints from you as to
economising one's wind. I get blown sometimes in the middle of a page, and feel as though I
were dying.
The sad news of poor little George Augustus's death4 - who was at Upton with us not
many months since - had reached me before your letter was at hand. Mrs Sala went down to
Southampton on Saturday to do all she could to console them; but I felt that I could do no good
and would only add to the horrors which I am suffering at present
faithfully youn
G.A.S.
1.. Monday after Thursday 8 May Slough reading (par 2) mentioned in last letter.
103

2. Th6ophile Gautier (1811-1872) French painter tumed poet, novelist and journalist; he was
part ot the L830's Romantic movement and an advocate of "art for art's sake," as shown in the
preface of his novel Mademoiselle de Maupin (1835). His three-part critique on the 'British
School in our lnternational Exhibition: English art from a French point of view," was published
in TB June, September, October L862. The Exhibition refened to here is the International
Exhibition of.1,862, which opened in London 1. May.
3. He translated Gautier's papers from French, and added a few explanatory notes plus an
effusive puff to the first one in the way of a short introduction. Gautier was very well-known
and so a prestigious catch for TB.
4. His nephew, and namesake, son of brother Fred, who lived at Southampton. He was about L4
since Straus mentions he was 11 in 1859 (144).
t63l
[embossed Reform Club crest in left margin]
Wednesday night [May 1862]1
Reform
My dear Edmund,
I have sent Jenold's article to Robson's for this month - I mean the "pen [sic] and ink in
the Reign of Terror." He was hard up, and I paid him five pgundg on account of it which you can
deduct from what his article comes to, and it may come off my score to you.
I do'nt know what to say to Stigant2 I have never read any of his prose. The Roman
would, I think, be preferable to the Ossian. D-n Ossian, as a general principle.
I gave a reading in the Town Hall Windsor on Monday even^ing for a charity. Good
audience and great success. I gave them the "Journeyman Carpenter"J and "Captain Slyboots"
from the Welcome Guest at which they altemately blubbered and screamed. I am in such a devil
of a mess and so overwhelmed with difficulties that as clutching at a straw I am thinking whether
I might not pick up some money by reading4 in and about Lnndon - two stories to an evening:
one comic t'other tragic. [t must be either this or insuring my life to raise money on the policy,
and with-my cursed red nose now I am afraid the companies would fight shy of me. Even Peter
Morison) must take it into his head at this crisis to let the world into the secret of his being a
duffer, and decamp. Do you think I could do anything at the reading? Tell me so, holestly.
Good natured friends tell me that Polyphemusrs "roundabout" this month6 about the
notch in the axe is a satire upon Captain Dangerous: "Mr Pinto" being meant for Fernandez
Mendez Pinto a notorious liar whence, by inference, Dangerous. Also so_many words in capitals.
I am writing this in the smoking room of this whited sepulchre/ and Dickens and Wills
are at the next table.
Look at Saunders and Otleys BudgetS for a most atrocious paragraph about the Comhill.
We dined eighteen at the Sheridun9 on Saturday. When *itt you iome and dine with me
at this lacquered saicophagus?1o There is a dismal pleasure in lapping up the luxuries of the
land at eating house prices. The other evening Austinrr with his craw full of ptarmigan and red
Hermitage threw himself back and exclaimed "At this moment Mrs A is starving on a red hening
and a potato in Great Ormond Street."
Mrs Sala is better.t2 My brother the buccaneer has turned up in the colony of
Demeraral3 where he has found a lot of wealthy cousins of ours one of whom is the chairman of
the court of Policy and writes to me that he has turned sugar planter whereas the said cousin, a
Mr Macrea writes to me to express his grave doubts as to whether the "person calling himself
104
Albert Sala" can be the brother of so distinguished a writer as myself whose works etc, etc, etc.
My opinion is that the world is going raving mad: -
Et patat6, et patata
Il a mis de tout dans ce discours ld14
So sang the 'Juge de chaunton"15 so so sing I.
Yours always
George: aug: Sala.
L. Dated from William Blanchard (Bill) Jenold's* article "Pens and Ink in the Reign of Tenor"
TB 5 : 287-295 (May 1862) . Charles Robson was the ZB printer; later printed the World for
Yates.
2. \Villiam Stigant, sometimes spelt Stigand (1825-1915), barrister, member of the consular
service, and journalist; a prolific contributor to the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, and to less
ponderous literary journals like Blackwood's and Cornhil/. His poetry was effusively Romantic
and includes A Wion of Barbarossa and other Poems (1860), and Athenais ,or, The First
Crusader (1866). His poem "The Northern Muse" had been accepted by GAS for publication in
the first number of. TB, "influenced by kindness rather than a strict adherence to his duty"
according to sub-editor Yates Q62). Another long poem, "ltalia Rediviva," appeared in TB I:
175-180 (1. March 1861). Ossian is an lrish folk hero from Tir-na-nog (The Iand of the
Young). St Patrick is said to have been told by two angels to set down Ossian's tales for
posterity, and it is due to him that the native lrish literary tradition survived.
3. "Journeyman C-arpenter" from WG t858 Christmas Issue (20n2)
4. Straus records that "in the summer of.1862 Sala turned professional reader, and an agreeable
voice combined with his knowledge of the actor's craft enabled him to delight large audiences"
(163).
5. Peter Morison, financier, who had put up the money for London, a short-lived threepennl'
weekly (7 issues from24 December 1853-4 February 1854) founded and edited by GAS (Straus
106). He "decamped" and was never heard of again after being suspected of less than
"immaculate" dealings with customer funds deposited into a "fishy" concem of his called the
Bank of Deposit (Life 275-6). GAS wondering if !9 shouldn't do the same thing. Reports about
Morison's disappearance appear in the Times's "Money Market" column 19 & 20 December
1861.
6' Part 2 of three-part "Roundabout" called "The Notch in the Axe: A Story i la Mode,"
Cornhill April-June 1862. The central character, Pinto, does have a singular resemblance to
GAS's verbose and highly imaginative hero, Captain Dangerous, in his serial of the same name
(IB January 1862-February 1863); published as novel by Tinsley, 1863. As he suggesrs,
Thackeray's Pinto is probably based on Ferndo Mendez Pinto (c. 1510-1583), portuguese
adventurer and extravagant raconteur of his own travels (Chambers).
7. The Reform Club.
8. Saunders, Otley, & Co's Literary Budget for England, India, China, Australia etc. 1
November 1861-1 June 1862; previously Saunders, Otley etc. Oriental Budget 3 December
1859-1 October 1861.
9. The Sheridan located in the Georges Hotel, Strand, directly opposite the old Telegraph office
at 253 Strand: "a convivial club keeping very late hours." One of a number of "nocturnal
establishments" in London in the 1850s and 1860s that catered for "a mixed society of roistering
105

swells, professional men of lax habits, retired prize-fighters, music-hall singers, imbecile young
fellows about town, provincial greenhorns," and, of course, GAS and his Bohemian coterie.
Vizetelly delights in a detailed description of its members, of which he counts himself one, and
their tipsy antics. He includes all the characters that have become familiar to us plus Charles
Dickens's brothers Alfred, and the ne'er-do-well Frederick (2: 48-49).
10. Reform again: Juxtaposition of the two clubs emphasizes the touch of Bohemian scom he
applies to a club that is the epitome of British establishment, although he's happy enough to take
advantage of its comforts. With these letters in mind he does seem a rather incongruous member.
But, as they say, everything changes; twenty years later in L882 the Savage Club had moved so
far towards establishment acceptance that it welcomed the Prince of Wales into its Bohemian
sanctums (Cross 109). Although that particular Prince of Wales was no stranger to moral
turpitude of the Bohemian type and had probably earned the right to call himself a "Savage."
1-1. That cad Wiltshire.(54n5).
12. Wiltshire's reference to his wife seems to bring Mrs S. into GAS's mind. Is this because he
sees a parallel to the embarrassing financial position he has placed her in letter 60? Perhaps that
one has been overcome, but read on - there are many more to follow. The question begs. What
did GAS do with the money he was eaming from his, by now quite copious, writings? See 50n4
and 60n4 for possible answers. William Tinsley hints at certain excesses and concludes that "for
some years Sala's excellent wife had ample cause to have abandoned him altogether, but she
loved her lord too well to resort to such measures" (1: 155).
13. Demerara in Guiana, West lndies;his mother's birth place.
14. Translates as "And so on and so forth. / That says it all." This quote and the rest of the par,
i.e., "his works etc. etc. etc.," could be used as an epigram for the "patter" of these letters, and
even for Sala's work in general, which can be read as improvisations on one theme - that of
himself. Everything seems grist for his personal "copymill," he even uses his awareness of his
own shortcomings as a catalyst for more words. His technique is to build and then undermine, to
reassure and then destruct, then start the whole thing over again - see his prefaces to almost
everything and an excellent example, quoted by Straus (155), in "[ady Chesterfield's Irtters to
her Daughter" (WG 1860 2: 92). This technique works particularly well in his travel critiques;
most of the travelogues turn out to be extremely insightful and incisive expos6s - see his Journey
Due North and My Travels in America. Of course, GAS himself is always in the centre of
everything - either as part of an imagined scene or the intrepid reporter in some real life
adventure - somehow he manages to endow the ordinary with importance, and the important
with ordinariness. He seems to be able to improvize copy out of anything - Tinsley suggests that
while he could "almost have written the Lord's Prayer on a sixpence [because] his penmanship
was so wonderful"; he could also, "if it suited him . . . write enough matter about a sixpence to
fill a good sized volume (1: 151).
15. 95n3. Strictly translates as judge of the patterers, or street vendors and singers of comic
songs to advertize their wares. GAS sees himself in a world where everything is reduced to
meaningless patter.
106
164l
DearEdmund,
[embossed blue crest of comucopia and initials GAS centre]
Thursday night [11 December 1864l
All right; but, for all that you did'nt send the tickets. t go so seldom to evening parties
that I am nervous of knocking at doors when I have no pasteboard.2 When next I see you I will
tell you my poor brother Charles's story of the French advocate and Ia Touche (the
[?countrefoil]). I am sure I wish you joy of your success "They live become otO, y"u,'up
mighty in power. Their seed is established in their sight before them, and their offspring b"for"
their eyes. Their bull gendereth and faileth not; their cow calveth and casteth not hei cali. fhey
send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. They lake lhe timbrel d bd.
asd rejoice 4 3[9 sound aI l& organ. Their breasts are full of (rum and) mifiind tt bones are
moistened with marrow. $g &r mg. is nqy complaint !q saq, if "ir j3 weie s why should Egl gly
spirit !9 troubled?' Job xxi. 1-15.3
Delane4 is a donkey. If every old grudge were remembered the conduct of a newsoaoer
would become impossible. la yig !& passg Es sans d9 erand
-bungling,
oublis.5 If the succerr6
(as it is sure to do) the Times will either have to give a
tardy notice,T or will "ontinu", stand in
the foolish position of affecting to ignore that which is as plain ur ih" sun at noonday. I4I
impression was that the usual critic had been made drunk at ihe Haymarket on the occasion of
the 10,000th night of Sothern's8 "wondrous impersonation" and wai under the impression that
your place in Piccadilly was some lady's drawing room, into which he had stumbied, late and
inebriated and was ashamed to say anything next morning about the people he had, perhaps,
insulted.
My liver is better, but my head is still racked with neuralgic pains
always yours
G.A.S.
[wriften lengthwise along left margin] The Telegraph notice very well done - was,nt it Bayle
Bernard's?v I saw him in the morning at the office; and, did you iee !fu Standardf l0 you may
be sure the sub-editor got the sack for allowing a friendly notice or you to g"t in
1. Yates's sucoess refened to here is the ""nt"rti
conjunction with Harold Power, Invitations to Evening Parties and the Seaside. tt opened at the
Egyptian Hall, Monday 8 December 1862. This must be the Thursday after. Clues are ,,your
place in Piccadilly" and "some ladies drawing room" (see second par), since the Egyptian Hall
ya_s in Piccadilly, and it was "gayly decorated into some suggestion of a conservat[ry, and the
little stage prettily appointed" (John Forster qtd Yates 272)l [The unreliability of diting from
watermarks is shown in this letter as even though it has an 1861 watermark, it was deflnitely
written in 1862).
2. I.e., calling card.
3. A not very exact version of the biblical text. [n recalling the words of Job GAS pointedly
contrasts himself and his afflictions (both financial and physical) with yates's success.
4. John Thaddeus Delane (1817-1879) editor of the Times. He was appointed to this post (as
co-editor with George Desant) when not yet 24 years old, and held the position for 36 yqrrs,
resigning in 1877. He became famous as a crusading editor, sometimes joining forces with
Dickens in the causes he espoused.
r07

5. Roughly = "I-&t bygones be bygones" orperhaps "forgive and forget."
6. The entertainment was a dramatized version of Yates's lecture "Modern Society," which he
had taken on tour during autumn L862. See his memoirs for review from the Examiner (272-
73), where a complimentary comparison is made with the late Albert Smith's popular Egyptian
Hall performances.
7. The Times did produce a review the day after this letter, 12 December 1,862. lt was full of
praise, and ends "it is doubtful whether Mr Yates deserves most praise for the literary
composition of his entertainment, or his skill in embodying his own creations" (a: 6).
8. Edward Askew Sothem (1826-1881), English comic actor, most famous for his
characterisation of the archetype British aristocratic "silly ass," Lord Dundreary, in Tom
Taylor's* play Our American Cousins (DNB). The success of this "wondrous impersonation" in
America enabled Sothem to form his own company and open the play in London L6 November
1861. It was destined for a long run (Morley 233). In his memoirs GAS correctly recalls that
Sothem "had played the character more than a thousand times before coming to England; and he
played it four hundred and ninety-six times at the Haymarket Theatre" (Life 510). The length of
Sothern's run would mean the play was still running in December 1862.
9. Bayle Bemard (1807-1875), US born English dramatist; a prolific and efficient playwright
and excellent drama critic (DNB). His review appeared in the DITuesday 9 December 1862:3.
10. The Standard L January 1857-16 March 1916; in 1858 became the second lnndon penny
paper (after the DT in 1856). Its review (9 December: 3) warmly praised the show, and the
Yates/Powers partnership, as as "unequivocal success."
t6s1
[embossed Reform Club crest centre]
Wednesday [18 February 1863]1
R.C.
My dear Edmund,
Anson2 tells me that Tom Taylor is to propose my health: - pleasant, as I have never
spoken to him in my life,-and have been consistently abusing him in print for ten yea$. You are
to give (please) Webster3 as president of the fund. When i meet you tonight teil me whom to
couple with the Fine arts, as Frith4 wo'nt (as I understand) give tongue.
In haste yours always
George: a: Sala
1. Day the seventh anniversary festival of "The Dramatic, Equestrian and Musical Sick Fund"
took place in Willis's Rooms. GAS was chairman and Tom Taylor proposed his health "in very
complimentary terms" (Df 19 February 1863:3).
2. John William Anson (1817-1881), actor and theatre manager, actively involved in theatrical
good causes and funds; in 1855 he founded Dramatic, Equestrian and Musical Sick Fund; 1856
Dramatic Burial Ground at Woking; L859 Dramatic College at Woking. At the time of this letter
he was the treasurer and acting-manager of the Adelphi, a position he held from 1857-78.
Another of his projects was the publication of the Dramatic Almanac 1857-72.
3. Benjamin Webster (1797-1882), famous actor and theatre manager; over his long acting
career he was associated at some time with most of the best-known theatres in London: Drury
Lane, Haymarket, Covent Garden, Adeiphi, St. James, olympic, princess,s. He was lessee of the
Adelphi at time of this letter. (His daughter, Harriette, married Edward I-evy-Iawson* in tsoz.;
4. W.P. Frith, painter.r
166l
[embossed Reform Club crest centre]
Friday [2a April 1863]1
Carissimo Edmund,
Do you know Buchanan's2 address? If so will you send it to Blackett Esq. Hurst and
Blackett's, publishers, Great Marlborough street. I supptse they want a Fantasia on the scotch
fiddle from him at a lowrate.
what did you. think of Anthony de Montalba,? *o.rather of the [indecipherabte], eh?
My cough is infernally gg you really
?"4.
think homoeopathy wbuld do me any good?
Yours always
G.A.S.
[written above MS letterhead] I am glad you did'nt come to the Shakespeare dinner last night. tt
was a mull. The cluba showed their appreciation of the immortal bard by r;;;;; only to the
extent of four members and three strangers. My angelic temper on the o*.'io' may be
imagined.
along
{yritlen
left hand margin otMSl
Mrs Sala found out all about you in an old number of the Examiner.S It is useless your going
about that you
-saying ar: only twenty five. It appea$ you were born in Edinburgfi (aha!) in July
1831,0 and that you are in your thirty third year.
following S-trat

GAS from Yates dated 1.8 September 1,877 anticipates this article when it mentions 'lv[r R.W.
Buchanan a gentleman who, as you will remember, was actually saved from starving by our
acceptance of his articles in the early days of Temple Bar. and by the money which I induced
Maxwell to advance to him, and who this month personally attacks me in the Contemporary
Bw.iew." (This is the only letter from Yates to Sala that has been located so far.)
3. Reference not clear, but this could be Anthony Rubens Montalba author of. Fairy Tales for All
Nations (1849).
4. Scott's chapter "Bohemia in Days of Old" (1: 307-353) goes into anecdotal detail about the
various clubs that contributed to the camaraderie that was such an essential component of
l-ondon's bohemian literary and theatrical circles - "Bohemia" here is perhaps best defined as a
particular social attitude that managed to embrace all classes in an "artistic" brotherhood,
enabling all sorts of men, if they so desired, to find a common ground in their interest in the arts.
Cross defines the club as "the adhesive of Bohemian life," i.e., literary Bohemia (107). He
recognizes its other important function as a meeting place for writers, who "by definition have to
work alone . . . a comfortable rendezvous, close to an oyster tavern and complete with library and
bar." Essentially a male domain the club had the ambiguous function of being a haven from
family life - or lack of it. "Women," as Cross puts it "were designed either to be kissed or to
serve mutton chops, but had no place in the club-room where the conversation was supposed to
be both too clever and too coarse for them" (108).
5. The Examiner 1808-1881
6. Yates born 3 July 1831.
I6t1
[embossed Reform Club crest centre]
Sunday [May 1863]1
My dear Edmund,
Of course I should have put a par in about the Rapping;2 but the "Echoes" this week
(there being a double number) were written on Tuesday morning, and your note did not arrive
until too late.
Yours always
G.A.S.
P.S. I think your article on the Social position of Actors !h9 bggl lrAu lave
gygt w1i!!gn, and
everyone with whom I have conversed about it says "ditto to Mr Burke"J to me about it. The
Saturday, of course, will be down on Captain Dangerous in consequence.4
I wish you would find out from Tinsley how D. is going. It does not concern !gg, indeed
Maxwell so swindled me out of the copyright that I rather hope it is a mull than othenvise; but I
should like to know.
1. Dated from Yates's article "The Social Position of Actors" published TB May 1863 : 183-87.
2. Sounds like table rapping, claimed to be messages from the spirit world; a phenomenon that
ocuned at s6ances, part of the spiritualism craze that swept fashionable Inndon society around
this time. Scotsman Daniel Home (1833-1886) is claimed to have started the craze when he
came to London from Edinburgh in 1855. tn L866 he founded with John Eliotson and S.C. Hatl
the Spiritual Athenaeum (1866), a society for the propagation of spiritualism (Boase).
3. I.e., they think the same - proverbial saying.
1,1.0
4. hesumably because "The Sociai Position of Actors" had been written to air Yates's
disagreement with a Saurday Review article "The Praises of Professions" (11 April 1863: 460),
which discussed both the role of actors in society, and their portrayal of that society. GAS
correctly predicts that the SR would savage his just published book, The Strange Adventures of
Captain Dangerous, (Tinsley, April 1863). The review, which appeared on 3 October (SR 16 :
465-66),lived up to his expectations, diminishing his notorious protagonist to "a very small man
in a very big coat, which flaps about his ancles and buries him in folds." [t then goes on to show
that this description of its hero comes to epitomize the book itself, as its plot is swamped by
long-winded historichl digressions and "inelegant pedantry," finally reminding the author that he
has failed dismally in his stated aim - to produce a "narrative in plain English." Despite this a
modem appraisal of Captain Dangerous claims it is "[Sala's] finest work of fiction" (Sutherland
ss1).
I68I
Thursday 24 September [1863].1
64 Guilford Street, Russell Square
dear [sic] E.Y.,
Yes, certainly, almost directly. I was getting on very well but am thrown back a week
and at least fifty pounds by a d - d "fluxion' which resulted in an abscess in the jaw and has
confined me to my bed since Saturday last. I am only just up with the inside of my cheek all cut
to pieces and my jaw wrenched nine-bauble square by a dentist whom t altemately curse and
bless.
Do you know Doctor Strauss?2 He has the manuscript of a sensation novel written by a
lady the widow of a mad doctor. It is a lunacy novel of the kind reviewed in today's Times.3
The plot as he has narrated it, to me is certainly most horrifying. He has been worrying my life
out to move you about it, so please write me a note which I can show to him saying whether you
are oPen even to take the M.S. into consideration or the contrary.4 Otherwise he will think I am
bucking his chance.
faithfully yours
George: aug: Sala.
1.. Dated from Ttmes review (n3). In 1863 financial problems forced him to move from Upton
Court to more downmarket lodgings in Guilford Street, Bloomsbury (Straus 182).
2. Gustave lldwig Moritz Strauss (1807?-1887), "the Old Bohemian" (Tinsley 2: 76); a key
Bohemian figure for nearly half a century, a crony of GAS's (Lik 225-232) and a founding
member of the Savage Club. He was an eccentric German chemist, surgeon, author and
politician, who had settled in London in 1840 where he became editor of the Chemical Times
and the Grocer (Cross 102). His memoirs, Reminiscences of an Old Bohemian, were published
by Tinsley in 1882.
3. Times 24 September L863 8:1. "Shirley Hall Asylum or Memoirs of a Monomaniac."
4. Sounds as though Yates has completely taken over the editorship by this time. This seems to
confirm he had been editor, probably in name as well as in fact, since December 1862 (61n3).

t6el
[embossed Reform Club crest centre]
Sundayl
My dear Yates,
Your note was to hand two days since, but I have been so ill and worried that I have not
had time to answer it before. It is as well to be frank with you. I am sorry to hear that you have
so large a sum to pay and that you arc pressed; but it is wholly agS! entirely out of my Power to
pay you at present even a portion of the sum I owe you. I am full of duns, writs, judgements and
outstanding executions,Z and a seemingly incurable bad leg which occasionally assigns me to
bed for a week does not help me to get out of debt. It is very probable that t shall ere long go to
smash; but it will be for a hundred times what I owe you and I will take care that yggg claim i!
not scheduled. tf you choose to sue me in the Lord Mayor's court, as you did so-e y"uts upo,3
you are very welcome to do so, because then I will pawn my watch and Mrs Sala will spout+ her
shawl to pay the broker's man out. If you do not like to adopt this alternative you must wait, as
all those who are really friendly to me are ready to wait until I have mastered my now serious
difficulties
Yours faithfu'ys
G.A.Sala
1. Again difficult to date exactly. Straus stresses money troubles in 1862/63 when he again
faced bankruptcy (164). A timely escape to the US 14 November 1863, as Daily Telegraph
special correspondent to record his impressions of the American Civil War, must have effectively
kept disaster at bay. Mounting financial problems through L865/67 resulted in the sale of almost
all his beloved effects from Guilford Street, on the advice of solictors Irwis and kwis, thus
saving him from legal proceedings. He lost most of his valuable books and a fine print
collection. The tax department was one of his creditors (Straus L82). Reform Club letterhead
links letter with 65, 66,67 group. Yates, seen here as one of GAS's creditors, was hard-pressed
himself. A few years later he was also listed as bankrupt, Times 1 July 1.868, and faced the
bankruptcy court, with George Irwis also at his side, on 13 January 1869 (Times L4 January
1869: 11). For more about Irwis (who became "my good friend and . . . solicitor" lLife 7OS)),
see L27n4.
2. Execution = seizure of property or person of debtor in default of payment (OED).
3. See letter 14 where GAS actually advizes Yates to sue him, and letter L6 for the recriminatory
results.
4. Spout = p?wr (OED).
5. Note formal opening and closure and its tone of almost self righteous-indignation to what
must have been an urgent request for monies owed.
t70l
Monday moming [September 1867]1
L2 Brompton Square
My dearEdmund H,
I do'nt wonder at your wondering what had become of me. I-ast Monday I missed the
train by 5 minutes having cabbed home to fetch my bag and cabbed back too late. I have been
duringthe rest of the week in sad trouble. Reformation not withstanding Jupiter Ferox will be
down-on you sometimes for the sins of your youth: and on Tuesday I had an execution2 at 12
Brompton Square from a d - d Jew lawyer,Iawrence lrvy, to whom I had paid only a fortnight
before the last instalment of his debt, and who put the ex. in for f,.9 costs which he had run up on
a balance of. fZltt
I have been thoroughly upset as you may imagine and though I have not sought
consolation in geneval have felt very much inclined to write a post mortem testimonial of the
cfficiency of Mappin's shilling nzor.4
I shall be at the hinceises tonight for the "Wife's Secret".S If in the stalls suppose I shall
see You
always
G.A.S.
1. GAS stayed here for a few weeks after returning from the 2nd Great Paris Exhibition in
Autumn of 1867 (Straus 185), before moving to a more permanent address at Putney (see
following letter). Thus there is a hole in our conespondence of about four yean (between 1863-
L86?); hectic and productive years for GAS as special foreign correspondent for the DZ His
adventures during this period inspired some of his best writing which was not only recorded in
that newspaper but republished in book form: November 1863-November 1864 America, My
Diary in America in the Midst of War, (1865); c. April 1864 Algiers,A Trip to Barbary by a
Roundabout Route (1866); November 1865-February 1866 Holland, Belgium, France and Spain,
From Waterloo to the Peninsula (1867); March 1866-1867 ltaly and Austria, Rome and Venice,
with Other Wanderings in ltaly, in 1866-7 (1869). (For biographical details about this period
see Straus chapter 1I: L7t-I97, "Special Conespondent."]
More gossip from Henry Silver's Diary 28 February L866 has Henry Mayhew saying that
GAS "couldn't return to England because of the Jews [moneylenders]. Yet he commanded a
salary of t1250 per year. Has he been paying 60 per cent! Why not go out and be whitewashed,
[i.e., get fresh start by passage through bankruptcy court]? Something in the background? So
this is the result of all the talent of 'a damnded [sic] clever fellow' as Thackeray called him." As
seen in next note he was called upon to appqr before the Court of Bankruptcy.
2. 69n2. As Straus colourfully puts it, "the wolves descended upon him at once" (185). On 19
September 1867 a notice "of adjudication and first meeting" appeared in the Times; on 31
October a second notice appeared under heading "Court of Bankruptcy, Basinghall-street,
October 20 / (Before Commissioner Winslow.) / In re Sala. / A sitting for examination was held
under the failure of Mr. George Augustus Henry Sala, a gentleman well known in literarl' circles.
Mr. Sala presented his petition to the Court in consequence, as he alleged, of the insufficiency of
his income and the payment of heavy travelling expenses. The preliminary statement returned
debts to the amount of 82,650" (exaggerated to "close on three thou" in letter 72 par 2). The case
was adjourned for six weeks because "the bankrupt had been in communication with his friends
in reference to an intended arrangement of his affairs."
On 1 January 1868 the Times canied a second notice: "Bankruptcy annulled. Sala,
George Augustus Henry, Sloane-st., newspaper correspondent." GAS had been reprieved - all
he had to worry about now was how to pay everybody off. He must have come to terms with his
creditors, by agreeing to pay them in full over a given period. His overall debt was not very big
considering his income. Yates was in much deeper when fo went bankrupt the following year;
he also made an arrangement to pay that satisfied his creditors.
3. geneva = Hollands gin(OED),
trz 113

4. Ads for Mappin Brothers razors frequent in the press at this time. They were cutlery makers
at the Queen's Cutlery Works, Sheffield. Their London outlet was at 67 and 68, King Williamstreet,
City; and at220 and222, Regent-street.
5. The Wfe's Secret, a play by George W. Lovell first produced at the Haymarket, L7 January
1848 (Scott 2: 555). Obviously a perennial, since it had had a highly successful season at the
Princess before, in 1851, at the time of the first lnternational Exhibition in London (L:2$-6\.
lTrl
[embossed blue crest with cornucopia,jnitials GAS, and motto "Son Solo" centre]
ruesday evening. (L8 August 186s;1
PutneYz
ffitf
Dear Edmund, W
How do you like being called a "Liteffi ghoul" by the Pall Mall, and di{ it do you good
to be told that the Scavenger and the Hangman wJre preferable to you - and me?3
So young Charles D heg gone smash,4 and it is to be in the gazette - not the Pall Mall -
tomorrow. I have been for the last three days strenuously denying that he is in any kind of
difficulties: which is not a good policy: you get a reputation for being a good natured kind of
fellow, and for having been lending the man who has gone smash money for years.
An ancient Tart now retired on her laurels and selling [?fans], gloves, scawes etc and on
whom I occasionally look in for a cup of tea and inquire whether there is anything rising fifteen
fit for a stout middle aged gentleman's tooth,) happens, by the oddest chance in the world, to
know all about our nonchalant6 friend the governor of Maidstone goal. A bad lot: Bannister
Brothers and Something, Solicitors in Bedford Row. You understand "Sjr, unless" - "My clients
cannot think of' etc etc. One of the young B's married a Doubleyou,T and went to Australia.
Another is a clerk in the War office, and, according to the retired Tart, spent three years in a
Madhouse through over addiction to the sin for which Onan went to torment and in which he
(Bannister not Onan) was probably instructed by Glover after, or rather during, Office hours.8
The old man was solicitor to the War office: whence the cub at Maidstone got his
commission. He was a psalmsinging soldier-officer of the Headley Yt:*9 type - i pious
bloke: you know "Irt us sing to the praise and glory of the halbert [sic]. ru Three dozen of the
nine tailed cat". "I thought there was something wrong about him" said the Rev Dr Griffiths,
who had conversed with Sir lohn Dean Paul on the morning of his bankruptcy "because he talked
so much of the goodness of God". I am glad that the link in our Maidstone friend's cable is so
satisfactorily accounted for.
Yours always
G.A.S.
t. Tuesday after Pall Mall story Saturday 15 August 1868.
2. "We did not choose London as our abode; but took a pretty house on The Terrace, Putney,
over against the "Eight Bells" Tavern (Life 496). GAS remembers the move here to be in the late
autumn of.L867.
3. The hanging of Thomas Wells, aged eighteen, took place Thursday 13 August; GAS's story
appeared in DT: 5, the following day. "[ was sent down to Maidstone to witness the first
execution under the provisions of the Act abolishing public executions . . . I was accompanied on
this dismal errand by two joumalistic colleagues and old friends, Mr. Edmund Yates and Mr.
Joseph Charles Parkinson. We each wrote a faithful n:urative of the scene at Maidstone, which
was a sufficiently sickening one, and we wer€ all abused for having simply done our duty" (Lift
tt4
496-97). The Pall Mall's "abuse" runs in the following vein: "It is impossible, we imagine, for
any journalist with the slightest respect either for himself or his profession to read the narratives
which were yesterday published by the Telegraph and the Daily News without a feeling of bitter
shame and indignation at such a revolting prostitution of the functions of the press" (4).
4. His paper business had failed, and he was personally in debt for 11,000 (Johnson 550). See
46n3.
5. Is GAS being serious here? General tone of the letter suggests he's joking. But as the use of
young girls as prostitutes was widespread perhaps he also was attracted by the possibility of a
viryin.
6. 'The governor, a nonchalanr gentleman of military mien, was in civilian garb, with a wideawake
hat and a natty cane" (from Dlreport 14 August 1868:5: 7).
7. Doubleyou = W. Perhaps rhyming slang for Jew. But more likely initial could stand for
whore. This fits in with general tone of letter.
8. Onan's sin was masturbation (Genesis 38:9). Again, as in note 5, is GAS being serious? This
seems to be a rather "off' joke at his friend Glover's* expense. Yates had published a book in
1861called After ffice Hours @dwards ltem 75).
9. Cnn't discover. Sounds like a vicar from Headley. Perhaps a character in a book.
10. Halberd = combined spear and battle-axe (OED).
172l
[embossed
blue crest with cornucopia, initials GAS, and motto "Son Solo" centre]
Thursday [20 October 1868]1
Putney
Dear Edmund,
Look here. I can write "the Cloak" gg Saturday but you ca'nt have it before Sunday, that
is Monday morning's Post at the G.P.O. Will that do? tf I send it there ygu can collar ten pounds
for it off the fifteen I owe you. If I send it to Tinsley he will collar it, for same sum (not much is
it) I owe him.2 But I want to do the story so that someone may collar that representative value,
anyhow. Let me have a line and say if this will do.
I told you I was laid up with bile. I've not been out since Thursday last. By G - ['ve
enough to make me bilious. Mn Sala snarling at Brighton, and a writ just come in for f225. My
old friend the demon dwarf Ttrompson.3 I rlal.v owe him f150; but he fudged up a cancelled
acceptance - at least one that should have been cancelled on a renewal - I have paid him I75 in
solid cash. this year, but I fail in keeping up instalments and he sues for f225. There a_re two
more X's4 of a similar nature out, and a p surety] attachment from Somerset House.S The
Attorney General & yourself for arrears of income tax - ye Gods! - for 1862-3. Is'nt this
farticular hell? and is'nt this a lively reward for having been such a d--d fool as to try to pa)'
20/- in the pound? It will be another case of Basinghall Street6 with me; but I have knocked
down f1500 of debts since my abortive banknrptcy, and owe now about 11500 more. In
September'67 [ was in for close on three thou.
Joe ParkinsotrT cu-" to see me today on a horse. Now mark the difference between a
person I will not name8 and that singularly discreet young man J.C.P. the nameless person in his
golden prime careered about on a blood mare - satin skin, small ears, beeswax hoofs and so
forth. Joe's steed today as visible from my parlour window was, according to his assertion, a
115

"serviceable cob", but in my opinion the brute was own brother to the screw that Mr Bicknell
rode so many hours in the morning of the day when the horse-marines ate him (the hone, not
Bicknell) at the I-angham.9 I asked Joe how much a pound he had given for his monture.lO H"
smiled with gay superciliousness. Joe will get on; unless indeed the water should get into his
father's coalmines, or Robinson,ll going ruuing mad through the non-circulation otitre D.N.12
should bite Joe in the knee cap, thus bringing on white swelling, tetanus, mania A p1t13
convulsions and death.
Yours always
G.A.S.
Poor old Glover is getting slowly - very slowly - better. Just able to crawl about Gray's
Inn Square. Six weeks rheumatic fever.
I suppose you have heard that Fred Dickensl4 is dead. And I suppose he was a bad egg;
but assuredly a most mizerable life had he led since 1858. One hundred and twenty pounds a
year superannuation from the War office and out of that 160 per ann. set aside by the Divorce
Court as alimony for his wife, and f}Oby the Bankruptcy Court for his creditors. F.D.'s habitual
breakfast was a penny bun and a glass of gingerbeer. The remainder of his diet was mainly gin;
cold. He could'nt smoke; het_ad no taste for reading: in fact he had no taste for anything save
Van John and three card loo:15 - luxuries not altogeiher attainable on a net income of {4b. per
ann. Poordevil.
1. Day Fred Dickens died.
2. Many years later in his reminiscences (1900) Tinsley has his "little growl at the dead lion."
He had been fooled once too often by GAS on money matters to remain magnanimous (L: 156-
9). But Tinsley had no cause to be pious as he was in the Bankruptcy court himself in 1878, and
as GAS righteously points out in letter'1.44, to the tune of f33,000. A rather considerable sum in
those days.
3. See 60n4.
4. Executions (69n2).
5. At this time Somerset House, Strand, contained the Registrar-General's offices, the
Exchequer and Audit Departments, the Inland Revenue office and the hobate and Divorce
Courts.
6. Basinghall Street was the location of the Court of Bankruptcy. His "abortive" bankruptcy
sounds like the bankruptcy charges that were annulled in January 1868 (70n2). He also had a
difficult period in 1862/3 when he was in very serious financial trouble, but managed to escape
prosecution (letter 69). Allusions to the bankruptcy court could date back to end of 1858, when
we found him in Queen's Bench Debtor's Prison (letter 21).
7. Joseph Charles Parkinson (1832-?), journalist friend of both GAS and Yates, working at this
time for the Daily.ffews (Hodder 373). He had contributed a number of articles to TB from 1864
to 1867 during Yates's editorship; among these were three in 1866 presented in response to
James Greenwood's series 'Night in a C.asual Ward, by An Amateur Casual," that had caused
such a sensation in three January issues of the Pall Mall Gazette the same year (113n4).
Parkinson claimed that his articles were based on the experiences of a real inmate of Iambeth
Workhouse, and not a sham one, as Greenwood had been, hence his titles "A Real Causal on
Casual Wards" (April), "A Real Casual on Mendicancy" (May),and "A Real Casual on Refuges"
(July). Parkinson had also worked for the Inland Revenue at Somerset House, and wrote (Jnder
Government (1859) and a companion volume Government F-xaminarrons (1860), official keys to
116
the Civil Service (Allibone's). later ne joined Yates on the World. According to Tinsley
"[Parkinson] had some interest in that paper; but I expect Master Edmund's not over frugal ways
of liuitrg hindered him from letting anyone share the mine of gold he so luckily found" (2:337).
See next letter n2 for explanation of Tinsley's attitude to Yates.
8. The following suggest that the un-named rider could be Yates himself: "Edmund liked
luxury, and kept his brougham and pair, with a groom and coachman in buckskin . . . to say
nothing of a sleek hack for riding in Rotten Row" (Ltfe 377). Yates's memoirs reveal that at the
time oi their pubtication in 1884 he was still riding regularly in Rotten Row, and had been doing
so since L849 (LtZ).
g. "The horse-flesh dinner at the I-angham Hotel" was an amusing anecdote GAS had heard
recounted by comedian J.L. Toole (I832-L906). Along with other friends (perhaps Yates was
there) he had been invited to watch the 1868 annual Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge
(usually held in first weeks of April) from the balcony of the Salas' Putney house, which
overlooked the river. Egged on by the crowd below Toole had made an imprompu speech
(Straus 189). CIhe langham was a hotel in Portland Place.) One of Toole's earliest surcesses
had been in Yates's faren, My Friend Leatherhead,IS5T.
10. Satirically refined way of saying "nag."
11. Parkinson's editor on the Dfl, John Richard Robinson (1828-1903), journalist; after
beginning his career on provincial papers he moved to l-ondon in 1848 and worked on the
Inquirer and the WeeHy News and Chronicle,where he was responsible for getting Yates his post
as drama critic (Yates 187). In 1855 he became editor of the Express; 1868 manager of.the Daily
News, and its titular editor in 1887. He had a deep interest in the European freedom movements
of his perid and was a friend to revolutionary leaders like Garibaldi, Mazzini and Kossuth.
Around 1873 he and GAS were to become members of a select "little coterie" of newspapermen
refened to as "the press-gang," who lunched every day at a particular table at the Reform Club
(Brown 133). A dinner with Robinson at the Reform is mentioned in letter 143 par 2. See Fifty
Years of Fleet Street:; Being the Life and Recollections of Sir John R. Robinson (190a) by
Frederick Moy Thomas. Robinson was knighted in 1893.
12. Daily News 2L lanuary 1846-31 May L900+; launched and edited for 17 issues (21 January-
9 February) by Chades Dickens.
13. An unquenchable thirst.
14. Frederick Dickens died 20 October 1868. ln earlier times, along with his brother Alfred
(died 1860 of pteurisy), he had been one of the Bohemian crew that had caroused together "three
or four nights a week at certain favourite restaurants" (Life 363). GAS's offbeat but succinct
"obituary note" here sums up Fred's life, echoing the remarks of his estranged brother Charles:
"[t was a wasted life, but God forbid that one should be hard upon it." They had not seen each
other for seven years (Johnson 552).
15. Both card games.
tt7

173l
[embossed blue crest with cornucopia, initials GAS, and motto "Son Solo" centre] _1
Saturday (October 18681r
Putney
My dear Edmund,
Do you know a french vaudeville called "Une Femme qui se jette par la fen€tre"? A lady
in the course of a row with her husband jumps out of a first floor window. She is'nt hurt, because
she falls on a haycock on the lawn. The pair are separated for some yea$. She wants to come
back - all women want to come back - but her husband mentions the existence of such a thing as
a laddel. She gets a ladder at last, and humbly mounting to the window whence she pitched
herself is received in her husband's arms. Mrs Sala s'est "jet6e par la fen€tre", and has not yet
come to the ladder stage of reflection. kt her be. She is at 23 Devonshire Place. Go and see
her, and talk genteelly, but don't say anything about our tiff one way or other. She'll send for a
ladder some dav.
"Cloak'i2 on Monday morning first post at G.P.O. Understand, g[dgl gny circumstance I
wo'nt take the money for it.
always
G.A.S.
I have just read the letter of the doctor at Darlington (written to Mrs Alfred D) who
attended Fred Dickens. Heart, lungs and kidneys were all quirky. His left lung was quite gone
and the suppuration choked him. Young Charles went down from the governor.r
1. Shortly after Fred Dicken's funeral, see PS. He died 20 October 1868 (see previous letter).
2. hoposed story for Tinsley's Magazine, t867-1892, a shilling monthly modelled on the
successful Cornhilt formula; started on 26 August 1867 by William Tinsley in partnership with
Yates, who was editor. However the joumal was not as lucrative as expected and Tinsley
regretted his early enthusiasm: "there was a rage amongst publishers for shilling magazines, and I
was one of the foolish sheep who rushed through the gap into the next field, and did not find the
food so plentiful as it was in the field I had left" (l:32\. The association ended two years later
amid Tinsley's accusations of mismanagement by Yates: "he would have done better from a
commercial point of view had he not lent himself so much to old comrades and literary friends,
who wrote as much as they pleased, and charged a good deal too much for what they did' (ibid).
Tinsley should talk, he went bankrupt and almost lost Trnsley's in 1878 (1a8d).
3. Charles Dickens sent his son down for his brother's funeral. Fred died of "abscesses on the
lungs" (DN 22 October 1868:7.6).
174l
[embossed
blue crest with comucopia, initials GAS, and motto "Son Solo" centre]
Tuesday night [November or December 1868]r
Putney
My dear Edmund,
Either Don Duffero is the biggest liar out - well_he ig the biggest; but he must be bigger
even than himself: which is a paradox, - or the Braddon2 business has been exaggerated. t think
however the first is the case. I met Maxwell today in Fleet Street and asking after Mrs M. he told
me that she was "rapidly recovering from a slight attack of nervous prostration into which she
had been thrown by the death of her revered parint". He added that "Bound to John Company"3
118
was "superb, superb", and then took occasion to ask me when I thought I would tum the
"Bargraves" which I did in "Banter"4 into an entirely new novel altering the names and places.
He further took occasion to inform me that he had long been thinking over a variety of schemes
by means of which several thousands of pounds might be put into my pocket: remarking
parenthetically that he considered me the most brilliant genius of the day, and that my "success"
- what success? -must be gall and wormwood to S, my deadliest enemy. I told him that I had
been dining with you on Sunday, whereupon he sunreyed me with a wondering eye, and the
conversation flagged a little; but happening to notice that I had a new hat he actively observed
that I was the best dressed man in Iondon, and, ringing my hand affectionately went over
Blackfriars bridge, with a black bag, on his way to the Old Bailey via the Waterloo Station.
From all which I perpended that Don Duffero is in a tremendous funk. The last run of the ore in
the Richmond) mine has been worked. It really does look like Nemesis. How many more 3 vol
novels, each representing a ten-roomed house and an acre of land may he not have calculated
upon? When I got to Waterloo 2 hours afterwards I met Clarke a bill discounting friend of Gus
Mayhew's and his neighbour at TWickenham. His family doctor is the Maxwell's physician, and
according to his showing poor Braddon is altogether off her chump.
We had an amazingly jolly day yesterday at the Victoria Docks, but my cough is none the
better for it and I feel as though my ship was moored in Barking Creek,
G.A.S.
1. 1868 watermark; M.E. Braddon's mother died 1 November 1868.
2. Novelist M.E. Braddon*; she and Maxwelli were living as man and wife, but their union was
not legalized until L874. A series of domestic griefs, including the death of her mother at the end
of 1868, caused her to have a neryous breakdown. She did not write anything for over a year
(tvoltt?22).
3. Braddon's illness prevented her from completing the serialization of Bound to John Company
commenced in Belgravia July 1868, and "it was finished for my magazine by another's hand"
after five instalments.. tn 1871 she completed her own version and published it as Robert
Ainsleigh (Wolff 229).
4. The Bargraves: a Romance of Many Countries was serialized in Banter; a short-lived,
Punch-styled penny weekly. Waterloo documents it as: Nos 1,-10, 1867, the BM C4t says there
were 13 issues, while Straus (who seems to have sighted a copy of its reissue as a bound volume)
says there were 2L numbers from 2 September L867 to 30 January 1^868, and that GAS's name
appeared as its Conductor (187).
5. On 9 August 1866 Braddon and Maxwell had bought Litchfield House, "a big red brick house
. . . with a rare old fashioned garden." Describing the house and garden, Braddon wrote to friend
and mentor Edward Bulwer-Lytton in October 1867 that "such as it is, it all came out of my own
head" (Wolff 141). As usual Maxwell was in financial difficulties so we can see that GAS
description of him being in a ufunk' is probably valid. Braddon herself perceived that it was her
talent that provided for them. The thought that she would perhaps never write again must have
been very worrying for them both.
119

tTsl
[embossed
blue crest with cornucopia, initials GAS, and motto "son solo" centrel
Tuesday [Decembei 1868]1
Putney
My dearEdmund,
I shall see you, I guess, tonight at the Kensington Penny g trale;omegood news to
Y.?..I
tell you - gg! financial, lhqsg ProsPects are of the most Basinghaltish3, but domestic and which
t;; hrd roi-, r,*a ii tri-"E-"g agiul.a please to keep a-knife and fork for me in Baker St
.Still
on Christmas Day as I hav-e rio doubt that I;hatl be worked incessantly by the D'T' between
Xmas eve and Boxing DaY.
5161
/AJ
This is Ivan lvanovitch5 tnffiino*ik watking down the Nevski Perspective6 in u
gld lined with real sable, but he could'nt get it in in time for the Nightmares/ and you must
stick it into TinsleYt
O.O.,
2. A penny gaffwas a music hall'
ons Tinsley's Christmas Issue (note 7)'
3. Basinghall Street again - the dreaded banknrPtcy court'
4. See letter 73. Yates must have been a successful emissary to Mrs Sala'
5. Ivan lvanovitch is GAS's generic name for Russian men, be they peasant, f'eeman (moujik) or
uririo.,u, (gospodin). See t'ife and Advenures chapter 2'7, "My first Journey Due North" for his
considered opinion of Russia and the Russians. The story he mentions here must be "cloak,"
which he had Promised in letter 73.
6. ,,The Regent Street of St. Petersburg" (Ltfe 289); and oi the world's great thoroughfares
9T
(Encyclopeta Brittannica). Sometimei spelt Nevskoi (or Nevsky) Prospekt.
7. A Stabte for Nightm4res was the titte of. Tinsley's 1868 Ctuistmas number. Publication of
,,Cloak,, has not been verified, nor has any other story by GAS been identified in Tinsley's after
1867. "The Story of a Man in a Hurry" in stormbound, christmas Number, t861:32-38 seems
to have been the only piece of fiction he contributed'
v6l christmas Eve, L868
ln the topmost bow of an oak Tree in Boscobel wood - Cromwell's lronsides riding to and fto,
*o urting the brothers penderel if they have seen anything of the Man Charles Stuart. I am the
Man C.S.I
Dear Edmund,
I'm glad you'1e not dining at home tomorrow. The thought of not being able to come
would have-riled m".1 I a- in close hiding in a ganet in the Wandsworth Road, and never spcnt
such an amusing Christmas in my life. And is'nt it nice weather? And those beautiful christmas
numbers of theleriodicals, too. -"Christmas at Hollyberry Hall"; "Bringing in the Holly" "Under
the Mistletoe" "Mummen singing carols"'
120
What was the reason for that sp;teful notice in the D.T. about "Tame Cats"?z There must
have been one.
A letter to the Telegraph will always find me. I must make some coup. When things get
to the worst they mend.
I-ook out for a review of mine on the Guiccioli's Byron.3 My mother knew her. I just
remember her, a fat little bitch with tremendous dairies.4
A merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you and you$. Damn it! I only owe fifteen
hundred pounds; but it is the infernal twenties and thirties with executions at their back which are
breaking mine.
Yours always
George: aug: Sala.
[On back of letter is illustration of man wielding a cat o'ninc tails. Pencilled below it is note,
probably by Yates's son E. Smedley Yates.]
iT.-" bti" play by Edmund Yatis / produced P of W by Bancrofts6 / great failure - criticisms
all bad, the worst being written by / EY himself in the Daily News lrr:mf=- .
Jaae
:
4'"h.
1. GAS romanticizes his rather sordid situation by likening himself to the besieged Charles II,
hiding from Cromwell's forces after his defeat at Worcester in 1.651. The Penderel were five
Shropshire brothers (Catholic Yeomen) who sheltered him at Boscobel. The early chapters of
Capnin Dangerous have their origrns in this part of Stuart history.
2. In lettcr 75 he asks that a place be kept for him on Christmas Day. Yates's plans must have
changed, and so have GAS's - he has been forced into hiding to escape his creditors. Straus
notes "yet another financial crisis presented itself at the beginning of 1869, though the details are
not forthcoming" (189).
3. Tame Cats, a play by Yates first produced at the hince of Wales Theatre Saturday 12
December 1868. The DIs "spiteful notice" appeared the following Monday 14. The reviewer
saw the play as not living up to public expectation: "Rarely has the familiar green curtain, which
awakens so many agreeable recollections in the mind of the play-goer, been raised under more
t2L

favourable influences than on Saturday night, and seldom has it fallen upon hopes more cruelly
crushed."
4. The English translation of. Lord Byron Jugi par Les Timoins de sa Vie (1869), by Countess
Teresa Guiccioli, Byron's Venetian mistress.
5. "Tits" probably modern equivalent.
6. Squire Bancroft (1841.-1926) and Marie Wilton Bancroft (1840-1921); significant figures in
London theatre at the time; both played managerial and acting roles at the Prince of Wales and
Haymarketc. 1865-L885. Tame Catswasoneof theirrarefailures(Scott1:589). ltsfailurewas
cited as one of the chief causes of Yates's bankruptcy (Times 14 January 1869).
1771
[embossed
blue crest with cornucopia, initials GAS, and motto "Son Solo" centre]
Friday [March or April 1869]I
Putney
My dear Edmund,
All right, Sunday, 6.30 p.m. - unless, indeed, a magnificent attack of influenza from
which I am now suffering takes an unfavourable_turn, and chokes me.
Just hint to our Christian friend Fiske2 (whose fine Roman hand you will recognise
herewith3) not to go blurting out my recent "up a[indecipherable]" in the "Communipaw
Plugugly", or the "Gunwood Cemetery Ghoul" or the "Baltimore Bloodlub", or any other local
"press" in the U.S. of which he may happen to be European correspondent. I know the style of
thing - "I recently mailed to you, (per lnman packetship "City of Edinburgh") a reliable account
of an assault on a serving maid committed by the poet Tennyson, and of the committal to the
Tower of Newgate by the alderman sitting at Bow St Police tribunal of the Duke of Bute (whose
income is said to be 2,000,000 per ann) for stealing spoons from Spiers and Pond's+ freeluncheon
bar. Some of your countless readers may be amused to hear that the notorious George
Augustus Sala, whose attacks on our institutions, our citizens and our ladies formed so
disgraceful an episode in the history of the Great Rebellion5 has been overtaken by Nemesis.
The Mills of the Gods (as the immortal Longfellow has it) grind slowly, but they kick up a H --
- of a ro*.6 George Augustus had been for a long time in receipt of a salary from the Carlton
ClubT for advocating Fenianism and the disestablishment of the lrish church; but this being
suddenly cut off (owing to its being discovered that he had been throughout, a mere
"[indecipherable]back" toHon John C. Bright8; the miserable man was soon overwhelmed by
his financial difficulties. Hotly pursued by bailiffs armed with a warrant from the Lord Mayor to
commit him to the Queen's Bench gaol, Whitecross St, Horsemonger Iane, E.C. George A. Sala
took refuge in the secluded gardens of the Queen's Rgyal Zoological and Horticultural Society,
Prince Regent's Park [?near] Spurgeon's Tabernacle9 and the site of old Vauxhall [?Hill],ru
through thi prompt coutt"sy bf br Frantpucklandll he was permitted to conceal himself in the
rear of the den occupied by the Wambatrz [sic], where, I believe, he still remains.
r22
If further events transpire I will rvire particulars. Talking of Wambats a member of the
Right Honourable Privy Common Council whom I met at the Commercial Travellers Club Pall
Mall today informed me that the British aristocracy's gorge is at last rising at the slimy shoestring
licking, bar-of-yeller_s^oap munching tactics of that debased effete and emasculated creature
Hon Reverdy Johnsonr5 who ----"
And so on, and so on.
G.A.S.
1. Assumption is that dinner refened to in first par is the one he angered Mrs Yates for not
attending mentioned in following letter.
2. Stephen Ryder Fiske (1840-L916), American journalist and theatrical manager; editorial
writer, special conespondent and w:r correspondent for the New York Herald; its drama critic
L862-66. Like GAS he reported on the US Civil War, and was with Garibaldi in Rome during
the revolution there in 1867. Iater he went to l,ondon where he combined journalism and
theatre, becoming manager of St. James Theatre and the Royal Opera Company (DAB). He was
a member of the Savage Club (Nf Times 28 April 1916). He returned to the US c.1877 and
became manager of the Fifth Avenue Theatre New York, and in 1879, founded the Nev,York
Dramatic Mirror (DNB).
3. Style of writing script changes in section of letter in quotation marks. GAS must be imitating
Fiske's handwriting to give authority to his spoof of American journalism, which he believes
gives priority to sensation over fact. The fanciful names he gives US papers in second par set the
tone. His inspiration for these probably arose from actual small town joumals such as the
Punxsutawney Spirit, Pennsylvania.
4. Well-known firm of caterers and restaurant owners; their business originated in Melboume.
Iater they established successful hotels and restaurants in many parts of England, and
revolutionized railway refreshment rooms. One of their most popular innovations was to employ'
attractive, well-spoken barmaids with "virtuous" reputations in their establishments (Queensland
Figaro 30 May 1885).
5. Must refer to the way he "knocked" America and the Americans (particularly the Union) on
his 1863-1864 tour as the DIs special conespondent, assigned to report on the civil war
conflict, i.e., the "Great Rebellion" of the South against the North. [n the revized edition of his
reports for publication as a book, My Diary in America in the Midst of War, (1865), he added a
chapter called "Justifactory," in which he defends himself against "the great many enemies" he
made, claiming that what he wrote was truly observed and not designed, as had been suggested,
"to cut the Yankeesup" (America 8).
6. Henry Wadsworth (1807-1882), American poet. Lines from Longfellow's Retriburiort
actually are: "Though the mills of God grind slowly , I Yet they grind exceeding small. "
7. The Carlton was extremely conservative; a contradiction in terms to link it with radical
Fenianism. It was founded in 1842 and was centred round the Duke of Wellington and his
friends, becoming a bastion of Toryism. lts rival, the Reform, was established at the same time
by Whig MP's to rally support for the Reform Bill.
8. On the aftemoon of Friday 13 December 1867 there was a great explosion at Clerkenwell
prison, caused by some Fenians trying to set free two friends (Times 14 December 1867: 7. 2).
GAS had hunied from Putney to report on it for the DT (Life 499-500), which devoted all of
r23

page2 to the story on Saturday 1.4 December 1867 - perhaps not all by GAS, but certainly fint
piece headed, "Diabolical renian outrage." As can be seen from 1,868 newspapers the state of
Ireland engrossed England then just as it does now. Palmefs Index to the Times for the first three
months of the year carries well over sixty entries, many of which are leaders. John Bright (1811-
1889),radical MP, was identified in the public mind as a friend of the lrish poor and the chief
author of the movement for the disestablishment of the lrish Church, which he had denounced in
1866 as keland's main cause of discontent. The House of Commons became a duelling ground
between him and P.M. Disraeli over this matter, anticipating Gladstone and his lrish Home Rule
policies (DNB).
9. Officially named The Metropolitan Tabemacle, but generally called after Charles Haddon
Spurgeon (1834-1892), who at 22 bec.ame the most popular preacher of his day. The young
Baptist's audiences, often numbering up to ten thousand, overflowed extensions added to his
regular church, so a place of worship large enough to hold them had been built in Newington
Causeway and opened in 1861 (DNB).
1,0. Vauxhall Hill: must be part of Vauxhall Gardens, which, with Chelsea Gardens, were in their
heyday as pleasure grounds in the eighteenth century. They were also popular in the first half of
the nineteenth century, but closed in L859 and L877 respectively (Mitchell 1,7). See Yates 91-2
for a contemporary description of Vauxhall Gardens in their decline. Chaotic mixture of names
and locations here helps to reinforce the idea of badly researched reporting that relies on impact,
not fact.
1.1.. Francis Trevelyan Buckland (1826-1880), surgeon and naturalist, especially known for his
work on fish and fisheries; he contributed to the Field newspaper from its inception in 1.856 to
1865 when he commenced his own journal Land and Water, 27 June 1,866-27 May 1903.
Around 1865 he established a "fishing" exhibition at the South Kensington Museum, the first
successful attempt to gain national interest in pisiculture. His exhibition was expanded into the
lntemational Fisheries Exhibition of 1883 (DNB).
1.3. Wombats were fashionable at the time. D.G. Rossetti kept a wombat among the animals and
birds in the exotic menagerie at his house in Cheyne Walk.
14. Reverdy Johnson (L196-L876), US constitutional lawyer, diplomat and Democrat politician;
US Attorney-General in 1"849. He had arrived on Saturday L5 August 1868 (Times 17 August
1868: 7. 2). During the civil war he had supported the Union, but had spoken out against harsh
post-war legislative reparations against the South. His Southern sympathies prompted Congress
to appoint him US envoy to the Court of Queen Victoria in 1868 as a step towards resolving
differences between England and the victorious Union, brought about by English support of the
Southem states. One particular bone of contention being the armed protection provided for
Southem vessels as they attempted to run the Northern blockades that threatened the supply of
cotton to English mills. Johnson anived in England in August 1-868, and was recalled by his
government the following year.
124
178I
My dear lvlrs Yates,2
I loow that I am in disgrace with you, and that I have been banished this many weeks
past from the pleasantest house in london, because I did'nt come and dine that Sunday when I
could'nt. Aware o! your stemly unforgiving temper I am not about to make any appeals ad
misericordiam: lglJ (* was observed in the great [?duck] stealing case) could you oblige me
with the 6saning of the enclosed line by Edmund? Is it "Stephen", or "Hepworth" or "Nephew"
or lltcostttutatl 4, orwhat?
It occurred to me that you might like to look at a volume I have dedicated to Shirley
Brooks. I mcan !4rS Shirley,) of course, but, for fear of consequenccs, was obliged to dissemble.
When you have turned over the leaves will you give the book to the [?poor], with my
complincns.
faithfully always
George: aug: Sala.
1. This is whcrc he lay low, before going on holiday (Straus 190).
2. 5 lctters to Yates's wife, louisa, are included in this collection (the others are 88, 9L,99, L67).
GAS tr,cats hcr with au ironic defcrence epitomized in his remark: "I am afraid of ladies - not of
the marricd ones, in whom I take grcat deligbt, talking Buchan's 'Medicine', Acton's 'Cooker,v',
and lv{rs Ellis with them, very gravely, till they think mc a harmless fogey, hopelessly celibate,
but scnsible" (Twice 224).
3. Word undcrlined 4 times.
4. Looks like a nonsetrse word, mixture of strange characters that could be Russian and ktin.
Hc scems to be having trouble deciphering Yates's handwriting so this perhaps shows degree of
ditEailty.
5. GAS had known Shirley Brooks'st "pleasant and nanrrally humorous wife ever sincc I was a
boy." Emily Margaret sccms to have been a favourite of GAS's and must have been quite a
beauty; GAS reminds us nvice in his memoirs (164, 619), and again in lener 165, that she was
"one of two good-looking siste$" he had seen having their miniatures painted about 18.t3 by
Carl Schillcr, an artist to whom he was articled at the time.
vel
Saturday 8,.Vay 1869
32 Great College Street, Camden Townl
20 July 1869
32 Great Collegc Street, Camden Town
DearEdmund,
What do you think of lhat at 39 years of age, and after wo attacks of del: trem: the yellow
fever, and a broken heart? Are you going anyrrhere for a holiday this year within the next three
weeks? My twenty one annual days of absence have just commenced. If you were anyrrhere
seasidically or French-wateringplacically I would run down and see you. Drop us a line.
Yours always,
GAS.
){)
"-J.* ".il-q
r.' 6qr
L r.. -id d t. -F! r- $r
i-. t+16lF
=';s". doi*. s. NbrFfr{t -aq
ir.srr 3U l\d s Lrt
.1 J$."'W*r*.vrb
--l i L' trt tt to' r.. tur {
*
I25
:.-.../
&r b { i..+'r\{ Fr| '."&'
3r L r-- E -- 'Jr.-J.J
:*.,.g- -r!'r\'c'$"4
a!{ !.. til? {.ra a* ',d'r r''
.h n..tt lta.r q Lr .rr rral
#
-.

[Minuscule, copperplate hand in three variations of script in a column above head and text of
letter beside a large section that has been neatly cut out - probably an illustration of some kind.]
lsaiah: L11,. L4. As many as were astonished at thee; his visage was so marredr more than any
man, and his form more than the sons of men. So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall
shut their mouths at him; for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which
they had not heard shall they consider.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we deem him stricken, smitten of
God and afflicted.
All we like sheep have gone astray: we have tumed everyone to his own w?y.2
All-we tike sheep have gone astray: we have turned everyone to his own way, and the l,ord hath
lald on him the iniquity of us all.r
1. Surely, his nose wasn't that bad! Significance of these verses is not known.
2. Part of Isaiah 53: 6.
3. Isaiah:53: 6.
t80l
Friday [September 1869J1
Hotel de Russie: Frankfort-on-the-Maine and be damned to it
My dear Edmund,
Be a good fellow, not for once or twice or thrice but as usual, and send me a fiyE pAUDd
note on here at once. I will square you up all in most masonic form when I get back. You will
see from enclosed that things look healthy. But I am nevertheless for the moment snowed up
here, as many a Honest man has been before without a cheque book, having sent my last to Mrs
Sala and with ne'er a copper. I am standing at livery and eating my head off. Send on the tin for
Saint Geronimo2 his sike or I shall have to pawn my watch, and they lend about twopence
halfpenny here on a gold Dent.3
Yours
G.A.S.
Be careful to put "on the Maine" to Frankfort, but I daresay you know the crib.
1' Dating conjectural: GAS's memoirs reveal that he took his holidays regularly at the German
gaming tables. On these trips he invariably spent some time at his favourite hotel, the Hotel de
Russie. He recalls that in the early autumn of 1869 he took his usual holiday; and his usual
losses, which "culminated in my having to get a cheque on London cashed in order to be able to
return home," he also mentions he was staying at the Hotel de Russie. Here he met up with
Lionel I-awson* and John Hollingshead,r own€r and manager respectively of the new Gaiety
Theatre, who proposed that he should write a burlesque for the coming Christmas lLife 5II).
The result was Wat Tyler M.P., which ran for "some eighty nights" from 20 December 1869.
Comedian J.L. Toole* played the leading role, with Nellie Farren and Marie Litton in supporting
roles.
John Hollingshead paid him "handsomely for the piece," and he also received "substantial
royalties on the sale of the book of the words" (5I2). Such success enabled the Salas to move
from lodgings in Camden Town to a house at Alexander Square, Brompton (Straus 190). Clues
here are his need of money and "you will see from the enclosed that things look healthier." "The
enclosed" has not been retained with the MS. However, it could possibly be something about
Holingshead's proposal, thus this letter iras been positioned between Camden Town address and
1 Alexander Square, Brompton (see next letter par 2).
2. GAS taking St. Jerome's (c.1,365-1420) name in vain: an appropriate oath since Jerome was a
Bohemian (i.e., of the country of Bohemia) martyr.
3. Well-known brand of pocket watch, made in london by Edward John Dent (1790-1853).
t81l
l"mbossed Reform club crest centre]
SaturdaY ,€)
[earlY 1870]1
J ,;$}, (
The Deformed Cub, Pall Mall
DearEdmund,
WJ
Guai gi !i sfugge utr Eglgz: Not *if,"ptease, about the proprietary of the New Show.3
kt it be a society of Capitalists:.say Rothschild, " the Marquis of Bute, Bamum, George Hodder
and the beautiful Mister Rousby.a
No 1 Alexander Square Brompton. We have got a,new house close to the Bell and
Horns,5 and I have got baCk my Collcction of Art Treiures6 and rare bigotry and virtue long
impounded at Taylor's Repository. We are waiting now only for a few knives and forks; and
then Francatelli / (represented by chump cook) will begin to perform and you will come and
dine.
Yours
G.A.S..
L. He moved to Brompton Square (par 2) at the beginning of 1870, after the success of.Wat Tyler
mentioned in nL last letter (Shaus 190).
2. Literally "Heaven help you if you let any mud slip out," i.e., he warns Yates about speculating
on his new venture in the press.
3. The "New Show' is England in the Nineteenth Century, or, as William Tinsley heads his
anecdote about it, "An Interesting Speculation Nipped in the Bud" (1: 96-100). The speculation
was a new monthly periodical financed by James Willing, a well-known advertizer, with GAS as
editor and Tinsley as publisher. A large staff of the best journalists was engaged, and the first
edition well on the way to production when Willing called the whole thing off (a few days before
Charles Dickens's death on 9 June), because advertising, the backbone of any journal's financial
success by then, was not forthcoming. Ironic, since Witling was an effective organizer of
advertising on walls and hoardings all over London. Straus suggests prospective advertizers
were put off because they feared Willing was really only interested in promoting his own
business (Straus 194).
3. GAS's list of this rather disparate srew as the "proprietary" manages to convey his opinion of
Willing's venture. The name of Rothschild is certainly synonymous with capitalism, but he was
a Jew (with all the financial connotations attached). Bamum represents the brash American way
of entrepreneurial self-promotion, but according to GAS he was a fraud (letter 21,). The Marquis
of Bute adds a touch of class to the whole affair, but probably not much more as he didn't like
spending money; he seems an ambivalent figure, "a poor, rather than a rich man, a man who
migbt be very rich, but in accordance with 'fixed ideas', chooses to be comparatively poor "
(World 5 May 1875: 6). George Hodder is the antithesis of the "go-getter," useful for n-othing
but somebody else's "hack" work (1.8n18 par 2). And "the beautiful Mister Rousby" (actor
126 r27

Wybert Rousby) only exists in the shadow of his young actress wife Clara (1847-1879),
acclaimed for her beauty, and known as "the beautiful Mrs Rousby"(Wolff 237). Perhaps too
much poetic license taken here, but add this to the mock head, "The Deformed Cub," placed as it
is beneath Reform Club crest, and you get some idea of the cynicism with which GAS must have
accepted this job. He is indeed following a path that his earnest Bohemianism of younger days
would have condemned (letter 15). Questions of proprietary and propriety seem as closely
linked here as the spelling of the two words themselves. Perhaps pun intended.
4. He had lived at p Alexander Square in first half of L860, before moving to Slough (letters
38-s2).
5. GAS was acquisitive to say the least. A later "ilustrated Inteniew" in the Strand 1892 shows
photographs of his possessions lining every wall of his home in Victoria Street from floor to
ceiling: "His pictures are so many that he has positively had to fall back on the kitchen walls
whereon to hang many a proof engraving and etching . . . the entrance hall is a perfect little
menagerie . . . the bronzes on the mantleboard are as exquisite as the china and Hanoverian ware
. . . the library comprizes over 500 volumes, dating from 1578 to the present day, of every
country and every language . . . [in] the drawing room - the doors of which are inlaid with panels
of fruit and flowers painted on satin - more artistic treasures are to be met with, from the brush
and pencil of many a master hand" ( (1892):58-69). All this and there are still the bedrooms,
the study and the dining room to go.
6. Charles Edm6 Francatelli; one-time chef to Queen Victoria, and at the Reform Club during
GAS's membership time (Things 2:249). The "chump cook" is no doubt GAS himself.
l82l
Saturday [28 May 1870]1
1, Alexander Square Brompton
Dear Edmund,
Under certain circumstances it is as well to be simply honest: and nothing more.
! wanted you to come to the dinner, and ! want you to write in the gaff - from selfish as
well as friendly motives; because although the men may hate youz your name is a safe draw with
the women - bulJ Tinsley publishes us and Tinsley dines with us: and the bare mention of EY's
name always leads the unkempt bibliopole+ of Catherine Street to utter a yell like unto that of a
lioness robbed of her whelps,5 or Hepworth Dixon6 reading the last pitil"ss exposure of his
blunders in the Pall Mall. Of all the infemal liberties taken by that mellifluous cad the greatest
was his goigs to Russia. Whv I have been to Russia. Dixon in the Nevskoi Prospekt! Dixon at
' =
the Twit-zalfhoh, Pudor!8
As it is I guess I shall have no end of rows tonight for I have absolutely asked not only a
publisher but a literary bill discounter (not Mrs Riddell)g anO with twenty authors present there
will probably be murder before the cheese.
Poor old Mark!10 I met him only a fortnight ago at the Victoria Station, and he wished
me luck with the show. (By the bye) I have a sweet thing by the late Charles Bennettltabout
whose death his dear friends in Punch made such a fuss. It is a drawing on wood representing
poor Mark hanging, with the epigraph "Wait for the End". Shall I have it engraved? What a
world! What a woild! and they give Vickersl2 the gin-spinner 48 black balls ai the Reform on
Thursday, and Bassl3 the brewei was I daresay to thi fore,in pilting him.14 I declined to vote -
had he made brandy it would have been different
yours always
G.A.S.
L28
1,. Saturday after Mark kmon's death on Monday 23May 1870.
2. Sutherland says that Yates was probably one of the most unpopular literary men in London
(684), but doesn't specify why. However, it's not too hard to guess that it was due to his penchant
for gossip - "digging for dirt." Whether women enjoy scandalous revelations better than men is
arguable. Perhaps the popularity of such news items to this day shows that both male and female
enjoy the frisson of scandal, presumably as long as it's not about them. Yates has the dubious
honour of pioneering such journalism, and that he was disliked for it is recorded by his
contemporary, and contributor to theWorld" J. Comyns Can in L908: "Yates had many enemies .
. . and the new features he introduced into English journalism were in many quarters profoundly
resented" (39).
3. Underlined four times for emphasis.
4. Seller of (especially rare) books (OED).
5. Yates had had an acrimonious parting from William Tinsleyr and Tinsley's around July of the
previous year (1869) when he gave up the editorship (73n2). Tinsley harboured a hatred for
Yates that pursued him beyond the grave. Thirty years later in his memoirs (1900) he accused
him of welching on his share of the magazine's losses (1,: 32$. He also accused him of
exploiting fellow novelist Frances C-ashel Hoey (1830-1908) in a supposed writing collaboration
between them, claiming that late in their partnership Yates co-opted for himself a large share in
the profits of one book that had been written solely by Hoey, who in her resentment revealed
their secret literary relationship (Edwards 27-34).
6. William Hepworth Dixon (1821-L879). historian, traveller, journalist, editor of the
Athenaeum 1853-1869. Allusion here refers to the action of libel he brought against the Pall
Mall Gazette for its review of Free Russia (1870), which accused him of "indecency" in a
previous book, Spintual Wives (1868). His earlier success in uncovering valuable historical
papers in America, which led to the publication of New America (1867), (of which Spirirual
Wives comprized two later supplementary volumes), had apparently gone to his head, leading
him into grave enors of scholarship (DNB).
7. Can't discoverwhat this is.
8. hoh Pudor = Alas! Shame!
9. Novelist Charlotte Riddell (1832-1906), known as Mn. J.H. Riddell; best remembered for her
autobiography, A Struggle for Fame (1883), but relevant here because in the 1860s, after her
marriage to civil engineer and Inndon business man J.H.Riddell, many of her novels dealt with
"the city" and its "very unfeminine world of business and commerce" (Cross 194-95); a theme
she was the first to introduce into English fiction (DNB). The best known of these was George
Geith (L864), which she wrote under the pseudonym of F.G. Trafford. tn 1867 she had become
part proprietor and editor of St. James's Magazine (1861-1882), another shilling monthly in
Cornhill mode, aimed at the middle class like Temple Bar and Tinsley's, but addressed to a
predominantly female audience. After issue 95 it changed its name to The Ladies Newspaper,
and finally metamorphosed into the Queen (40n3).
10. Mark Irmon*, died 23 May. Evidence in their memoirs shows that neither GAS nor Yates
liked the gregarious lrmon. GAS had been an accomplice with poet and librettist Alfred Bunn
in the production of. A Word with Punch (1846), a satirical pamphlet ridiculing Punch; cleverly
produced in Punch style it was Bunn's way of getting even with six years of persistent sneering
by Irmon, Jerrold, Mayhew et al at his theatrical and operatic ventures. (He was at the time
r29

lesseeandmanageroftheTheatreRoyal,Druryf'nQ!elontcover'awoodcutbyGAS'was
a parody of Richard Ooyt"'s frontspiece to ttre rcal Punch, featuring a pilloried jester and Dog
Toby hanging ftom a gallows i 86-88). The last sounds remarkably like the
-(lhi2Ss
representation of I-emon-here. SLe Stiaus 59 for a reproduction of Bunn's cover' And the
question, "Shall I frave it engraved?" is-an odd one' Le'mon's biognpher Adrian suggests that
GAS coutd never quite foryive I-emon tot t":otitg his adolescent off"tings to Punch (104-5)
when as a "callow lad," in the tow of his pioua iottrer'ate had presented a "portfolio full of
scratchy drawings,' ,oln" i"-ous editor lfinngs 1: 87). Similarly Yates bore a grudge against
lrmon for his influence on publishe, ft"J.tt ingram''leading to the demize of Comic Times rn
November 1855 (liliit. f- his part Lemon ii reported to have said that Punch got on very
well without Sala and co, that he shouldn't like to have to dine with them once a week (alluding
41n1L), and that punch'sreputation rested on it "keeping to the
to punchweekry "oitoiuiai*ers
gentlemanly ul"* ofiii'g, -a i, being-known that Bohemiins don't write for it" (Henry Silver
biary Z8 June 1'860, emPhasis mine)'
11. Charles Bennett (182g-L867), draughtsman or] wood, press artist' On 29 July 1867 the
punch staff had .,ugri a benefit f"rtoriunce at theTheatrJ Royal' Manchester' .for Bennett's
widow and children?1lira. uring this as an example of rrmon's thoughtful attitude towards
his staff his biographlr Adrian .uyJthut "though wiih Punch..only two years' Bennet had been
one of Mark's best draftsmen with his parliamen'tary {aw!ngs' (83-84)' However' a quote from
Bennett in GAS,s memoin shows that he had beenin (and out) of lrmon's employ much earlier:
,,whentwasquite";;;;;,n--..Ihadmaniedveryearly;andthadachildborn'achildthat
died, the ,sack, from fuin, and the brokers in, all on the same day" g'ik 269)' The macabre
woodcut in GAS',s possession must have been a legacy of those early days'
12. Probably Stanley Vickers (1832-L572)managing q{TI,and half-proprietor of distillery of
iosrpt and iohn vicken, Victoria Street, Westminster (DNB)..
13. Either Michael, Thomas Bass (1783-1884), carrying on the family tradition as a brewer from
the famous brewing town of Burton-on-Trent, or-his-son, Michael Arthur (1837-1909)' who
became a beer "bardn," literally, in 1886 (Chambers)' -E?r"*
became a beer "baron," literally' m 166tr \Lnumoers)' -=1
14.Pilling=black-balling,i.e.,votingr,i-o".otttrectuu.s\Fffi
t83l \., ,n'n:$
.Y
GEOROE AUGUSTUS SALA'
fietterhead of "England in the Nineteenth Century"]
27 JuneLSTO
:,i L Alexander Square BromPton
i
.t
:"ff1
trt
Dear Edmund,
Your note has given me infinite pleasure' of course I shall be abused by the hounds of
the Saturday Review;fbft;;;ly;eloict I want from those o'io r"utty knew him is - "Is it2 in
good taste?" g say ;;;i,lt. ilniJ {utmost knocked over by emotion) told me so at the club
on Saturday; and I t op. io i*- that his son4 1*ho has writtento me the kindest of letters since
his death) thinks so, too.
1.30
On the personal grief I have felt and feel I need not enlarge. To me he was literally
evervthing; and I believ" ttt"t it was Fechters who said that he had never read three articles by
me without finding at least one allusion therein, direct, or implied, to Charles Dickens. In him I
have lost all that I most highly reverenced and loved; and we are neither of us at an age, dear
Edmund, to be able to replace such losses. I am marking a copy for you of "Gaslight and
Daylight" of passages which he interpolated in my "Household Words" papers. There are whole
pages from his hand in the earlier numbers; but with the singular judiciousness which
characterised him he never touched a line of the "Journey Due North"o or subsequent
contributions to A.Y.it.7
Routledge is having a tremendous sale with the book.8 [ do'nt know whether you noticed
that there was an odd kind of "ring" about the original article in the Telegraph.g I wrote it, first,
in Italian in the hope of avoiding the conventionalities of mortuary notices, and then translated it.
I will give you the copy if you like.
always yours
G.A.S.
1. Nothing can be found in SR. Would being ignored be worse than getting an abusive review?
2. Must refer to book about Charles Dickens mentioned in n8 below.
3. W.H. Wills.i
4. Charles Jnr.
5. Charles Fechter (L824-I879), English born French actor successful on London stage in the
1860s and early '70s particularly in the roles of Hamlet and Iago (Scott 1: 148). He was an
intimate friend of Yates and Dickens.
6. In a letter to Wills dated 13 August 185L, Dickens deals with his alterations of GAS's first
contribution to HW "The Key of the Street" (6 September 1851): "[ have delicately altered it
myselt so as to leave no offence in it whatever. [f the young man can write, generally, as well as
that, he will be an acquisition to us. I think it quite good enough for a first article - but we wi[[
not put it first, for fear we should spoil him in the beginning" (C.D. Letters 459). And again (27
September L851): "[ have gone through Mr. Sala's paper, and I have cut a great deal out, and
made it compact and telling. t wish you would see him and tell him that I have kept it as close as
I could to his title - not because the omitted parts were bad (indeed they are very good)" (497).
This must rcfer to "Down Whitechapel Way" (1. November 1851., 4: L26-3I).
Dickens gained the reputation for doctoring copy, "when once he got the proof of
someone's story on his desk he thought nothing of playing with until it was practically rewritten"
(unattributed, qtd Robertson Scon 78-79). Although he doesn't mention it here, in 1856 GAS
was chaffing under his editor's red pencil, see letter 4 in which he complains that "the woodman
has not spared the tree," presumably in reference to "Journey due North" articles, which here he
claims were not touched. And in letter 5 he colourfully describes the "fight" that he and Dickens
were having over HW copyright. But, of course, a letter about his adulatory memoir of Dickens
(n8) is no place for these sort of memories. See intro for discussion of the ramifications of
Dickens's influence on his "young men."
7. AU The Year Round 2d. Weekly (1859-1895), successor to Household Words (1n5).
8. An expanded version of his DT article (n9): Charles Dickcns: An Essay published by
Routledge, 1870: "[t was a shilling booklet, which had an immense sale, and it is now - so the
booksellers'catalogues tell me - scarce, and somewhat costly" (Lik 305). Brighton Reference
131

Library, East Sussex holds a first edition. (Also published in America the same year in Harper's
edition of the Speeches, Letters, andSayingsof Charles Dickens, and in 1970, in a facsimile of
the Routledge edition, by Gregg, Westmead, England.) The blame that he takes upon himself for
his rift with Dickens in the prefac€ to this book is repudiated at the end of his life in his memoirs
where he explains that "I revered the writer and I loved the man. But at a time when the grave
had scarcely closed over him I disdained to say that he had been as much in the wrongasl" (Life
30s).
9. "Death of Mr Charles Dickens" DT LO June 1870: 3. 4.
l84l
Wednesday [June or July 1870]1
1 Alexander Square Brompton
Dear Edmund,
Streets the Indian people of Cornhill - Commercial Swells t think2 - are on to me to take
the post of I-ondon Correspondent to the Calcutta Daily News - a weekly letter of 2 cols D.T.
size: a good screw, I should think. I have written to say that I am not a political writer, and
cannot write "talk of the town" and have concluded my note thus
"ln the event of the Calcutta Daily News imperatively requiring a correspondent who can
do that which t candidly confess I ca'nt do: i.e., - be political and gossiping I would take the
liberty to recommend to you my friend Mr Edmund Yates (Lancaster l-odge, Lancaster Gate,
Hyde Park) a very brilliant and vivacious writer who goes much into the best society, and is
familiar with all that is going on in the great world of London". Was I rightf3
It may be that the "ferocious Dhoolies"4 of C-alcutta are so fondof G.A.S. that they will
insist on giving him 10.000 lacs5 of sicca rupees6 p", mrns"mT for jawing about the Nevskoi
Prospekt,S the castle of San Juan de U^lloa,9 and the Influence of the Protagorean Dilemma on the
composition of Camden's Remainsl0 (for it is my opinion that I should make a damned bad
correspondent of any paper) but if they are wise and write to you you will know who put them up
to it.
George Hodder was coherent yesterday for a minute or so; talked to me quite rationally,
and then relapsed into rambling again. Blood was oozing from his ears again, a sure sign the
nurse said of the cracking (at the base) of his poor old cocoa nut.
G.A.S.
1. Dating : George Hodder fractured his skull (see last par) in a coach accident 28 May 1870, he
died on 31. July. Irtter must have been written within this period.
2. Street and Company advertized themselves as agents to Colonial Governments, their London
offices were at 30 Comhill,5 Serle Street and 164 Picadilly. They were also agents to the Board
of Trade, the Incal Government Board, County Courts, Education Department, the Royal Albert
Hall and numerous trade exhibitions such as the london lnternational Exhibition of 1862 and the
Paris Universal Exhibition of 1867. They published Srreerb Indian and Colonial Mercantile
Directory,a directory of the leading merchants and traders in India and the Colonies. .
3. No record of whether Yates was offered the job. Although GAS doubted whether his own
style would suit an Anglo/Indian publication, four years later he did take on the editorship of a
colonial publication, The Home News. In his preface to Living l-ondon (1883) he recalled: "[n
1874 Shirley Brooks died and . . . I was asked by the Messers Grindlay of Parliament Street to
edit a weekly newspaper published by them for circulation in lndia, and which Shirley had edited
L32
s9-me years past.
!or, I wrote a weekly summary of news and a leading article for Messers
Grindlay for twelve months."
!: D. hoolie = &Poy, or Native Indian soldier, under European, esp British discipline. The
"Indian Mutiny" (1857-8), which led to the abolition of the East India tbmpany, w:rs an uprising
of Sepoy troops under the company's command.
5' Lac -(I4rl1!, Anglo-Indian) - one hundred thousand, meaning here an indefinitely large
amount (OED).
!' Slcca rupees = rupees coined under the government of Bengal l7g3,of greater weight than the
East India company's, therefore more valuable (OED).
7. pet mensem = each month.
8. Main thoroughfare in St. petersburg.
9' A mediaeval castle perched on an outcrop of rock on the foreshores of Vera Cruz harbour in
the Gulf of Mexico.
10' William Camden (L551'-1623), historian, antiquary, topographer, author of the Britannia
(1586)' The commonplace collection he prepared tom t6is-mammoth historical work was
refened to as his "remains"; "the rude rubble and outcast rubbish of a greater and more serious
work," as he terms it (DNB).
t85J
Wednesday lL October Lg20
Hotel d'Angleterre, Via Bocca di Irone, Romel
My dear Edmund,
How do you do? I am not dead as my creditors who have paid the war-risk on my
Policies of Insurance.Tpt be fondly wishing. "fggj! Bonhomme ,if ;*rd.t I have got a
lovely touch of bronchitis and a charmingly iestered wo*J--* my ankle due to a kick from a
Patriotic wooden shoe in Paris3 on the nighi of the downfall of the impire. otherwise I am right
as a trivet.
We have a sore Postal Grievance here in Rome which is driving us crazy. Rome is now
part o! the Kingdom of ltaly, and the mails from England ought to come through Germany, and
over the Brenner. get ley letters at Naples - 2w miles South of this - in four days from
England; but it takes--&I-.-n and pight days to get a letter here from home, ano nilspapers as a
rule, do'nt come at all. Why will the British Post office persist in treating Rome exceptionally,
and sending the mails through France - a piece of madness, grven the partial collapse of the
postal system there to begin with? These letters go, I fancy, to Rouen and then wander about in
the absurdest way through the South until they e.t-fe4 Uiei gge ual4i; nf" they
ar€ despatched by long sea to Civita vecchia nor*" fr" "lff"iwhence is, as I say,
"na
that it
takes more than a fortnight to send a letter to England and receive "on."quence an answer. Mark the date and
the postmark on this letter for instance.S
Rome is chock full of ltalians, and exceedingly jolly. The English are beginning to come
in from Naples and Switzerland, but I suppose r strari have to go away when the place grows
pleasantest. I shall be here in time howeveito get a letter from you, if you write by return. send
me, - chancing their
Tu4 - a weekly newspaper or so and teil me rJhut i, going on. Give my
very best homages to Mrs Yates. Do I owe hir an apology for anything? w; I tJhave come to
dinner at anytime, and did'nt come? If you ask mito olnner n"it chirt.as day I'll come, and
tell such Lies about the war that the plumpudding shall tumble again. Mrs Sala is at Southsea
133

and wrote me a pious letter in Paris about He who watches the fall of the spalrow. They eat
spiurows here - in polenta - likewise hawks, and owls, and bats, and vultures and carrion crows
and the Oozly bird.
Have you heard anything about the Indian newspaper correspondence? [ fancy there may
be a letter for me about it at Alexander Square (my crib).o If you are passing thnt ask Mn Brown
if she has a letter with 'G. Street advertising agent Cornhill" upon the envelope. [f so you can
open it (show her this as a wanant) and take your measure accordingly. Streets are first rate
people, and the berth I fancy would be worth having. I do'nt want to come home before
Christmas, but that of course depends on the Telegraph./ [ leave them at the beginning of the
new year. Fourteen years penal servitude, Master Brook.E
[No signature]
1. Early September 18?0, while on assignment in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, GAS
was anested on suspicion of being an enemy spy. The British Embassy intervened and he was
released at noon on 4 September, a few hours before the fall of the second empire (Life 54L-
551). Soon after this the DT ordered GAS to Geneva and safety, from there he made his way to
Rome, where he arrived 20 September to his present address- "the good old Hdtel d'Angleterre,
in the Via Bocca di Irone" (563).
2. Jack's alive! (OfiD).
3. This was received while he was being arrested leaving the Caf6 du Helder in the Bohemian
Quarter after a Saturday night out with an artist whom he later discovered was suspected of
treason: "They set upon me, and did their best to kill me. I was knelt upon, buffeted, scratched,
and my hair torn out in handfuls. One villain . . . tried to bite me; while another devoted his
eneryies to kicking my ankles with his wooden sabots" (Life 543). Although in this letter he
plays the incident down GAS was badly shocked, and after his release took to his bed for a week
on the advice of the Embassy doctor (550). His report in the Telegraph mentions "a series of
outrages which I shalt not forget to my dying day, which I shudder to recall, and some of which I
cannot recall" (Straus 1.96).
Swinburne's letters give an interesting twist to this incident. On 9 September he wrote to
his intimate friend and confidante Charles Howell "have you seen the statement in the papers that
poor Sala . . . has been 'subjected to tenible and painful outrages' by the mob at Paris as a
Prussian spy? Can this imply that his personal charms were too much for some countryman of
the Citizen Sade (ci-devant Marquis) who exclaimed to an ardent and erect band of his fellows -
'Foutons, foutons ce cul divin, qui nous promet mille fois plus plaisir qu'un con.' "kt's fuck, let's
fuck this divine arse , which promises us a thousand times more pleasure than a cunt."] Ask
Gabriel [Rossetti] what he thinks" Q: L26-7). Whatever the "outrages" were we shall never
know. But Swinburne's letter reveals his rather puerile imagination when it came to sex,
particularly in his correspondence with close friends like Howell and Rossetti and by extension
to other intimates like GAS, giving weight to the suggestion in 60n4 that GAS joined in some of
their acitivities. His relationship with Swinbume and his circle was a real one and "spanned
several decades . . . for several years they seem to have met frequently" (Irng preface xxxvi).
Straus dismisses such innuendo as a "whispering campaign" that suggested there was "something
wrong with the man. What was the real truth about those periodic disappearances of his? Mere
drunken bouts or - something more vicious? They did say that he had been seen slinking into an
East End den of the vilest descriptions, and what about those pornographic verses of his which
were sometimes circulated in masculine haunts of the less particular kind" (200).
4. As best they can.
5. Envelope not retained with MS.
6. Written in the margin.
7. He did not scver his connections with the DT u suggested here (indeed how could he afford
to do so sincc it provided the grcater and most reliable part of his income?), but perhaps his
arrangement with it changed. Shaus records conespondence with author Charles Irland early in
1872, in which GA*S tells him that "after fifteen years hard labour on the Daily Telegraph . . .I
can pretty well choose my own subjects". Although he continued to cover news stories, he also
began to contribute more reflective articles concerning public morals and foreign affairs (210).
See letters 1a9 (par 2) and 154 (final par) where he deals with his relationship with DI and the
Levys.
8. Falstaff again; the bawdy humour of Shalcespeare's Merry llives of Windsor hinges on his
mistaken belief that "Master Brooks" is his accomplice in a game of cuckold, when in fact he is
really the husband of the woman the old rogue plans to seduce.
t86l
fiefterhead of "England in the l.9th C-enrury"]
on whose tombstone migbt be written the epitaph of the stillborn childl
lf so soon that I was done for
I wonderwhat I was begun for
Thursday [November 182012
1 Alexander Square, Brompton
DearEdmund,
Pardon Mossoo.3 What a fellow you are! You leave a poor exile in Rome a whole
fortnight without answering his letter, then, while he is still in the lnfernal [sic] City, you go
careering through ltaly to Brindisia - I read of you in the Trionfo "Ya& uffiziale [sic] delle Regei
Poste {i San Martino lodava I'Italia della parte glg[ governo FglgSg'; and on your return you pen
injurious lcfters from the Sign of the "Swinbume's Head".) I heard they had sacked the bard
from the Club, for trying to gouge a waiter. Edward l-evy telegraphed to me in a hurry to come
home, just as Glover was coming out to join me.6 The British public do'nt care a damn about
Rome just now. I am in despair at being in London at this cursed November time, and doomed
to imminent duns and bronchitis when I was getting a new suit of bronchial tubes on the
Haminian way. I am at Brompton as usual. There will be no use in asking me to dinner yet
awhile as hostile armies have annexed the tail coat in which I dine with Ambassadors; I had
ordered one to be built by a Roman tailor on the ground floor of the Theatre of Marcellus, but
was obliged to come home before it was finished; and I do'nt see my way to writing an epic
poem for Messrs Lynes' of Shoreditch, and taking it out in togs.
Yours always
G.A.S.
The Book packet puzzles me.
t. Relates to "death" before publication of Willing's magazine, England in the 19th Century.
See letter 81n3.
134 135
rt uArr. lt'*ltiosnir'rl h
/s t,0al.i! rr
-nlLry
./or&t ,.,*tl Ja

2. November established in letter; must be 1.870 because magazine was born and died in same
year.
3. Word for Frenchman borrowed from Albert Smith (llorld 14 October 1874: 13. 1). Yates
used it in an article, "Arnusing Mossoo," he wrote for TB June 62 (5 : 327 -334).
4. "Yag, an official of the Queen's St Martin's Post praised ltaly on behalf of the English
govemment." Yag seems to refer to Yates. Perhaps he was in ltaly on Post Office business.
This was round about start of his new position in the postal service (9an6). St Martin's-k-
Grand was the location of the London G.P.O where Yates worked. Newspaper quotation doesn't
seem to quite ring true here. Perhaps GAS making fun of his friend again.
5. Refers to the Arts Club at 17 Hanover Sguare, of which both poet, Algernon Swinburne
(1837-1909), GAS and Yates were members (Escott Club 258-261). Swinburne was asked to
resign from the club in the spring of L870 after he had been drinking there in the company of
Charles Duncan Cameron, an African adventurer, who "drank like a fish" (Gosse 198). [t was the
second time Swinbume had been censured; he would have been 'kicked out" in August 1869, but
for the interceding of Whistler who told the committee "You ought to be proud that there is in
l.ondon a club where the greatest poet of your time can get drunk if he wants to, otherwise he
might lie in the gutter" (qtd lang 2:21n2). Swinbume heads the list of GAS's favourite poets
(Life 377), and was a personal friend (Lang L; 227n2,2: L26); more than likely a guest in his
home; their mutual interest in writing masochistic pornography even led to a shared pseudonym,
Etonensis (Thomas 46), a favoured nom de plume for writers of flagellant stories at the time
(Henderson 128), presumably chosen because it related to the custom of birching students at
Eton.
The DNB records that around 1862 the poet became very friendly with adventurer and
explorer Richard Burton, and Burton, whom GAS "knew intimately" (Ltfe xv), is named by
Vizetelly as part of "Sala's ingenious admixture of the opulent and impecunious classes" that
frequented his "Guilford Street gatherings" c.1863 Q: [$. Apparently the Swinburne/Burton
relationship was not "altogether fortunate. Burton was a giant and an athlete, one of the few men
who could fire an old-fashioned elephant gun from his shoulder, and drink a bottle of brandy
without feeling any effect from it. Swinburne, on the contrary, was a weakling. He tried to
compete with his'hero' . . . and failed" (DNB). Edmund Gosse records that largely because of
Burton's influence "by 1864 or 5 the habit [of drinking] had completely seized Swinburne." He
was "rendered unfit for decent society" until 1879, when under the care of Watts-Duncan he was
rehabilitated at Putney away from undesirable influences (Gosse 40).
In a letter to Gabriel Dante Rossetti (9 February 1870), a few months after this one,
Swinbume's distraught mother, wonied that his dissolute habits were injuring his health, begged
him to try and persuade her son, who kept his address a secret from his parents, to come home
(Iang 2: L3). Rossetti was another of GAS's intimates, he is described as "another of our most
frequent visitors" in his early manied days at Brompton Square (Life 335). The dust cover and
frontspiece to Straus's biography features Max Beerbohm's illustration of "Rossetti in his
Worldier Days (crrc. 1866-1868) Iraving the Amndel Club with George Augustus Sala"; a
portrait of GAS and Rossetti, arm in arm. This strengthens the argument for an intimate social
connection between GAS and the Swinburne group. After Rossetti's death in L882 GAS told his
Echoes readers that uI must have known him for thirty years." However, he claimed that their
friendship was mainly "an affectionate epistolary intercourse" after 1858 (Living 1"41,). This does
not seem to accord with Beerbohm's view. Straus mentions that Rossetti "was a very welcome
guest" at the Sala's Brompton Row house, soon after they were married (148).
136
Burton and Swinbume had a taste for flagellation, and so did GAS. Swinburne's letters
abound in references to the Marquis de Sade and whipping; editor I-ang notes that he was
perhaps involved with "the rotten and forgotten Hotten" (150n3) in the preparation of. The
Romance of Clwstisement: or Revelations of the School and Bedroom, By an F*pert, published
by Hotten in 1,870 (2: 1n3). GAS did his bil for the Marquis when he wrote 96 pages of. The
Mysteries of Verbena House or, Miss Belhsis Birched for Thieving. By Etonensis (1882),
although it seems his interests were not in boys, but in the caning of girls; he was particularly
interested in their undenvear. It was finished by James Campbell Reddie, whose contribution
was considered very inferior to GAS's, who, it seems, showed "astonishing facility for the work"
(Fryer 1.31). See Forbidden Books of the Victorians (L970), Peter Fryer's abridged and annotated
edition of Henry Spencer Ashbee's bibliographies of erotica, which also contains some samples
of GAS's text.
6. Glover had spent at least two winter periods with GAS in Rome. In 1866 he had joined the
Salas for a Christmas holiday of "excursions and evening parties" (Life 477), and Hodder
mentions another time when he travelled from London to Rome in the depth of a severe winter
"for the pleasure of passing a week or two with Sala' Q74).
18fl
[c. L5 December 1870]1
[Following text is a cutting from the Timeszl
I have not been at the HOtel des Reservoirs for some time, but dining there last nigbt I
found the same brilliant company at table, and the same cheerfulness and clatter of tongues as
usual. At any time an attempito iead in the face of Count Von Moltke3 any particular indication
of his feelings is said by those who know him best to be hopeless. His Excellency was at table
with General Von Podbielski,a Colonel Von Werdy), md the 20 officers or so who dined at the
cross table at the top of the dinner room, and there never seemed men more perfectly satisfied.
The princes and dukes who dine with their staffs at the long table at right angles to that occupied
by the Royal staff were in good mien.
lSala has written belowl
gU - 1gq:6 "Grana tuke,7 me dear, will ye pass me the mosthard.8 D'ye see the impidence of
lf,-at baste K - g - tn,9 takin'wine wid Towei an'Taxis?l0 Shure that's Putbus blowin' up the
waither [sic]. How are ye Putbusll avowneer?
(How we apples swim!;12
L. Date 15 December has been handwritten beside cutting. lrtter is in postcard form addressed
to Edmund Yates, Esq,I-ancaster Lodge, Iamcaster Gate, Hyde Park, and postmarked l,ondon S
W 1,5 December L870. Contrary to regulations is stamped beside the address.
2. Part of a Times report, 15 December 1870: 9. 6., from "Our Special Correspondent.
Heaquarters of the German Armies. Versailles. lL December." It is presumably written by
William Howard Russell, the Imes's "special" (n 6). Scene is behind the German lines during
the closing stages of the Franco-Prussian War.
3. Count Helmuth Von Moltky (1800-1891); Prussian field-marshal, chief of the general staff
in Berlin 1858 to 1.888, a grcat strategist who led Prussia to victory over France in 1870.
4. Lieutenant-General Podbielsky, German Quartermaster-General.
5. Count Von Werdy, another German officer.
L37

6. I-oq = loquitur, i.e., Billy speaks. Billy is William Howard Russell (1821-1907) special
conespondent for the Times. (GAS mimics his kish accent with "Tuke" for Duke, waither for
waiter, and the endearment "avowneer"). He had become famous as a w:u correspondent in the
Crimea, the American Civil War and Indian campaigns (DNB). He was a friend of Yates and a
colleague of GAS, who had covered many of the same war zones, including this one (albeit at a
safer distance from the battles). In 1865 GAS had dedicated to Russell My Diary in America in
the Midst of War, a collection of his DI Civil War articles. As journalists both had just bom the
brunt of Matthew Arnold's satire in the Pall Mall Gazette (29 November: 3), in the last of his
series of twelve letters to the editor (later published as Friendship's Garland [1871]), which
voiced his indignation at what he perceived to be the growing popularization and trivialization of
English cultural standards, particularly in the press. Russell is described as "he was preparing to
mount his war-horse. You know the sort of thing, - he has described it himself over and over
again. Bismarck at his horse's head, the Crown Prince [6[rling his stimrp, and the old King of
Prussia hoisting Russell into the saddle" (Super 349). GAS and his DI colleagues stand in the
wings waiting to unseat him so that they can set about "inoculating the respectable, but
somewhat ponderous Times and its readers with the divine madness of our new style" (ibid).
7. Grand Duke Frederick, later to become King Frederick 3.
8. Mustard
9. William Beatty-Kingston (1837-1900), special conespondent for the DT based in Vienna,
but carrying a "roving commission" for all of Crntral Europe. Like GAS he was in Paris during
the Franco-hussian war. He had close Prussian affiliations having been vice-chancellor of the
Austrian consulate in London, 1856, and Carditr, 1857-65 and was on cordial terms with their
army establishment (DIVB). He was to gain an enormous scoop when, using the German official
telegraph wire, he delivered the precise terms of the capitulation of Paris back to the D? office on
the afternoon of 28 January 1871., enabling it to be published in Inndon the following day
(World 9 December L874: L2). tn this little fantasy GAS imagines Times reporter Russell's
annoyance at Kingston's favoured position. As it tumed out, not without cause, since he was
soon to use it to such good effect.
10. Exact reference not found. [t could be something to do with communication of news during
the war - traditionally the German noble house of Thum and Taxis had been operating courier
and postal services throughout Germany and Europe since Franz von Taxis had been postmaster
to the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian 1 in 1489. The Prussian govemment had purchased and
nationalized the service in 1.867 (Encyclopaedia Britannica Micropaedia, 15th ed.).
11. C,ould be Bismarck. WTWS mentions "Prince hrtbus" (3 October L877: I3).
12. From John Clarke , Paroemiologia, 32 (1639); Jonathan Swift, Brothers Protestant (1710).
t88l
Monday morning [19 December 1870]1
1 Alexander Square, Brompton
Dear Mrs Yates,
Very many thanks for the prescription which, having carefully copied, I return. I suppose
my bronchitis will also return as soon as my swelled face abates. Heaven never shuts one door
without opening another. Bless H.
I intend (D.V.) to avail myself of your kind invitation for Xmas day at any risk. Was
Seven the hour? If t am compelled to come with a slight bandage (tike Mrs Siddonsis2 in Queen
138
C-atherine) round my maxillary processes you can put me in a back room, and feed me with the
crumbs that fall from the children's table. I have not forgotten "c-allista",3 and will bring it with
me.
I hope Edmund made you laugh with a description of the woful [sic] figure I presented
when he came. He made pg laugh on the wrong side of my agony-distorted m--outh, by telling
me that the plot of a story I had just completed and sent to Maxwell formed the basis of a ballad
by Browning published yeam ago. The story will have to be cancelled, and the butcher (which
he calls hisself a gentleman does he and goes hoff to the wars with the Rooshian and the
Pevoshians, leavin'two pun nine and sevenpence, lettin' alone the survants worritin a man's heart
out for kidneys) will have to wait.
Always yours humbly
G.A. Sala.
Do you ever cry? If you want a real, good, honest cry read the column of communications from
French wives and sweethearts to their husbands etc shut up in Paris which appears from day to
day in the columns of the Times.4 I am going to make an A.Y.R. article oui bf this col, called
"The Triumph of Baby". I may be wrong but I think these advertisements infinitely pathetic.
1. Perhaps Monday before christmas Day 1970; linked to pt""c@
mention of his bronchitis for which Mrs Y has given him a prescriptionlnd to following letter
(89) because he has had the tooth removed that was giving him a swollen face.
2' Mrs sarah Siddons (1755-1831), renowned tragic actress. In the role of eueen Katherine in
Henry WLI het makeup included "a band of lace or cambric which she wore passing under her
chin from one temple to the other', (Things 43).
3. callista is a novel by J.G.Newman (later c.ardinal), published in 1g56.
4. This appeared as the "Triumph of Baby," not inAll the Year Round,but in Belgravia 14 (June
1.87L):249-255.
lsel
[between 11 and t7 February lgZf ;1
[Written on the back of page 55 from The Period 11 February 1821, no address, greeting or
surely this must be the Juvenal -titffift,efiayed Alive,, or ,,stripped Stark Naked,,, or
whatever it was - that pamphlet in which 1ou, and, I and everybody were mauled with a dirty
glove, with bran instead of a hand, inside2 I should'nt say that the "period,, was the kind of
publication to get Jim Vizetelly's coat out of pawn.3
I have had two double teeth out, and do'nt feel much the better for it. I think thev must
have been the wrong teeth. Rotten, sir, Rotten. The old carcase breaking up. F;r;;ilrfi;
written me a slavering letter, offering 1o apologise and pay costs. Too late. Guerra uf c""-ilil"ii
He says he is bleeding from the lungs.6
1. Between Period date ll February and date of
2' Juvenal (c.A.D. 60-c.130) Roman poet and satirist (pun on juvenile), whose works had
strong influence on mock heroic poets such as Dryden uid rop". GAS is referring to some
couplets published
J11r9ic inthe Period (n3 below) on the back of which he has *ritte,itrris noil.
writer could possibly be Dr william lrech, who later wrcte The obliviad,written in the same
style and modelled loosely on Pope's Dunciad, a satire published by Miller in England and
America in 1879 (and possibly an earlier edition in Engiand). Ir s;nds up nearly everyone,
r39

including Sala, but not Yates. William Hepworth Dixon is its "hero," and its main feature is
copious satiric footnotes.
3. The Period,30 October 1869 - 26 February 1.870, n.s. 14 May 1870 - 1,8 February 1871. It
folded next issue after this one. Jim Vizetelly (1817-1897) was the elder brother of GAS's friend
and former boss Henry, for whom he had worked on the lllustrated Times and Welcome Guest.
James Vizetelly had collaborated with his brother and Andrew Spottiswoode in founding the
Pictorial Times in L843.
4. James Hain Friswell (1825-1878), author and journalist, best known for The Gentle Life,
Essays in Aid of the Formation of Character(1864; 2Lst ed. 1879). On 17 February 1871 GAS
sued Friswell's publishers Hodder and Stoughton for libels in his book Modern Men of Letters
Honestly Criticised (1870). See intro for a discussion of the trial which GAS won. Also see
contemporary reports inthe Times 1.8 February 1.871": 11.. 4, and DT 18 February: 3. 1.
5. Guerra al Cuchillo = war to the knife (conectly should be a, not al, Cuchillo). This was the
terse reply of Spanish patriot Jos6 de Palafox Y Melzi (1780-1847) to the French general who
ordered him to surrender at Saragossa in 1.809. In letter 115 GAS suggests Guerra al Cuchillo
with its blood-letting connotations (note Friswell is "bleeding from the lungs"), as a sub-title for
the literary department of the World. Yates did adopt it for his book pages from the first issue 8
July 1864.
6. In his memoirs GAS ends his account of "Sala v Friswell" with "Mr Friswell was afflicted
with continuous bad health towards the close of his career, and he died in 1.878' (Life 574).
According to William Tinsley, Friswell, far from a rich man, had to bear the costs and damages
himselt as his publishers Hodder and Stoughton refused to take responsibility. Tinsley calls the
case "one of the most stupid, and, as it tumed out, the most cnrel . . . of the kind t can remember."
He claims he tried to intervene but it was too late. "Poor Friswell never recovered the loss he
sustained in the action, and not being in anything like good health at the time, the shock of the
loss of some hard earned means doubtless hunied him faster on to his early grave" (1: 159).
te0l
Monday [?20 February 182f11
Dear Edmund,
It's curious to mark how precisely Mn S's instinct agreed with your appreciation of
"Honest Fris".2 Bum the enclosed when you have read it.3
Innumerable letters of congratulation, and judgement Debtor Summonses4 are pouring in
on me. Among the former I note specially a pompous letter from the "Council office" signed
"Arthur Helps"5 and a characteristic scrawl from Swinburne.o
I sha'nt be able to dine with the BellewsTon Sunday because I'm going to Berlin
tomorrow. ['ve written to Mrs Bellew to thank her.
always
G.A.S.
1,. Monday after Court case of 17 February 1871.
2. James Hain Friswell, see previous letter n 4.
3. Yates did not burn "the enclosed" which was the following note from Haniett Sala (although
it is not possible to verify the signature).
140
My dear George,
Southsea. February 18th.
Many thanks for the money, both letters arrived safe.
Dearest George I am quite unable to express to you the great delight t felt at your
having got the best of the Libel Case. Not for the money, but because I believe the
wretched trash was written for a malicious purpose, that of doing you a great public
and private injury. Thank God he has failed in both. I cannot say that I feel any
sympathy with the publishers. Nor do I think you have much to fear with regard to a
second case.
lt is wonderful how right I have always been about Hain Friswell I mistrusted him
from the first. Not that I then had any cause for doing so, but I always felt he was a
man to be cautious with. And I have never forgiven him his want of decency in
bringing his friends to go over our beautiful house in Guilford Street on a Sunday, at
the same time knowing I was at home, but he soon got his answer from [?Ann], who
told him the house was not yet on view.
However, my dearest George,I have got over it in a most triumphant manner and
the Malignant Wretch has done you good, instead of harm, as he intended.
William was mad with delight, never having foryiven Master Friswell, who would
have "![919 Elggsg". He opened his money box in order to buy both the papers. The
Standard had a nice Irader, and the Daily News, a sub, but of course you have seen
them.
I can just fancy what a dreadful week you must have had, poor Chick; I should
like to have been near you in your trouble. Thank God it is over.
How long shall you be away, t hope the Emperor will get safely to Berlin.
As ever yours affectionately
PS
[? PiJ]
I have a dreadful bad cold.
[Ann and William cannot be identified. It is probable that they were domestic servants,
or perhaps William was a nephew. The Guilford Street house had seen the forced sale of family
possessions for financial reasons (69n1). William t had been created first emperor of Germany
at Versailles on 18 January, after his victorious army had captured Paris ending the Franco-
Pmssian War. Peace was signed on 26 February.]
4. The f500 didn't bring GAS much joy: "Five hundred pounds damages! Confound them.
They never did me the slightest amound of good" (Life 574). He goes on to describe not only the
innumerable creditors that beat a path to his door, but also the bigging letters he received, and
concludes "these wretched damages so preyed upon my mind thit, io relieve me, the Daily
Telegraph sent me to Berlin (see last par) to witness the opening of the German parliament"
(s7s).
5' (Sir) Arthur Helps (1813-1875); clerk of the privy council from 1860 to his death; he became
a trusted advizer to Queen Victoria and edited her Highland Journal (1869). He was also an art
and literary critic, historical novelist, playwright and contributor to such magazines as Fraser,s,
Contemporary Review, MacMillans and Quarterty Review. Perhaps best-kno=wn for his Friends
in Council series (1847-1859), published by George Smith.
r4l

6. Further proof that he is on friendly terms with Swinburne (86n5).
7. John Bellew (L823-I874), author, preacher and orator. "It was said of him quite truly that no
preacher of his time had greater oratorical gifts by nature, and that no man had taken greater
pains than he to improve and cultivate them" (DNB). In 1868 he had left the Anglican ministry
to become a Roman C-atholic, and taken up public reading full time. Clement Scott describes
him as "one of the finest readers I ever heard. He had a splendid appearance, with a mane - there
is no other word for it - of silky white hair, a fine expression and a glorious voice . . . he was the
idol of the ladies" (1: a00). He had the reputation of being a "lady-killer," and a shrewd
scheming "man of the world" (Yates 266). GAS confesses to having disliked him "intensely"
(letter 108). However, Yates gives us a glimpse of the man underneath the social exterior. 'I
lived in close intimacy with him for years he was frank, kindly, generous and hospitable" (267).
lell
Wednesday 5 July 1871
68 Thistle Grove, Brompton (no longerAlexander Square)
Dear Mrs Yates,
Mrs Daniel O'Conne[l whom, with C-aptn Dan, I met on the Underground Railway,
going to lunch at the Bank of England (lucky folks, fried ingots, roast dividends and so forth, no
doubt),l told me that you had reiurned from Cornwall and ihat you were staying temporarily in
Mortimer St. I have lived in that street, and in Margaret St (to be near All Saints Church) I like
them not.
Not knowing whether Edmund is in or out of town I am emboldened to ask you to
forward the enclosed. Some time since pushing Mr Joe Parkinson told me that Edmund had
asked "what I was doing at Scarborough?' I was doing thi€ at Scarborough E.H.Y. Esq, and
Sarony3 took my portraii, and made " uiry good miniatui. f- Mrs S "for nuffin".
Some days ago there called on me that wonderful swindling man Hitchman, alias the
Viscount de Montgomery, alias Hamilton & Co, of Stationer's Hall Court for whom I fancy
Edmund did that "Irndon Letter".4 He came to me saying that he had been recommended by
Shirley Brooks; but I had been wamed against him in a pamphlet written by one Evans of
Bouverie Street called "A thousand pounds reward";) and, there happening to be a cold shoulder
of mutton on the table when he called I gave it him (minus the mutton) and he departed in a
hansom cab and a huff. He wanted me to do a "London litter" on my own terms. flg must be a
wonderful creature, and to me seems to have plagiarised himself from one Mr Sims, alias Filoe &
Co,6 - a character I drew many years ago in a Uoot you never read, called "The Seven Sons of .
Mammon".7
I envy him; if the
They tell me Shirley is away and not well. If the first be true how
second be the fact I am sorry.
I have had a really frightful return of bronchitis since I last had the honour to see you,
with^spasmodic asthma added by way of bonnebouche. Of course you went to the Boucicault
batl;6 ol course you are goTrg to the Waverley one;g and equally of cours" you will be at the
Com6die Frangaise dejeunerru on Saturday.
Give my love to Edmund please Madam. I am obliged to ask Mrs Bellew to forward this
to you, not knowing your number in Mortimer St.
And I am,
your faithful humble servant
George: aug: Sala.
L42
I have a theory about the claimant in the Tichbome case.11 He is ggt Bpger; he is re! Arthur
Orton; he is not Morgan the bushranger: No, Madam: h" is EpIEQPILZ and Fisk is aware of
the fact.
l. Mary O'Connell, wife of Daniel O'Connell 'the liberator" (L775-1847); often referred to as
Captn Dan He was a Catholic lrish patriot and politician; although long since dead he is
probably relevant here because he epitomized the lrish unrest that made news headlines as it
dominated the politics of the period. Fried ingots etc perhaps refer to a recent bomb attempt on
the Bank of England by some Fenians. One of his sons, journalist Morgan O'Connell, was a
friend of Yates (Yates 104).
2. l.e.,whatever it was he enclosed. It was not included with MSS.
3. Oliver Sarony (1819-1879), C.anadian-bom photographer who had settled in Scarborough in
1857. He became England's most successful provincial photographer. His Louis Quinze style
studio in Scarborough drew custome$ from all over the country. ln the 1860's, a period when
portrait photography was very popular, he is said to have made f10,000 a year. Clearly it was
the thing to be photographed by Sarony. His younger, more flamboyant brother, Napoleon
(1821-1896) joined him for a while from America around L864 and soon set up his own studio
in Birmingham,before moving to New York in 1866 to become famous for his dramatic studies
of actors and literary personalities; Oscar Wilde, Sarah Bernhardt and Adah Mencken were
among his subjects (Saronyl0)
4. The "I-ondon Lrtter" probably refers to the London Conespondent's letter that Yates
contributed, beginning 1.855, to the Inverness Courier, an important Southern joumal. Angus
Reachr had originated it, followed by Shirley Brooks', mentioned here as recommending GAS
for the job (Yates 187). Hitchman could be Francis Hitchman (1839-1890), who had been editor
of the Manchester Guardian and assistant editor of the Iondon Standard (Boase). He had
contributed to TB in its early days. This supposition is based on the fact that he seems to have
been a rather suspicious character. He was later to be accused of plagiarism by Richard Burton
when he incorporated the explorer's unfinished autobiogaphy into his own biography of the
explorer, Richard F. Burton, his Life, Travels and Explorarrons (1888). He had persuaded
Burton to lend him the manuscript for research purposes and merely changed the pronouns into
the third person for publication. Isabel Burton complained that Hitchman "tricked my heart with
tales of poverty, sickness and a large family to let him write [the] biography, because he would
sell it for f150' (Brodie 317).
5. 'A thousand pounds reward" must be a pamphlet written by Frederick Evans of Bradbury and
Evans, Punch's publishers, of 10 Bouverie Street (Prrcl's office). No record of it has been
found.
6. Sims is just one of a number of enigmatic characters in Seven Sons of Mammon. The
"heroine" herself, Florence Armytage, a caricature of Thackeray's Becky Sharpe, "was also
known as the notorious Mrs Arlet, the Countess Prigolski, from Popoff in Poland . . . the twin
sister of Iady Arabella Tothill Fielding, if not that distinguised, though spurious and felonious
member of the aristocracy herself; then it was discovered that she and Mrs Hicks Hall were one
and the same pe$on: - in fact, there was not end to Florence's aliases" (trfiammon 209).
Florence's father plays the dual roles of the govemor, an invalid geriatric with "flowing white
locks," and Mr Hartley Livingstone with "a close cropped bullet head of crisp black hair" (107),
and hero Hugh Goldthorpe's identity becomes so difficult to follow that by the end of the book
the reader is inclined to forget who he is.
r43

7. Some sarcasm here perhaps, since Mammon (1862) is dedicated to her husband.
8. Dion Boucicault (1820?-1890) kish playwright and actor; very popular in london and New
York theatre. GAS had known him from boyhood and calls him "one of the readiest, brightest,
most versatile men I ever met" (Life 253). He was a great friend of Yates, Bellew and Shirley
Brooks. He lived very well, at one time owning a magnificent mansion in Old Brompton Rd
(perhaps this was where the ball was held), and although he had great success on the English and
American stage, no one quite knew where all his money came from, or how he had acquired such
a veneer of refinement and education. Scott describes him as living "money or no money, credit
or no credit, en prince" (1: 100). (See Scott t: 9-1.09, esp Stephen Fiske's* memoir of
Boucicault there.)
9. No record of either of these balls has been found.
10. The Com6die Frangaise dinner (10 July 1871) was a banquet breakfast held at the Crystal
Palace to celebrate the new "free trade" doctrine between the French and English stage. For a
long time a policy of protection, instigated to protect British theatre from foreign encroachment,
had succeeded in preventing fruitful artistic interchange between the two countries. Yates had
been one of the most determined fighters in the move towards this new freedom (Scott 1,: 436-
47). See letter L56n2 for mention of the 1879 London season the Comddie Frangaise at the
Gaiety Theatre, which introduced Sarah Bernhardt to English audiences for the first time.
L1. The alias theme in the Tichborne case relates it to Sims in n6. We are beginning to see how
GAS's mind works. He can never resist a digression, whenever he can see that one thing might
lead to another. In this case, which fascinated the British public for almost three years, Arthur
Orton, alias Thomas C;astro, hoped to prove that he was really Roger Tichbome rightful heir to
the the ancient Baronetcy of Tichborne. He had appeared in response to lady Tichborne's 1867
advertizement appealing for any news of her son, a cavalry officer supposedly lost at sea in 1854,
out of Rio de Janiero. Orton (alias Tichborne, or vice vena) claimed that he had been saved from
the wreck and had ended up in Australia, where he had become a butcher in Wagga Wagga under
the name of Castro. (And they say that GAS's fictional plots are too far fetched!) I-ady
Tichborne, together with a number of others, recognized his claim. However, in May 1871 it
was challenged on behalf of another heir, Sir Henry Tichborne, a minor. The case closed before
Christmas and resumed the following March, when Orton's claim was disallowed. On the
following day he was arrested on a perjury charge and in March 1874 found guilty and sentenced
to fourteen years imprisonment. GAS covered the case for the DT and was fascinated by the
character of the man who could fabricate and almost get away with such preposterous lies. The
facts were that the original Roger had been finely built and well-educated, preferring to converse
in French rather than English, while the claimant was very stout, with an uneducated accent and
certainly no French, who couldn't even remember his supposed mother's given name (Straus
2Il-15, Life 580-82, 589-94).
L2. George Peabody (1795-1869), philanthropic US merchant and financier, who settled
permanently in London in 1,837. He spent more than f400,000 on improving conditions for the
London poor; best-remembered for his blocks of "model dwellings" or working-class flats, the
gnmly functional "Peabody Buildings." In 1869 London awarded him the keys of the city, and
his statue was unveiled at the Royal Exchange. He died the same year and was given a service at
Westminister Cathedral, his body escorted back for burial in America under British naval escort
(DAB).
Why is the Tichborne claimant Peabody? Orton/C-astro/Tichborne had financed his case
with a bond float that promised high returns when he came into the Tichborne inheritance
L44
(131n15). Perhaps GAS is satirically equating these promises of riches with Peabody's
philanthropy. What he considers to be the claimant's extortionate demands are epitomized in
Morgan the Bushranger (note Australian connection) and unscrupulous, high-living US
entrepreneur James Fisk (1834-L872), since Morgan gained his living through "hold ups," and
Fisk was indulging in some extremely shady management of the Erie Railway around this time
involving the fraudulent appropriation of over nine million dollars (he was shot dead in a mafiastyle
confrontation on January LST?leavng his partner Jay Gould to face the music) (DAB under
S.L.M. Barlow). As GAS was a friend of American lawyer Samuel Barlow, who had been
engaged by English investors in the Erie Railway project to look into the finances of the
company, we c:n assume that he would have followed the Erie case with great interest. (lv{rs
Yates would have know about him too, if she read her newspapers, since his colourful, almost
gangster-style career made very good copy.) The fact that Peabody was dead makes GAS's
claim even more ridiculous. Perhaps the point turns on the idea that he extends his alias theme to
absurd extents in order to mirror the absurdity of Orton's claim.
tezl
[embossed
blue crest with interlocked initials 'GAS' centre]
t-4, ffi *H,:$:t*"":tH#3i
My dear Edmund, W
My chest has been very bad these tfriee weeks past, and t am strictly forbidden to face the
night air. Moreover as I ca'nt eat anything but boiled mutton, nor drink anything save ether and
pnrssic acid I do'nt think Mrs Yates would very much appreciate me as a guest at her hospitable
board.
Come and smokel any night this week except Saturday after seven o'clock, and we will
talk over the whole American businessz fully and seriously. You ought to have a doublebanelled
list of subjects for lectures: that is, "gay and festive ones" for frivolous New York, and
weightier ones for more intellectual Boston & Philadelphia.
I-et me know by the morning's post the evening I am to expect you. You know where
Thistle Grove is well enough; but you may not know that it is but seven minutes walk from either
the Gloucester Road, or South Kensington Railway Station.
Faithfully yours always,
George: aug: Sala.
P.S. !g! anch'iq5Anpl$g1g. I, too, have a Secretary, Sir.3
t. Just the thing for bronchitis!
2. Yates left for Arnerica 31- August 1872. tn his memoirs he says that an American friend,
Henry Wickoff Q77-78) had suggested the idea of a reading tour over dinner in April, and that
the first thing he did was write to Sala for advice, since he had already been there in 1863-64:
"Sala's views, clearly stated in an excellent letter, were all in favour of my going. He thought
that the 'Personal Recollections of Dickens and Thackeray,'which I had named, would be very
attractive; he suggested other topics, and gave me some sound advice" Q79). Next letter, written
in May, is possibly the one referred to.
3. Yates mentions his "faithful s€$etary Simpson," who accompanied him to America (381).
No record of GAS having a secretary but script in body of this letter is not his hand. He adds his
signature and the PS. Perhaps he is again having a dig at Yates for putting on airs.
L45

te3l
[embossed red crest with cornucopia. initials GAS, and motto "Son Solo" centre]
/-fr
wednesday 22May lLenrl
B\g):)
68 Thistle Grove, west Brompton
Dear Edmund, 'Wry
I am fagging hard to get my Acaffmy notices finished,2 and all my spare daylight is
spent in looking at the pictures in order to scribble about them, afterwards.
I shall be very glad to dine with you on Sunday next; but after dinner on that day means
enjo]'ment l d not business. On Sunday aftemoon (we work exceptionally early on the D.T. to
enable E.L.J to lunch with Gladstone, or go to the Zoo with Archbishop Manning)+ t am always
free. If you say yea I will come to Upper Wimpole St at three on Sunday next, and all business
can bc settled between three and dinner time. Write and say.
I am dining on Friday at the Westminister Palace Hotel with Gambart.5 t daresay
he has asked you: if not why not be Thackerayian and as! to be asked? [t is sure to be very jolly.
The views of Gadshill and Thackeray's House6 - why not supplement them with the
"Empty chair"?7 - must be painted in distemper of course as oil shows badly at night, and on a
scale to fit into the frame which you will of course have inpgmanenCg on your card. To execute
these views t should recommend Barnes. Fildes. O'Connor or Callcott.d The nvo first would
probably want a lot of money. The two last (with equal excellence) would work for a moderate
price. I know C-allcott would, as he is a "frez [sic] of mine". You would take the pictures with
you on rollen to be re-strained in America if they arc to be on a large scale; but of this of course
I am ignorant.
If I come on Sunday afternoon I shall not be able to dress for dinner; but I have got a new
white waistcoat,9 which my laundress pronounces to be very swell.
Yours always (with compliments to M$ Yates)
GA.S.
I am quite confident that, deliberately and compactly organized the Anerican show will be a
succesi. and worth neither morc nor less than two thousand quid.10 But ram Dickens and
Thackeray's personalities down their d---d thrcats. Their great avidity has stomach for it all.
over your main Thackeray and Dickens anecdotes, and I daresay I can give you
IHHJn
1. Year Yates went to Anerica (92n3).
2. \\e Royal Academy of Arts, a powerful arbiter of public taste, established in the L8th century
under royal patronage, with Joshua Reynolds (L723-L792) as president. Its summer exhibition,
which usually opened 1 May, exercized a significant influence over all the fine arts; sculptors,
engravers and architects exhibited with the painters (Mitchell 683). The "notices" of critics like
GAS were invaluable to the Victorian noveau riche, who lacking trained taste, relied on them as
a guide in purchasing works of art that would be sure to display their newly-acquired wealth to
social advantage. Newspaper and periodical reviews contributed to the enormous interest in art
at this time.
3. Edward Irvy-Iawsonr. Throughout the 1860's and most of the 1870's the DT consistently
supported Gladstone, and during this period Iawson visited him in his office almost on a daily
basis (DNB). Several letters from Gladstone inviting Iawson to dinner still exist in DT records
@urnham ix).
t46
4. Henry Manning (1808-1892), an Anglican priest tumed Roman Catholic (1851); he was
consecrated archbishop on 8 June 1"865. Ironically in his earlier career he had been strongly
anti-papal, presiding over a "No Popery" meeting at Chichester only months before he was
received into the Catholic church (DNB'|
5. John Gambart (1814-1902); born in Belgium; he came to London in 1,840 and established a
reputation as a shrewd, infonned and imaginative art dealer; he was probably the most successful
English dealer of the nineteenth century (Denvir 253). Gambart was staying at the Westminster
Palace Hotel and had written to GAS from there on L4 May 1872: "If you are in I-ondon come
and dine with me here on Friday the 24th inst - at t/z past 6". I am now entirely fixed on the
continent when you will find me & be welcome in Summer - Chateau d'Alsa, Spa" (unpublished
letter from the Brotherton Library, University of keds). Against this GAS had added the note
"Gambart the picture dealer; Characteristic letter. Good fellow." The two were firm friends in
what was no doubt a symbiotic relationship, since from Gambart's point of view GAS's art
criticism in the DT and his promotion of art and artists through the "Echoes" would have had
quite an influence on the picture buying public, while for GAS as an art collector, Gambart's
friendship would have been extremely useful. In a later letter from the same source Gambart
again invited GAS to come and stay with him at the Chateau d'Alsa: "my dear old friend . . .
nothing would please me more than to spend a week in you company" (L4 August 1879).
6. Yates did take these "views" with him, in distemper on canvas rolled up for easy
transportation as GAS suggests. Unfortunately they were stolen soon after he arrived in America
(Yates 380). Dickens bought Gadshill Place at Rochester in 1856 because:!s a poor boy growing
up in the district he had aspired to become its owner. He only intended a casual occupancy, but
became so attached to it that after spending a great amount on refurbishment he moved there in
1860. The property was brought from Eliza Lynn Linton who had inherited it from her father
(Sutherland 377).
"Thackeray's House" is the red-brick Queen Anne style home Thackeray built at 2 Palace
Green, Kensington, in 1861, and where he died in 1863 (Yates 380). Like Dickens he was also
very fond of his house, claiming it was the "only one of its kind" in London (DNB).
6. "The Empty Chair" is the title of a painting done by Luke Fildes on the day of Dickens's
death, 9 June 1,870. It poignantly reflects the public perception of loss at the great novelist's
death as it focusses on the abandoned desk and its empty chair in his Gadshill study.
8. John Barnes (d. 1887) exhibited 9 pictures at the Royal Academy.
Irrke Fildes (1844-1927), successful genre painter, who went on to build up a reputation
as an official portrait painter; also in demand as a woodcut designer for magazines. He became a
member of the Royal Academy in 1.887; knighted 1906.
John O'Connor (L830-1889), scene and architectural painter; in 1863 he became
principal scenery painter for the Haymarket Theatre, and in 1864 painted the scenery for the
Shakespeare tercentenary performances at Stratford-on-Avon. He also painted in oils and
exhibited at the Royal .Academy. His skill in depicting large scenes made him a favourite with
royalty and he was engaged to record important court ceremonies such as the wedding of
Princess Inuise (1871). He seems to have the right qualifications for the job - and got it (see
letter 95).
Could be either Albert Callcon (1835-1888), scene painter for Her Majesty's, Covent
Garden, Strand and other London theatres, or his brother, William John Callcott (1822-1900),
also a theatre scene painter. William exhibited pictures at the Royal Academy and other galleries

from 1843 to 1,890 (Boase). ^[\e Times 1 April 1886 mentioned his paintings of the season as
"having sold extremely well" (Denvir LL3).
9. In 1881 GAS wrote in a letter to another painter friend, W.P. Frith,* who had asked him to
pose for a sitting for The Private hew of the Royal Academy, 1881, "Don't forget the white
waistcoat. I have worn one every day for five-and-twenty years . . . . You can't very well
murder when you have a white waistcoat on. By donning that snowy garment you have, in a
manner, given hostages to respectability (qtd Wallis 2L7). In Frith's painting the gleam of his
white waistcoat makes GAS a focal point (168n3).
L0. It WjS a success: "I went with a lean purse and vague prospects; I returned with 1L500 and
an appointment worth II200 a year" (404). ln March 1872 Yates under threat of redundancy
chose to retire from the Post Office with a pension and from then on gained his living through
performance and journalism without his public service backstop (366-68). The f1200 refers to
his engagement in 1.873 by James Gordon Bennett as l-ondon Conespondent to the New York
Herald.
te4l
[embossed
Dear Edmund,
blue crest with comucopia, initials GAS, and motto "Son Solo" centre]
Saturday l25May I872lL
68 Thistle Grove, West Brompton
-Tomorrow, at 3 shaqp. There was a great pow-wow at Gambart's last night - Eight
R.A.'s2 - Associates were not admitted; SirJulius Benedict3 and Alfred Wiga14. "A rum lot",as
the D---[ remarked of the Ten Commandments, "and the cards want sorting". (You will hear a
great many more blasphemous things than this in the U.S.A)
I am doomed to see a gleat deal more of you before you go; for I find that you are to be at
Smalpage'ss - hum, at least there will be goose, and cabbage - next Tuesday; and Scudamore6
has (very genteelly) asked me to be his guest at the dinner they are to give you at Willis's, on the
Tenth of June. /
Mind; if Smalpage asks Monsignor Capel,S I shall give (when the ladies have retired) my
favourite toast of "to H--- with the Pope".9 The last time t dined with him he took me over a
convent at Hammersmith first and the nuns bled me to the last threepenny piece. So that I had to
walk home in the rain
yours always
G.A.S.
1. Saturday after Wednesday 22May of previous letter.
2. Members of the Royal Academy.
3. Sir Julius Benedict (L804-1885), musician, conductor and composer, concentrated mainly on
opera. Among his varied positions he had been conductor of English opera at Drury lane
(1838), on tour with Jenny Lind in America (1850), conductor of the ltalian opera in England and
conductor of the Norwich Festival. His own best known opera is The Lily of Kllarney (1862),
whose libretto is based on Dion Boucicault's Colleen Bawn (DNB).
4. Alfred Sydney Wigan (1814-1878), actor, mainly of comedy and burlesque.
5. Could be John Henry Smalpage,a well-known Inndon tailor. GAS mentions fashionable
"clothes all by Smalpage" in his story 'The Patent Woman' (Belgravia [December 1875)27:196).
148
In 1879 Smalpage appeared in the bankruptcy court (Times 22 September. 12.1), but when this
letter was written he was probably successfully running what the Times describes as"an extensive
business in Maddox-street."
6. FraDk Ives Scudamore (1823-1884), post-office reformer and writer; a personal friend of
Yates. He wrote light vene of which Yates thought very highly, and which appeared frequently
in early numbers of the World under the heading "Songs of the Session." (i.e., the parliamentary
session). It was on Scudamore's suggestion that the govemment set about acquiring all the rights
of the burgeoning telecommunication system in Britain. The changes that this brought about to
the postal department roused Yates from his safe job in the Missing I-etter branch in 1870 and
put him on the road selling the idea of telegaphic infrastructure to sleepy hamlets throughout the
country Q54-367). Tlvo years (363) a govemment clamp-down on further expansion
terminated this position, and again on Scudamore's advice, he took his superannuation and quit
the Service (93n9).
7. Yates's memoirs mention this dinner: "ln the following June I was entertained at dinner at
Willis's Rooms by nearly a hundred of my old colleagues, with Frank Scudamore in the chair; to
my great delight several of my private friends, among them Sala and Parkinson were invited
guests" (368).
8. Monsignor Capel, Catholic churchman associated with Archbishop Manning's pet project, his
"clerically controlled education scheme." He managed a University College at Kensington,
founded in 1874. It was not successful and closed four years later (DNB under Manning).
9. GAS was a lapsed Catholic, who in 1850, at the time Manning was joining in "No Popery"
demonstrations (previous letter n4), published Grand Procession against Papal Aggression To
Present The Address And Obnin Redress In Order That We May Hear Less Of His Holiness and
No Popery! A Protestant Rolandfor a Popish Oliver. He re-embraced the Catholic faith on his
deathbed (Straus 282).
tesl
[embossed red crest with cornucopia, initials GAS, and motto "Son Solo" centre]
Thursday night [30 May 1872]1
68 Thistle Grove, West Brompton
DearEdmund H,
Will you send the pofifolio by bearer.
Six Feet by Ten is tgq big tell O'Connor, and will make the pictures look like the cartoons
outside Wombwell's show.z You will want a beef-eater with a hal$enny cane to rap the canvas.
Four by Six should be ample. Mind: if you have them bigger they will give you no end of
trouble.
That was a wonderful singer at Smalpage's
"Ever of Thee Itm fondly d- r- e - a - ming"
Was'nt it lhalthe beggar chaunted?3
G.A.S.
r49

l. Thursday night after Smalpage's dinner on Tuesday 28 May (date established in last letter).
2. London menagerie and sideshow, started by George Wombwell (1788-1850).
3. Chaunting was associated with the idea of "patter," i.e., the patter of a comic song or a comic
routine. The chaunters were men who sung ballads, sold "cock" (lying broadsheets), dying
speeches, or gallows' orations, and who delivered street lectures on ashonomy and the wonders
of the microscope (Hergenhan 154). For more about slang of the period see Camden Hotten's
Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant andVulgarWords (1859).
I96I
[embossed red crest with interlocked initials 'GASU centre]
19 June 187211
68 Thistle Grove, West Brompton
Dear Edmund,
In case I do'nt see you at Bellews's tonight2, t drop a line to mention that Scudamore has
written to me to return thanks for the visitorsJ tomorrow, and that I have wrinen to him to say
that I will do what t can. I'm not in [?case] for spcaking - being, in truth in almost constant
agony with my legs; - but the speechifying wo'nt be reported, and I shall stumble through it
somehow, I have no doubt.
Yours (with a swan's quill).
it licks the "T"'Pcn4
Q ,s,
L. Day before Scudamore's dinner on 10 June (9an|.
2. Yates mentions this as one of the many farewell dinners that were held in his honour. The
Salas also cntertained him, at the Margate Hotel, "wh€re we had the best of dinncrs in the tiniest
of rooms" (Yates 381).
3. The "visitors" must refer to those invited who weren't part of the Post Office staff, like Joe
Parkinson and himself. GAS elected to reply to the toast on their behalf.
4. While working for Dickens on Il7 GAS had got into the habit of using quill pens instead of
steel ones (and Dickens's preferred ink, Stephens's dark blue). He kept up this practice for about
three years after he joined the DT,frnally abandoning the quill complctely when he could find no
one to sharpen his pens for him (Life 3n). He must have got hold of a newly sharpened one
here, and the flourish at the end of his signature shows how much he enjoyed using it.
teT
Thursday 16 April 1873
4 "The Uplands" St Ironards-on-Sea
My dear Edmund,
Your letter was forwarded from Thistle Grove, this morning. We have shut up the crib,
and brought s€rvants and nurse - tutta h baraccal - down here. I was too itl either for an hotel
or for lodgings so we have taken a fumished house for a month, in the nicest part of St konards.
I have not been lucky as respects the weather, which, for the first ten days was piercingly cold,
with an abominable Easterly wind. This sent me to bed again, with aggravated symPtoms of
inflammation. Since Easter Sunday, however, the weather has mended. Today was almost
June-like in geniality, and I have been for drive in an open fly to Bexhill. On the whole I think
that I am a litt[E better; but my thigbs are still lobster-red in hue, and the gravitations of blood to
150
the lower limbs is so strong that nothing but the horizontal position can be ventured upon. I have
got a little more sleep since I have been here, and the intervals between the hysterical paroxysms
are growing longer.Z
Write us a letter from Vienna to tell.us all about the opening of the Exhibition.3 What
books are you about to publish on America?4
You'll dine with Gambart I guess in Vienna on the 1"st of May: he asked me.5
You'll fall across C-onway Seymour the queen's [sic] Messengef at V. I daresay you
know him. If you do'nt, give me as the straight [? tip]. He is a capital fellow. Of course you
have got letters to Iord Bloomfietd.T I wondeiwh-o-goes to the -X8 tot the D.T. Kingston I
suppose. Goodbye. Write soon
G.A.S.
L. Tutta la baracca=lock, stock and banel.
2. In January 1873 GAS became very ill with erythema, an inflammation of the skin. He was ill
for about seven months. He vividly describes his illness and the whole period around this letter
in his memoirc (Ltfe 583-588).
3. The Vienna Exhibition of 1873. Soon after aniving home from America on23 March 1873
Yates was sent to cover the Exhibition for the N.Y Herald, as proprietor Gordon Bennett had
decided that a coverage of its opening could be used to show the superiority of the Herald's news
network. He wanted to achieve a "great coup" over his competitors, and determined that the
Herald would be the first with the news. His aim was to have it on New Yorkers' breakfasttables
(in both German and English) the morning following the event. This was to be the first
really effective use of the trans-Atlantic cable since it had finally been successfully laid, after a
number of abortive attempts, in August 1866. The project had been a co-operative effort
between the British and American governments, with the help of private nrnOing and the
engineering efforts of Cyrus Field (1819-L892). The cable stretched two thousand miles over
the sea floor between lreland and Newfoundland. Yates's memoirs provide a description of the
detailed organization and co-operation needed by the press if it was to use the new
communications technology effectively (405-409).
4. Yates published no books on America, although American settings in some of his novels are
probably a legacy of his trip there. The Impending Sword, published in 1874 (year after this
letter) was dedicated to Mr and Mrs J.A.Fithian of New york City.
5. GAS would have probably covered the Exhibition if he had been well enough. It sounds as
though Gambartf was having a dinner to which he had been invited, but sadly could not go,
Yates records in his reminiscences of the "X" that Beatty-Kingston took GAS's ilace among the
'colony of very huppy English and American Govemment offiiials, exhibitors and 3ournalisti, all
working in utmost harmony during the day, most of us generally dining and passing the evening
in company'(408).
6' Conway Seymour is mentioned in Things I Have Seen and People; I Have Known as a
Queen's Messenger, or- diplomatic despatch bearer, between England and America during the
civil war period (l: 252).
151

7. Diplomat John Arthur Douglas Bloomfield (1802-1879), second Baron Bloomfield; his last
posting was in Vienna as "ambassador extraodinary and plenipotentiary to the emperor of
Austria" from 1860 to 1871 (DNB). Yates's visit was after this, but perhaps Bloomfield stayed
on, or perhaps GAS didn't know he had retired and assumed he was still at his post in Vienna.
8. [.e., exhibition.
te8I
Monday 19 May L873
3 St Pauls Terrace, Wanior Square, St I-eonards (observe the new address)
My dearEdmund,
Yours from Vienna to hand, I know not how many days ago: I was in pain, and took no
count of my days, save to curse them, as Ayubr (enoneously called Job), did. The East Winds
(they are still raging) have been torturing me fearfully; but t am glad -Ye Gods! how glad- to
say that for the last week past I have been slowly, but, I think progressively mending. I can walk
about the room for ten minutes at a time, and did three ten minutes spells yesterday. I can gi! at a
table to write. I am still in frequent and excruciating pain, and many weary months may elapse
before I am myself again; but I am no longer the quivering mass of inflamed flesh I was when
you saw me in Thistle Grove. 'Tis now Sixtecn Weeks since I went to the bad. We have had
wretched weather almost continuously since my arrival here; but I have outstayed my time, and
after this week tutta lg baracca will be transfened to London. I never had a "Suite" to travel with
until I could'nt afford to keep so much as an errand boy; but the ways of sickness are wonderful,
and the less able you are to kecp yourself the more people start up who require to be kept. The
bcggrng letter writers have been pouring in their applications into Thistle Grove. They say that
now I am "stretched on an invalid couch" I can (they are sure) sympathise with their sick and
suffering. I am daily expecting a "form of bequest" from the Secretaries of the Hospitals for
Diseases of the Skin. The Consumption people (as neighbours)z have been at me already.
Write us a letter, and tell us, not about the Xhibition [sic], but about the faits and gestes3
of the pJ€ss-gang in the Kaiserstadt. How many times did Forbes4 get tight, and blat the
kellner?) How many lies did he tetl g91diem. and how many times did he wash himself, per
wcek? Not many, as rcgards the last, I guess. Did you meet Montagu,Hicks? Did you see Cecil
Johnson, or Conway Seymour, or Percival Robbins, or Byng Hall?6 Did you eat flesh with
Gambart? Did you go to the Embassy? Did you fall across Mr John Lewis, a carpet
manufacturer of Halifax, at whose palatial residence I stayed last autumn?
You were at the Newspaper hess Fund, I see on Saturday.T They will get no 3 guas8 out
of me, this year. Your name was in the D.N. but it was not in the D.T. No, Sir.
iv PtAle q q f'8 Y/'f rT'ti t
fur.ei. //;it cV Vin'uy flr
J.M.L10 may forgive, but he never forgets.
Do'nt forget to write before this week is out
always yours
Gcorge: aug: Sala.
1. Could refer to Captain Ahab's sufferings in his compulsive pursuit of his symbolic nemesis,
the great white whale in Moby Dic,t (1851). Although hardly anyone rcad Moby Drct until the
Henry Melville revival in the 1920s, it is quite possible that GAS had, given his interest in
American writers, and his love of anything really imaginative and unusual. He had read
Melville's Typee (1846) and its sequel Omoo (1847) about 1849 in John Murray's Colonial and
r52
Home Library edition (ILN 6 September 1884:219). As the Times Literary Supplement reviewer
of Philip Collins's 1972 edition of. Tlvice Round the Clock says: "He was a man of immense
curiosity and wide, if superficial, reading; how strange, for example, to find him, a mere three
years after the American publication of Leaves of Grass writing of 'Mr. Walter Whitman' and his
'barbaric youp'[sic]" (L8 February 1972: LBL). Whitman reference appeared 7 May 1858 in the
second instalment of Twice, "Five O'Clock A.M. - The Publication of the "Times" Newspaper
(WG L (1858): 28). GAS's literary interests extended to Australian writers as well. He admired
the way Marcus Clarke described the "horrors" of colonial prisons in For the Term of His Naural
Life (Ltfe L85), and he was so fascinated by Rosa Praed's Nadine that he read it all through the
night on the shores of I-ake Tarrawera in New 7*aland (Sala's Journal, July 9 1892:25t).
2. He is referring to Thistle Grove, Brompton. The Hospital for Consumptives was located in
Brompton.
3. Faits et gestes = deeds and words.
4. Archibald Forbes (1838-1900), war corespondent for the Daily News. He had also covered
the Franco-Prussian war, but had been much more involved with the actual contest than GAS,
having entered Paris with the victorious Prussian army. Although Yates was officially reporting
for the NY Herald, his friend J.R. Robinsoni, editor of the DiI, suggested that anything he might
contribute to supplement Forbes's copy would be appreciated. Yates and Forbes shared
accommodation in Vienna and found they "were excellently suited to each other" (Yates 408).
GAS's questions as to Forbes's personal habits seem to be a tilt at this intimacy. Poor old GAS
must have wished he was there having a good time with all his old mates.
According to Frederick Moy Thomas, editor of Robinson's reminiscences and private
papers, it had been the Daily News's use of cable and telegraph to cover the L870 "war between
two great civilised countries so near our own shores" that had brought about the "revolution in
joumalism" suggested by the competitive attitude of the NY Herald in the previous letter.
Although the first cable linking France and England had been laid in 1851., it had not been used
extensively because over a period British newspaper proprietors had come to rely, almost
exclusively (for economic reasons), on homogenized reports from the commercial telegraph
agency Reuter's (conveniently based in London from 1851.) for their overseas intelligence.
Reuter's was a private enterprize, started by Paul Julius Reuter, a Jewish bank clerk, at Aachen,
Germany in 1.847. See Thomas's Ftfty Years of Fleet Street chapters L4 & LS for an influential
editor's informed comments on the war reporting of this extremely volatile period in European
history.
5. Kellner = waitress
6. Like Conway Seymourr, Cecil Johnson is mentioned in Things I Have Seen And People I
Have Known as a Queen's Messenger. Byng Hall could be Sydney Hall, who was in Metz with
GAS, covering the Franco-Prussian war as an artist for the Graphic (Lik 535). Percival
Robbins was probably there too, but is not mentioned in either memoirs. GAS says that "the
journalists assembled at Metz were like a band of brothen" and "that travelling special
correspondents when they meet are invariably on terms of cordial friendship, and help one
another so far as they are able in every possible manner" (534). From the accounts in his
memoirs Yates obviously experienced the same sort of camaraderie in Vienna, even though there
was a strong element of compctition.
153

7. The tenth annual dinner of the Newspaper Press Fund was held in 17 May 1873. Yates is
mentioned as representing "literature" with, amongst others, Anthony Trollope (Cross 62). GAS
had also been one of its literary vice presidents.
8. Guas = guineas
9. Greek? Look again. With a bit of imagination it's possible to decipher the same verses from
Inngfellow's Retribution he quoted in letter 'l'7; ""1\e mills of the gods grind slowly / But they
grind exceeding small."
L0. Joseph Moses lrvy*, proprietor of the DI
teel
3 Junel.8731 (no: Fourth)
3 St Paul's Terrace, St lronards-on-Sea
Dear Mrs Yates,
I do'nt know where Edmund is:2
Perhaps he's on the Railway,
Or gone to Scondoroon: -
AgonegKlige, eEgIKeI,
G"p irin"Ii6of -
But, in writing to him, will you say that within the last week I have been getting very much
better and that yesterday, with the aid of a stout umbrella, my nephew's arm, and Mrs Sala
prodding me with a parasol, I acturally walked from the house to the pier - a distance of three
quarters of a mile. My return home in a bath chair was in every sense, triumphant.
The weather has become magnificent and St Ironards is duller than ever. I live next door
to a church where there are 8 services aday, and over the way is a C-onvent with 16.
I see Bellew has returned.4 Witt you make my compliments to him. I wish I had half his
complaint; and I do'nt wish he had half mine. I shall get well, I hope; but shall be condemned, I
fear, to a life long penal servitude of boiled mutton and milk and soda-water. Did you ever drink
milk and soda? Ilis gg nice. It makes you wish to wear pinafores, recite Dr Waits's5 hymns -
and murder the Doctor.
I am galvanised6 every other day, and when I shriek the Dr says I am getting on
wonderfully. He is a very nice man, Dr Bagshawe,/ he_nearly set me on fire the other day with a
"lamp" bath, and has all but poisoned me with valerian.S
"Sleeves are worn" - mainly tucked up, I think, for the purpose of hitting husbands. The
bonnets I have seen are of the size and colour of a poached placed on the summit of huge
coils of flax:
"gg
- why not spinachlg They are calle-d, they tell-me, "Pummellers". What is a
Pummeller?10
faithtully yours
George: Aug: Sala.
1. Looks as though the doctor has ordered him to stay at St Ironard's for a while longer.
2. His job as European correspondent for the NY Herald kept Yates on the move at this time.
After the Vienna Exhibition he travelled to Budapest to cover the Prince of Wales's visit,
returning home L4 May. Within 48 houn he was on his way again, this time to Versailles to
witness the overthrow of President Thiers and the establishment of Marshall MacMahon as head
of the French Republic. On 16 June he set off with Forbes for Brussels, where their brief was to
follow and record the doings of the Shah of Persia en route via Paris to London (Yates 4LO-I2).
L54
J. This poem refers to the sort of activities that Yates g!g! have got up to as special
conespondent for the.Aff Herald. However, the nearest Yates got to Khiva was in 1874 when, on
a trip to Russia for the NY Herald (103n7) he met Eugene Schuyler*, the American consul in St.
Pctersburg, who was the author of a book about Khiva, the exotic Uzbekistan capital (Yates 41,9),
that had fallen to Russian imperialistic expansion in 1873. The building of the Railway was, of
course, one of the reasons for Russia's altercations with the nations that impinged on her
frontiers. Her quarrel with l(hiva was resolved by April 1874, when the younger brother of the
Khan of I(hiva was admitted into the Russian army as an ensign in the Dragoons ("Reuter's
Telegram" Pall MaII Gazette 22 ApnL:8). Balloons were used by conespondents to take their
copy to the nearest telegraph offices when necess:ry, as in the siege of Paris during the Franco-
Prussian war.
4. Presumably from America; Bellew made two public-speaking trips there. The Dl[B records
that "two expeditions to America, undertaken in too rapid sequence, completely prostrated his
vital energies at last." He died a year later, t9 June 1874, aged 51.
5. lsaac Watts (L674-1748), English hymn-writer; amongst his most famous compositions are
"O God Our Help in Ages Past" and "When I sumey the Wondrous Cross." He also wrcte Divine
Songs for the Use of Children (171t, the hymns referred to here.
6. "Galvanism" was the use of electricity to stimulate energy in the patient.
7. In his memoirs GAS refers to Dr Bagshaw who "twice a week used to operate on my
extremities with an apparatus of which I could make neither head nor tail, but which, in about a
month, gave me back the use of my lower limbs" (Life 587).
8. Valerian was a hcrb used as a medical stimulant.
9. Bonnets Florentine??
10. You might well ask.
t1o0l
Thursday [June L873]1
oor
St Ironards
Dear Edmund,
EST Lu*
I had a letter this moming from George Francis Train.Z He says you went to see him in
the "Tombs". What did thev run him in for?
IS he a little M----3 or r"* the Ilnatic Cablegram a hoax, or a mere malevolent lie? t
see that a wretched paper called "The City Press"4 insinuates that I have never been ill, and that t
am "rattling away in my usual style" in Belgravia!
G.A.S.
1. Fits in as part of 1.873 "St konard's" series (linked through GAS's post-erythema seaside
recuperation) soon after 7 June when Cfry Press story published (n4). Real interest in this letter
is that it is written on GAS's idiosyncratic "pasteboard" or calling card. lts design of a gas lamp
post incorporating the initials GAS and the motto Dux est Lux (probably executed by GAS
himself, since he was a competent artist and blockmaker), can be seen as a particularly
appropriate symbol for him as one of the leading "lights" of Victorian journalism. hrns abound
here as dux equals leader, or the best, and lux equals light. He was a leader writer, a leading
member of his profession, an innovator of newspaper style, a bestower of light on his readers etc.
etc. Marcus Clarke, who publically proclaimed Sala as a role model, made the point, when he
155

said in 1868, "This is the age of Gas" (quoted Eliott 84). Eliott adds : "[t was indeed.
Melbourne by night was brilliant with gas; streets, theatres, hotles, clubs, houses, and even trains
shone in its radiance. In journalism too it was an age of gas - of exuberance. In this sense of the
word a dazzling precedent had been set by George Augustus Sala, whose initials were
fortuitously apt. Sala introduced to journalism a new verve and dash, a witty audacity, a
freedom, which made Clarke his disciple ' (ibid). Gas, and the brilliant illumination it provided
for human society after centuries of candlelight gloom, was also equated with the "light" of the
burgeoning Victorian press by Thackeray in Pendennis; epitomized in the scene where Penn is
awed by Warrington's description of the press as a "great engine that never sleeps" as they pass
by the newspaper office in the Strand 'which was all lighted up and bright. Reporten were
coming out of the place, or rushing up to it in cabs; there were lamps burning in the editors'
rooms, and above where the compositors were at work: the windows of the building were in a
blaze of gas" (301-2).
2. George Francis Train (L829-1904), merchant, prcmoter, author; and above all entrepreneur,
with all its connotations of the possibility of extreme success or failure; his ventures included
establishing shipping, tramway and railway lines in England, America and Melbourne, Australia;
for 18 years from 1856 he was a columnist for the NY Herald. He was prone to eccentric
opinions and from 1.862 was jailed a number of times for disturbing public meetings. He
championed the cause of another eccentric American, Victoria Woodhull (L838-I927), who was
jailed for obscenities in her public charges of adultery against eminent clergyman Henry Ward
Beecher (November 1872). In an attempt to show that her language was well within required
Biblical limits Train printed passages from the bible in his paper The Train Ligne (D.4B). His
subsequent arrest and imprisonment is probably what GAS refers to. The Tombs is New York
city jail.
3. Presumably "mad."
4. The City Press, 1.8 July 1857 - 1900+. lts column "Magazine for June" (7 June 1873: 3. 3)
begins: 'ln Belgravia Miss Braddon's 'Strangers and Pilgrims' makes fair progess. Mr Sala rattles
away in his customary style in 'lmagtnary Ilndon'. We do not know if he writes the 'copy'
whilst suffering from the distressing complaint of which he has been compelled lately to say
something; but if he does, the spirited manner in which writes is certainly remarkable."
[101]
TuesdaYl
43 B Street
Dear E,
Thank God I am well enough - that is to listen to other people, and see them eat and
ddnk. I dined with lawson at the crystal palacn2 (and 15 kvyi male and female and a
remarkably jovial reunion it was) last Saturday. Saturday next at seven. I will put my pill box in
my pocket, and my box of citric acid powder in my hat
arwavst:i:.
P.S. I shall want a tablespoon & half a tumbler of water at 8.30 for my tarraxicum.3
1,. Address can't be identified, thus difficult to date, but positioned here because it could be soon
after his convalescent period at the seaside following his erythema attack, which prevented him
from writing for the Daily Telegraph. Hence his "reunion" with I-awson (probably Lionel as
Edward lrvy-I-awson didn't add the l:wson to his name until 1875) and the other lrvys. Also
handwriting fits into this period; the way he forms his signature initials changes over span of
letters so when dating difficult, matching them up can provide a guide. However, this technique
is by no means infallible.
2. Ttrc Crystal Palace was the huge and innovative glass-house-type exhibition hall erected in
Hyde Park Inndon in 185L. It was designed by Joseph Paxton (1,801-1865) to house the Great
Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, commonly called the Great Exhibition of
1851. It was dismantled and re-erected in Sydenham, South Lnndon, between the end of 185L
and 1854, where surrounded by gardens and fountains it served as a pleasure garden and cultural
centre, until it was destroyed by fire in 1936 (Mitchell 276-78).
3. He must mean taraxacum a drug prepared from dried roots of dandelion.
11021
17 November 1873
Bromptonl
Dear Edmund,
I do'nt envy you your mission to the Dons just now. D---n their eyes!2 This comes in
the assumption that your train has not been "potte^d" by any of the conflicting parties. I scarcely
know what tips to give you. I have met Castelar,J but do'nt know him well enough to introduce
you to him. The Duke of _Frias,4 whom I know very well, I can scarcely imagine to be in
Madrid; but if he be, I-ayards will be very glad to introduce him to you. Of "buo" lou know the
"Nineveh Bull" - you know everybody -; but if you do'nt the enclosed letteF will do you no
harm. You are sure to fall across an old English C,olonel SomethingT or other (I forgei what)
who says "Howsomenever", and swears "by the Uving God, Sir". He will put you down at the
Club (where do'nt play Rouge et noir). Mr Bell, an English banker, ought to be very civil to you
if you say you know me. But, for aught t can tell, these ancient acquaintances may be, by this
time, dead, or banknrpt, or in exile in the Balearic Islands.
You should have gone to the "Fonda de los Principes". There used always to be half a
dozen Diputados at the table d'hdte. The table wine at the "Paris" is execrable; but the white is
the best. If you have a fire in your room it will cost you about 30 reals a day, and you'll spend
half your time in blowing the blasted bellows. You wo'nt like the butter, and you wo'nt be able
to get any cigars fit to smoke except at the Caf6 Suizo. Above all things, if you are in the
slightest degree subject to bronchitis, beware of going out after nightfall without a thick wrap
around your neck. If you neglect this the cursed wind from the Guadanama (I say nothing of the
Intrasigentes) will cut your throat as you come home from a dinner party: -
Uair de Madrid es tan sotil
que mata a un hombre, y no apaga a un candilS
I can fancy you lying in bed at the "Paris", vainly endeavouring to go to sleep while the
abominable news-boys below are shrieking or{ (at Z.a.m.) "!4 lmparcial!" "!4 Novedades!"
El Eco del C.ommercio!" "Ia Revista Politica!"9
goodbye.
G.A.S.
You were at Braddon's first night. Mrs Grizzle is a mull, I fear.lo
1. hesumably full address here is 68 Thistle Grove, Brompton, since this letter was written in
L873 and there are dated letters from Thistle Grove which span 1871-1.874.
2. Yates had set out for Madrid from Paris (where he had been ordered by the NY Herald) on 16
November 1873 to report on the ramifications of the Spanish capture of the American steamer,
156 r57

l4rginius, near Jamaica, and the subsequent murder of 55 of her crew (16 of whom were British
subjects). He stayed at the H6tel de Paris for ten days while things simmered down. His
memoirs show that he met Castelar, Iayard and other diplomatic figures. He may have also met
the Duke of Frias, since he mentions a "real Spanish grandee or duke, whose title I forget, but
whose courtesy and kindness I shall always remember" (414-15). As GAS had been to Spain for
the DT in 1865 during an abortive uprising against Queen lsabella (Lik 422-435); Yates sought
the advice of experience, just as he had about his trip to America.
3. Emilio Castelar (1832-1899), Spanish republican orator, statesman and writer; last president
of the "Republic of L873," which followed the abdication of Amadeus, duke of Aosta, who was
elected king after the 1868 revolution had finally dethroned Queen Isabella. In January 1874, (a
few months after this letter), a coup ousted his government and changes were set in train that led
to the restoration of the monarchy under Alphonso XII, Isabella's son, in 1874. GAS followed
the young king's triumphant progess through Spain in 1875 (letter L24).
4. The Duke of Frias was a Spanish grandee "of ancient lineage," with British affiliations as he
was married to an Englishwoman Vicky Balfe, daughter of composer Michael Balfe (L808-
1870). She had been a childhood friend of GAS (Life 424-25).
5. (Sir) Austen Henry I-ayard (1817-1894), politician, ambassador and archaeologist; excavator
of the ancient city of Nineveh. His parliamentary career had closed in November L869 when he
resigned from the Privy Council to accept the post of British minister at Madrid (DNB). He later
went on to play a crucial role in Disraeli's push for a British presence in the Mediterranean during
the Russian-Turkish conflict of 1877-78 (1ah14). GAS's allusion to Layard as the "Nineveh
Bull" probably stems from a story of the same name in HW 8 February 1851 by W.H. Stone, in
which a bull, one of the Assyrian statues from I-ayard's excavations, soliloquizes on its past and
present circumstances (lhdi aa1).
6. Not included in MS.
7. ln his memoirs GAS calls him Colonel Howsomever and explains that he got this name
"because he generally bgan conversation with that adverb, and as plentifully gamished his
subsequent utterances with it." He had lived in Madrid for many years, although exactly what he
did there remains a mystery. His main function, as far as GAS was concerned, seems to have
been getting English travellers entr6e into Madrid's "principal club" (599-600).
8. His memoirs quote this as the "well-known couplet 'El aer de Madrid es tan subtil; / Que mata
a un Cristiano y no apaga a un candil'. 'The air of Madrid is so subtle that while it kills a man it
will not blow out a candle"' (Life 599). Inconsistencies in his Spanish between letter and
memoirs are also found in his spelling of the "cursed wind from the Guadarrama" (conect
spelling) here, and later in his memoirs "honible wind from the Guadarana' (598). The Siena de
Guadarrama is a mountain range to the north west of Madrid.
9. He probably made up these names of Spanish newspapers, as he did with American papers in
letter 77.
10. GAS is writing this letter just after returning home from a performance of M.E. Braddon's
play, Griselda or the Patient Wife, which opened at the Princess's Theatre on 13 November with
Clara and Wybert Rousby* in the leading roles. ln a Belgravia article of the following February,
"Griselda: A Study at the hincess's Theatre" Q2:246-256) he explains how he waited until
"Griselda was four nights old" before he went to see it as "it is impossible on a First Night to tell
whether the play is good or bad, or whether it is really to the taste of the public." Although he
158
thought the play a "mull" (muddle), his piece in Belgravia is tactful, dwelling more on the
historical nature of the character Griselda than on a direct appraisal of the play itself; sensible,
since Braddon was the journal's editor.
[103]
Christmas Day L873
68 Thistle Grove, Brompton
Dear Edmund,
Merry Christmas. Family Party, quotha! t wish somebody would relieve me of my
"family". I've got nine people to dinner: - married nephews, strange wives with red hair (t bar
their babies), a newly adopted niece, and remote cousins from Edmonton by the name of Wall.
Fancy my having cousins from Edmonton by the name of Wall! They are all Chuzzlewits,l and
hate rne (they will doubless disparage my chimney ornaments) and one of the beggars (Mr E.W.
Sala) is a schoolmaster from Shepherd's Bush, and jaws about the redundance of apposite
adjectives and abstract nouns in the D.T. leaders. This plague of kindred has been brought about
by the recent busting up of my eldest brotherz (going on for sixty) who availed himself of the
death of his wife to sell up his sticks and rid himself of his family. He is a very game old man;
and we hear that he is going to marry a girl of seventeen with money and a soprano voice, whom
he intends to bring out as "Madame Sala", as a new primadonna.
Compliments (not of the season: they do'nt mean anything) to Mrs Yates.
I thouSlt Madrid would fetch you. How did you like the butter, and the "garbanzos" and
the "pollo con arroz"?' Dig you go to a tertulia to be regaled with pump water and a lump of
sugar "pata gustar el aqua".a They are a fine people though. I asked a child of.2% years in the
Salon of the Principes what his name was and he replied: "Yo soy Don Sallustio; y tu,
hombre?".) It was as good as the "great Mr Twamley".
You will be going to Petersburg, I guess. / You ought to find two officers in the
Chevalier Guards, Bodisco and Lieben who were great chums of mine. They must be pretty high
up now, as they were only in the Corps des Pages when I knew them; but soldiering in Russia is a
real trade and they stick to it. Do'nt go to qp hotel if you can help it. Although much improved
since I was there, the Queen's Messengersu tell me that the inns are still dear and dirty. Miss
Benson's has been shut up, I am afraid for a long time; but try and find out the pension where the
actors and actresses of the French plays board. I lived in one on the Nevski, a little above the
Great Morskaia, kept by a Madame Martius,g and found it very jolly and very cheap.
Kingston will be very grand at the D. of Es wedding, wearing the orders of St John
Hetchki, and St Judas Iscariotsoff.ru
Your friend Lord Desartll seems to have made rather a "muss" of it; but is'nt Granville
[sic] Munaylz atthebottom of the Chesterfield business?l3
always
G.A.S.
1. Extended family of Martin Chuzzlewit, from Dickens's book of the same name. Rich and
eccentric Martin Chuzzlewit senior (to whom GAS somewhat improbably relates) is plagued by
his sycophantic and covetous relatives, who hypocritically criticize him behind his back.
2. Frederick.
3. Garbanzos = chick peas: pollo con arroz = chicken with rice.
4. Para gustar el aqua = to taste the water. The Spaniards were proud of their water, which GAS
concedes was "the most refreshing in the world" (Life 425).
159

5. "[ am Don Sallustio; and you, friend [who are you]?"
6. The "great Mr TWamley" is mentioned in Things when GAS describes Thackeray's propensity
to "treat people in a distant, stand-off, and'Great TWamley'manner" (1: a0). He also refers to
"The great Mr TWalmley [sic], the inventor of the Floodgate lron" in "The Patent Woman," a
story in Belgravia December 1875 (27: 184-196). But who lvlr Twamley actually is cannot be
discovered.
7. Yates set out 10 January L874 to cover the wedding of the Duke of Edinburgh, second son of
Victoria and Albert, to the Russian Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna, on 23 January. Gordon
Bennett of the NY Herald saw it as an occasion of great interest to his readers'as Russia had
recently become an ally of America. Yates's comment on this makes ironic reading: "Extremes
meet, and the most autocratic and the most democratic of governments have, I suppose,
something in common" (Yates 417).
8. Officially named "Queen's Foreign Service Messengers," they canied diplomatic despatches
all over the world (Escott Drplomacy 378).
9. This pension was the Maison Martius, in the Nevskoi hospekt, "the Regent Street of St.
Petersburg" (Life 289), near the Great Square (Morskaia). It was here that GAS first met the
American actress Genevidve Wardi, who was to become a lifelong friend.
10. William Beatty-Kingston*, again standing in for GAS, who perhaps felt threatened by the
competition
1.L. William Ulick O'Connor Cuffe, Earl of Desart (but only an hish peer). Published 13 books
between 1869 and 1897, most of them novels. The first two novels were Only a Woman's Love
(1869) and Beyond these Voices (1870), both published by Tinsley.
12. Grenville Munay (1824-1881) diplomat and joumalist; a fiery and controversial character.
He had had a stormy diplomatic career, clashing with foreign protocol by contracting to act as
Vienna conespondent to the Morning Post in L851- while on diplomatic posting there. His career
in the service was marked by similar bitter friction with officials, until in 1,868 he returned to
England and entered full time into journalism. One of his best-known works was the "Roving
Englishman" series, which first appeared in HW 1850-1856. In 1868 he went to live in selfimposed
exile in Paris, after he skipped bail during a perjury trial resulting from his slandering
Lord CarringtoninThe Queen's Messenger, aweekly journal of gossip, prototype of the "Society
Gossip" magazine. In 1874 he teamed up with Yates to become the co-founder of the World.
Together they had initiated "the modern type of journal, which is characterized by a tone and
candour with regard to public affairs, but owes its chief affraction to the circulation of private
gossip, largely by means of hint and innuendo" (DIVB). The partnership didn't last long as Yates
bought Murray out at the beginning of 1-875, after disagreement over his virulent attacks on
members of the Foreign Office, particularly Iord Derby. See Yates 426-433 for full acount.
13. The association of Inrd Desart, Murray and the "Chesterfield business" cannot be found.
160
11041
Monday [January L87ql
68 Thistle.Grove,.Brompton
DearEdmund,
My only copy of the "Journey Due North" went the way of the rest of my books when I
was sold up in -Guildford
[sic] St (while I was in Spain) in '65, and the l4uy. collared the blunt.2
The book has long been out of print; but has'nt George Bentley a copy?J If he has I daresay he
would'nt lend it to you.
You will want no end of furs for Petersburg. If you have'nt got them already buy them
(not here: the cost will ruin you) but in Cologne, in Frankfort, or, best of all in lripsic. Do'nt let
swelldom prompt you to we:r a coat with the fur outside. Go in for a regular Sclioub,4with the
fur inside. You ought to get a very handsome one for f35. Sell it the very moment you come
home for as much as it will fetch, as you arc not likely to go to Russia again, and the moths will
play hell with your furs in summer.
Do'nt start without the last edition of Munay's Russian guide book5 and prig6 from it
without [indecigherable].
Michell/of the English legation ought to be a very nice fellow, who knows Sutherland
Edwards8 very well.
Stick to the American minister;g get an introduction to Tripoff the chief of the Police
who, by all accounts "runs" the city of St Petersburg, lock, stock and banel.
good luck
G.A.S.
L. Before Yates set out for Russia on the 10th.
2. Blunt - ready money.
3. Bentley had published Due North in 1.858. After Bentley had acquired ?B in 1866 Yates
continued to work for him as editor from January 1866 to July 1.867, when he had resigned to
edit Tinsley's Magazine. GAS assumes Bentley was prejudiced against Yates on account of this,
since it seems he was left somewhat in the lurch. After a search for a replacement (James
Hannay was considered), the publisher took over the editor's role himself (Wellesley 3: 388).
4. Schoob meaning schooba = pelisse or Russian style fur coat. "In a country which . . . for five
and sometimes six months of the year is a frigid hell . . . furs, with us only the omaments of the
luxurious, are necessities of life" (Iourney IL7).
5. One of the seies Handbooks for Travellers begun by publisher John Munay (1808-1892) in
1836 (Chambers).
6. Prig = steal.
7. The British C;onsul-General to whom Yates had letters of introduction. However, he was
away at the time so the English Ambassador, Lord Augustus Loftus, had to suffice (Yates 419).
8.. Henry Sutherland Edwards (1828-1906) author and joumalist; first editor of the Graphic
(1869). He was well versed in Russian politics and literature, having spent some time there in
1,856 after covering the coronation of TsarAlexander 2 for the lllustrated Times in 1,855 (DNB).
9. Governor Marshall Jewell (1825-1883), American republican politician; on retirement from
politics he was appointed minister to St. Petersburg (December 1873). Yates did "stick" to him -
"Governor Marshall Jewell and his wife, made me free of their house and opera box, and invited
me to a grand reception and ball" (419).
161

t10sI
Wednesday [?early 187 4]l
Daily Telegraph
DearEdmund,
Sunday at Seven, but I am afraid too much meat will give me ideas beyond my station.
David Masson,z making a speech at a dinner once said that literary men should go into the desert
and live on locusts and wild honey. Masson is a "varra clever man".
That article on Miss Swan annoyed me tenibly. The sub-editor must have been tight, or
at all events the reader, or somebody, made a most astonishing hash of the nominative cases in
their relation to the verbs.
Yours always
G.A.S.
author of "soaked in gin"
Edmund H. Yates, Esq
author of "wrecked in port"3
It was Harold Power,4 was'nt it, who wrote "Smashed by Sherry?"
1. Dating problematical, only thing definite is that it must be after 5 December 1868 when
Yates's novel, Wreckcd in Port, first appeared n AU The Year Round (see postscript).
Handwriting, particularly signature, places it around same time as following letter [probably
dated 1 March 1874] dated through reference to Yates's Shirley Brooks article in the Observer,
assumed (as it hasn't been sighted) to have been published just after Brooks's death.
The two letters can also be linked intertextually through reference to a dinner invitation:
"Sunday at Seven" (105) and "Of course ['m coming' (106, dated Sunday, noon). Reference to
Miss Swan causes a problem if she is assumed to be Annie Swan (1.859-1943) novelist, whose
first book Ups and Doltns w:rs not published until 1879. Article referred to here would solve the
problem, but it cannot be found. As identity of Miss Swan cannot at this stage be proved
handwriting evidence has been found to carry most weight.
2. David Masson (L822-Lm7), scholar, critic, editor and professor of English at University
C-ollege London (1842 and Edinburgh University (1865-1895). He was the first editor of
Macmillan's Magazine (November 1859-April 1868); wrote for other periodicals including
Blaclev'oods, Contemporary Review, Dublin University Magazine, Edinburgh Review, Fraser's
Magazine, North British Review, and especially British Quarterly Review and North British
Review (see his entry in Wellesley 5:523-4). He was a Scot and GAS mimics his accent.
3. Novel by Yates, serialized inAW,5 December 1868-7 August 1869; published in book form,
1869.
4. Harold Power, lrish comedian, who collaborated with Yates in his show at the Egyptian Hall,
Invitations to Evening Parties and the Seaside (6an1).
t62
l106I
Sunday Noon. [1- March L8l+1I
Daily Telegraph
My dear Edmund,
Qf course I am coming; but it is a case of four columns on the Tichbome trial; and it may
be late before I reach you, but you will give me some victuals at a side-table or in the Senrants'
Hall.2 Come I will, if I have time to drive to the club and dress I will: if not you must take me in
the corduroys and bluchers3 of ordinary life.
yours always
G.A.S.
A charming paper of yours in the Observer about poor Shirley. The right thing said in the right
manner.
1. Day before GAS's 4-column report of Tichborne trial, "The Last of Arthur Orton," appeared
in the Df Q March 1874 6), and Sunday following Shirley Brooks's death on Monday 23
February 1874 (see postscript).
2. GAS jokes about the middle-class affluence that Yates was beginning to achieve through his
well-paid job with the NY Herald, begun the previous year. However, as Yates had been up for
banknrptcy in L868, his affluence at this stage must have been more "appearance" than real. It
was not until the World became an established success that he could be said to have "made it."
3. Bluchers = leather boots styled after those wom by Pnrssian General von Bliicher (17a2-I819)
(oED).
1104
Monday [?9 March L874]I
68. Thistle Grove, Brompton
DearE,
Who writes that "Lounger" col in the "Pictorial World2"?
How did you tike my lasl work in tongue of the Lively Gaul,3 of which I sent you the
first 8 pages, but refrained in mercy from sending you the remaining 50? I have just finished it.
It is the "case" of a Scotchman at Nantes who is going to be tried tomorrow in Paris for swindling
the French govemment and got me.to put his defence into French for him. His own case in
English was full of Charles L's head.4
Is it true that Boucicault has, (for the 100th time in his life) turned out to be really a d-d
scoundrel,,and hooking it with Miss Rogers, has bidden his wife and
-
children find bread for
themselves?s
That "game old man" my eldest brother [gg re-married (last Wednesday) a girl of 18.6
G.A.S.
Swollen vein still keeps me prisoner; but I am very jolly and working like Sambo - or as Sambo
ousht to work.
Barnum came to visit me yesterday, looking fat and prosperous.
1,. Perhaps week before next letter, which is obviously a direct reply to GAS's question here re
the Pictorial World.
2. Joe Hatton (see next letter n3). This column is "What the World Says" Picronal World (7
March 18742 4z L), often signed "The Lounger" (but not in this particular number), cf. similarity
to Yates "Lounger" pseudonym and his column to-be, "What the World Says," in the World.
L63

Pictorial column includes "with an evidently earnest desire to be complimentary, a writer in
of the magazines which used to be bright and sparkling, says the only humour in the
'comic papers' is 'when Sala happens to have a leader in the Daily Telegraph."'
particularly because it appears as an editorial paragraph in a publication for which Sala
worked. The "eamest" writer was Richard Gowing, new editor of Gentleman's Magazine
which the Pictorial World writer must have quoted (see next letter end parZ).
3. I.e., written in French. See next letter where he mentions "that French business" in associat
with Grant and Co who published his advertising efforts (n9). Can't discover what this is.
Perhaps it was just as he said, the preparation of a case in French, therefore a private matter that
was never published.
4. "M. Dick' is a character in Davi.d Copperfield. who has as obsession about Charles 1.
was Dickens's comment on the great renascence of Tory sentiment which accompanied the
bicentenary of Charles's death in 1849 (the year in which the novel was written). Cf Yates's
memoirs indicating co-founder of the World Grenville Murray's propensity to pepper his
journalism with damaging allusions about Inrd Derby and other Foreign Office officials: "[t was
as difficult to keep them out of his writings as it was for Mr. Dick to keep 'mention of King
Charles the First's head' out of his memoial" (432). It cost Murray his partnership in the World
(103n11). GAS's "Scotchman" must have been jeopardising his case by harping on something in
the same way.
5. While in Australia, 1885, Boucicaultt repudiated his legal wife, Agnes Robertson, and his six
children, in order to marry bigamously, at sixty-four, twenty-one year old Sybil Thomdyke,
who together with trvo of his children, 'f,'otu (Dion Boucicault Jnr) and Nina, was a member of
his touring company. Not surprisingly he bcame estranged from family and friends and never
retumed to England, choosing America as his home instead (Fotheringhaml. Stephen Fiske's
memoir comments on the problems of leaving two wives behind after death: "Dion Boucicault is
dead and buried; Mrs Thorndyke Boucicault is overwhelmed with grief at his death; Mrs Agnes
Robertson Boucicault is coming across the ocean to look after his property. [t is to be hoped that
these two ladies will settle their affairs quietly, and let the dead dramatist rest in peace" (Scott 1:
10L). Wonderwhere Miss Rogers fits in?
6. See letter L03 (end first par).
t1081
Tuesday [17 March L874JI
68 Thistle Grove
DearEdmund,
Lookout for me in the D.T. for an articte on MoliBre.2
Yes; but Mr Joe Hatton3 is not only a Hass4 but a malevolent one. He owes me a gnrdge,
I guess, because I declined to subscribe to a "Testimonial" to him recently; telling one Baker
Hopkins) who applied to me that I held the Testimonial business to be very remarkably like
J.H.'s impudence. He was sacked, recently, from the "Gentleman's Magazine"; whereupon he
takes an early opportunity of writing a nasty paragraph about me in the "Pictorial World"6
because Gowing/ the new editor of the "Gentleman", said a civil thing about me. The
proprietors of Sylvanus UrbanS (Grant and Co) afe very valuable and old clients of mine in
matters which pay a great deal better than literature9(that French business for example) and I was
specially riled at Hatton's sneering as my name happens to be on the lists of contributors to the
L64
P.W. (which is damned bad) although it contains a portrait of yourself and Mrs Yates in the stalls
rrf the "Monday Popsurulooking at a woman with a fuzzy head, playing the fiddle.
I [am] at Chislehurstlrr I went out for the first time in a cab today to my doctor Henry
James Johnstone, who gives me another three weeks or a month indoors, as I have about three
$quare inches of bran new cuticle to grow over a wound not yet granulated.
I do'nt know what kind^of work you do on the N.Yfl.; but, if you have a chance I wish
you would let the other sidel2know that on Frida!, nextl3there comes out at the Adelphi, an
American actress Miss Genevieve Wardl4in the part of Alexina in the "Exiles of Siberii" with
Miss Wallislswho goes into the provinces. Miss Genevieve Ward is my old Russian friend,
Madame de Guerbel, alias Guenabella.
yours always
G.A.S.
I have no doubt the story I heard about B'sl6behaviour was exaggerated. 'Twas a Woman who
told me.
1. Tuesday before Friday of Genevieve Ward's performance at Adelphi (n13). And day before
DT article on MoliEre (n2)
2. In DT following day, 18 March 1874: 5.2. Story about a current controversy arising out of
production of Alexandre Dumas's play La feunesse de Louis X!V, which depicted Molidre
breakfasting with King I-ouis at Versailles. Question being hotly debated all over London, even
in parliament it seems, was did this event ever really occur. In putting the "yes" case GAS shows
off his knowledge of royal protocol, and MoliEre's biography.
3. Joseph Hatton (1841-1907), journalist and novelist; early in his career he made a name for
himself as an energetic provincial journalist and he became editor of the Bristol Minor. In 1868
he went to London where he was subsequently engaged by newspaper and magazine proprietors
Grant & Co as editor of the lllustrated Midland News, Gentleman's Magazine and the School
Board Chronicle. According to the Drt[B he retired from Grant & Co's employ in 1.874 (cf GAS's
"sacked" here) to act as l-ondon correspondent for the NY Times, Sydney Morning Herald and
Berlin Krew-Zeiung, and, for a period, editor of the Sunday Times. Amongst his numerous
journalistic endeavours around this time he was a contributor to the satiric Vanity Fair (1868-
1928). He wrote a number of popular novels including Clytie (L874) and By Order of the Cmr
(18e0).
4. 1.e., an ass (cf lvlr Bumble inOliver Twist.l
5. John Baker Hopkins, novelist and journalist; at this stage, like Hatton, on staff of Vanity Fair
(Sullivan 439). Testimonial dinner mentioned here reported in "Literary Entertainments"
Pictorial World (28 March 1874: 55.3). It was held at the Washington Club to mark Hatton's
retirement from the Gentleman's Magazine. Many journalists were present but neither GAS nor
Yates was among those listed, or recorded as having sent apologies.
6. Pictorial World: new series 1 March 1874-9 July 1892, then merged in Black and White,
earlier publication not dated.
7. Richard Gowing (1831-1899), edited Gentlemen's Magazine November 1873 to 1877; before
this he had worked on newspapers in lpswich, Exeter and Birmingham; first to bring R.D.
Blackmore's Lorna Doone (1869) to public notice with a review in his Exeter paper; admirer of
free trade advocate Richard C-obden, author of Richard Cobden (1885).
t65

8. "By Sylvanus Urban, Gent.," features on the title page of Gentleman's Magazine (L73
1907); could be seen as the pseudonymn of founder and fint editor Edward Cave (Fader 98),
had presented it as a "social intelligencier," carrying obituaries, news items, antiquarian
and poems. The Urban Club* w:ls so named because its first meeting place was where Cave
initially set up and edited the GentlemazS, and gathered about him our Bohemians'
Johnson, Savage and Goldsmith (Scott 1: 310). In 1868 under Joseph Hatton's editorship
Gentleman's had became a typical middlebrow Victorian magazine (Sutherland 241).
9. Sounds as though this could be advertising literature, another example is Needle Magic.
Anecdotal History of the Sewing Machine (1869), and in 1868 he had contributed to a
pamphlet, St. Paul's Cathedral and its Churchyard, published by Grant. Although other
published by Grant haven't been found GAS later he did more work for them includi
contributing to a number of exhibition catalogues like that of "The Crystal Palace First Mule
Donkey Show" (1874), "The Fanmakers C-ompany" (1878) and "Madame Tussaud's Exhibiti
Catalogue" (1892). This sort of writing was not considered respectable and GAS was accused
prostituting his literary skills.
10. I.e., The Monday Popular Concerts, a successful orchestral concert series inaugurated
1859 by Arthur Chappell of the great Iondon music publishing house. In its 27 January 1875'
issue: L5, the World featured the 'Monday Pops" in the first of a series called "Classical:
.i
Concerts."
11. hesumably covering the celebration of Prince EugEne Louis Napoleon's coming of age at
Chiselhurst, where he had lived in exile since his father, Napoleon ttl, had been deposed in 1870.J
Report in DT on L7 March L872: 4 probably by GAS, who also penned the young prince's
obituary in 1,879 (letter 157).
L2. 1.e., other side of the Atlantic. There was interest in America about Genevieve Ward as she
was a U.S. citizen. Yates was London C-orrespondent of .rVelry York Herald.
L3. Friday 20 March 1874 @ritish and hish Biognphies).
1.4. Genevieve Ward (1837-L922), an op€ftr singer who had turned dramatic actress, after a bout
of diphtheria in 1,862 affected her voice . GAS first met her in St Petersburg in 1856 (103n8),
where she was studying singing. She subsequently manied a Russian, Count Constantine de
Guerbel (Lik 294), hence her operatic pseudonym Madame Guerrabella. This was her first
appeaftmce on the lnndon stage; the full title of the play was Elimbeth, or The Exiles of Siberia.
15. Ellen lancaster Wallis (1856-?), she played the role of Alexina in the provinces. During her
career she was a leading lady at the Queen's, Drury Lane and Adelphi theatres. She also was
manager of the Shaftsbury when it opened in October 1888 for a year, and later in 189L (Baker
s22).
16. Refers to a piece of gossip about Boucicault in last letter. A woman might have told it to
GAS but hEwas not slow to spread it around, especially by telling it to Yates!
166
tloel
Tuesday 30 March 1874
68 Thistle Grove, Brompton
Dcar E,
Professor Anstedl lives and prospcrs (aet:60). He is Examiner in Physical Geography at
S. Kensinglon.
Cosmo Monkhouse? ltheman who wanted before his marriage to read me 123 stanzas "in
the Ig Memoriam style which he had addressed to his sweetheart Miss [?Keynur],
whereupon I
bcgan to yell uFir€lo and "Police!" till he fled, scared, from the house) got an appointment in
H.M. Stationery office, and is now holding some cloudy appointment under the crown
somewhere in South America. Damn his 123 stanzas!
Browne,3 (Horace St John's4 brother-in-law) turned pa$on, went mad, and died. I
thought he was going offhis chump when I sent him to Sir Charles Hood) (deao to get materials
for a paper on Bedlam.
Austinb is a begging-letter-writer, bully and hired political spouter at some "Discussion
Forum" in Fleet St. His wife (deserted) got in trouble for prigging a blanket from the workhouse.
Then she pitched herself into the Regent's Canal for the purpose of exposing old A. Then we
scnt her to C:nada. I have not heard whether she is doing well, or whether she died of D.T.
StigantT is Vicc-Consul at Boutogne. We used to catl him "the gloomy Egotist". He got
his berth througb Bright who thought S's poem (a thundering epic) of the Siege of Antioch; or the
first Crusader na sreat deal better than "Paradise Lost".
Bill Jenid8 never sent me back the History of the French Press (6 vols which I bought
and paid for at Hachettesf which I sent him as the ground-work for some bad papers he wrote in
J.B. Bill, I think, is prosperous. Chislehurst and Gustave Dor6 have made him fat. His daughter
Alice ran away and married a mau with long hair named Smith. She reviews the mags in
Lloyds.l0 and says "Sala's articles on Cooks and Cookeries is as usual diverting and digressive".
And I uscd to know her in tails and trousers.tl D---n my shoes.
I come across the Rev H. Holland'sl2 na-e (Servants article man) now and again. He is
a dissenting Boanergesl3 doo,n in the North.
Wtiat has beiome of Margucrite Power?l4 Manied? Dead? She used to be very pretty
too. You must havc bcen in Germany when the Blessington and the nvo Miss Powers and
D'Orsay (getting grey and seedy) used to go to the FrenCtr ptays. I can see the door of D'Orsay's
box now (? lvlitchell's tick) and next to it a box inscribed "[indecipherable] le Prince l.ouis
Napoleon".l5 That was in$Z,_Man in the Moon Days.16
[4rs Horace MayhewlT is in E reIt gglky $4g M$ S. was there yesterday. M or next
door to it.
L67

auld lang syne, anc sI
My friend Miss Genevieve Ward was a great success at the Adelphi last Saturday, (seq
Times of Monday).19 Were you there? My womankind were. Say somlthing about C.W. of
t'other side.
'
Iawley2o sent me a new message from Sam Ward.2l
I get on gaily with the "Home Nlws".22
Irg better; but H.J. Iohnstone23 says no exercise for another fortnight. This makes the
[?fourth] week
Send me back Austin's "Address": it is a curiosity. You can keep old Taglioni'sl8 letteJ
(I: Comtesse Gilbert des Voisins). The Russian Prince she lived with for so many years on thc''
I-ake of Como concluded to marry her daughter and T. bust up. I gave her a leader in the D.T. fot "i't'
auld lang syne, and she often writes to me.'
GA.S.
t. David Thomas Ansted (1814-1880), professor of geology; consulting geologist and mining
engineer; for a number of years he wrote simplistic articles on scientific topics for early TB, fot
instance in January 1861: 1. 258-267, he contributed "What Our Coals Cost Us," and in March:
533-543, "Giants and Dwarfs in the Animal Kingdom." The answers GAS gives in each
paragraph of this letter seem likely to be in reply to Yates's enquiries about the whereabouts of
possible contributors totheWorld, which was to begin in July, only three months away.
2. Cosmo Monkhouse (1840-1901), poet, critic and art historian; writing was a sideline for him
as he worked at the Board of Trade (Scott 2:V49).
3. Charles Thomas Browne (1832-1889), barrister and journalist; wrcte a paper (presumably
one alluded to herd, "Criminal Ilrnatics," 7B December 1860: 135-143.
4. Horace St John (1832-1888), journalist; wrote for DI (Tinsley 2: 104), and in periodicals,
mainly on exploration and politics in the Orient (Wellesley 5: 685).
5. Sir Charles Hood (1805-1889), chemist, chairman of British home for incurables, 1861-1866
(Boase).
6. Wiltshire Austin*, contributor to TB, for instance April 1861: 131-L40, "Some Curious
Cises," October L86I:421-430 "Captain Blazon's heserves." See lettcr 63 par 7 for a reminder
of how he heated his wife.
7. Stigant (63fl). John Bright MP (77n8) was a "working class hero," being the son of a cottonspinner
and educated by Quaken. GAS hints at his unsophisticated tastes in literature.
8. William Blanchard Jerroldr; from 1855 he spent one half of the year in London the other in
Paris, this explains his interest in things French including the papen he wrote fot John Bull,
(refened to by GAS as J.B. here). He became closely associated with artist Gustave Dord (1833-
1883) and collaborated on several books with him, including a biography (published 1891). He
also wrote The Life of Napoleon I[ completed between 1874 and L882, under the auspices of his
widow Eug6nie. (Chislehurst was Louis Napoleon's English residence-in-exile until his death).
He had been a TB contributor, "Pens and Ink in the Reign of Terror" (63n1) dealt with a French
theme. GAS not likely to be too sympathetic with Jenold now since he had become very Tory
oriented, as opposed to his early Bohemian ideals.
9. Hachettes, i.e., the French publishing house of Inuis Hachette (1800-1864), established L826
in Paris to produce superior educational books (Chambers).
168
10. Lloyd's WeeHy Newspaper,l842-L918; both her father and grandfather had been its editors.
Like GAS Bill Jenold was interested in food, with some reputation as a gourmet having
published The Epicure's Year Book (1867) and t*tife and Fork (L871), and later The Dinner Bell
(1878) andThe Cupboard Papers (1881).
11. I.e., when her hair was done in "pigtails" and she wore pantaloons that came down below her
dress, as was the fashion for girls in those days.
12. Rev. H. Holland, could be Henry Scott Holland (1847-18L9) but, more likely, Henry
Wilkinson Holland contributff toCorrtiU in 1860. Both ministers of religion, both inWellesley.
Servant's article could be "The Management of Seryants" in TB March 1861 3: 545-557, no
author attributed in Wellesley.
13. The Boanerges were a Victorian religious sect, who spent much of their time railing against
the evils of Roman C:tholicism and the godlessness of Napoleon, and foretold of the "Great
Tribulation" that would soon befall humanity because of such wickedness. The name was given
by Jesus to the disciples James and John and translates from Hebrew as "sons of thunder"
(Douglas 202). GAS deals with one of them in "I-ady Chesterfield's Letters to her Daughter":
"We have a mad gentleman here, Mr Boanerges, who preaches week after week at Jowler Street
Chapel, against the Great Beast, and the Dragon, and the Iniquity and similar embodied
improprieties (WG 1860: 112).
14. Marguerite Power, a nicce of the Countess of Blessington, had been one of the original staff
members of. TB in 1861(Ife 355). She acquired her joumalistic expertize as editor of the
Keepsake,1851-1857, an annual magazine previously edited by Lady Blessington, 1.841. to her
death. Yates's youthful recollections include "the two Misses Power. . . remarkably pretty girls,"
"Iady Blessington, a fair, fat, middle-aged woman," and "C-ount D'Orsay, with clear-cut
features and raven hair, the king of the dandies, the cynosure of all eyes, the greatest 'swell' of the
day" (96).
Lady Blessington (1789-1849) was an lrish novelist and notorious social celebrity who
married the Earl of Blessington in 1818 after the death of her first husband. She established
herself as a leader of literary and political salons both in England and on the Continent. The
Blessingtons befriended the handsome Count Alfred d'Orsay in 1822, and in 1827 a marriage
was arranged between him and the Earl's daughter by a former wife. After the Earl died in 1829
D'Orsay, who was named his heir, separated from his fifteen year old wife and went to live next
door to I-ady Blessington in her Kensington mansion, Gore House. This was the beginning of an
intimate relationship that defied convention for twenty years.
15. Napoleon had escaped French custody and was living in exile in England in 1847.
D'Orsay was his intimate friend and supporter.
16. Man in the Moon (1847-1849), for a short time one of Punch's more successful rivals. It
was a popular 6d monthly, financed by Ingram and Cooke (proprietors of.ILN), edited by Angus
Reach and Albert Smith. At L9 GAS was a contributor of caricatures (Ltk 161). He claims his
association with Albert Smith fostered his taste for the world of literary bohemianism into which
he entered with great gusto (Straus 51-55).
17. Horace (Ponny) Mayhew (1818-1872), elder brother of Angusr and Henry*: for many years
a sub-editor of Punch. According to Vizetelly he had been guite a lad with a propensity for late
hours and chasing after pretty women Q: a\. More evidence for this comes from Henry Silver's
diary (8 January 1,862) when it reports that "Ponny Mayhew and Geo Augustus had a row. P.
169

kissed GAS's maidservant - 'She didn't object'." Perhaps his wife's "very quirky state" was
legacy of this. See 1.1.1.n3.
18. Maria Taglioni (1804-1884), famous ballet dancer, thought to have introduced "sur
pointes" into ballet. She made her debut in Vienna in L822 and became "the most promi
danseuse of the lfth century,u before making an early retirement in the late 1840s (DIVB). Shi
married the C-ount Gilbert des Voisins in 1.834, but they separated soon afterwards.
she bore him a son (Gilbert) and a daughter, Marie (who manied a French army officer, Fri
Troubetzkoy). The count died in L863 but Taglioni lived on to be eighty. Old age brought
times and she was reduced to teaching dancing and deportment in London, although in her
heyday she had maintained houses at both Venice and lake C-omo and been feted by European
society. See her "Celebrities at Home" profile inthel/orld 8 October L879: 5.
19. Review in Times of Monday 30 March(4. 2) is dated 30 March, this letter is the Tuesday
after and therefore should be dated 31 March. Play was The Prayer in the Storm; or, the Thirst
for Gold, with Genevieve Ward playing the dual role of Blanche de Valois and Unavita. It was a
great succ€ss and continued for 162 performan@s.
20. hobably Francis Lawleyr, who had lived for 9 years in America, acting as special
correspondent for the Times with the confederate army during the civil war. He must have also
become acquainted with the colourful and gregarious Sam Ward, who had accompanied his
famous colleague, Times war oorespondent W.H. Russell, on a tour through the Confederacy
(DNB).
2L. Samuel Ward (1814-1884), American political lobbyist, financier, author; veteran of the
early frontier and goldrush days in C-alifornia. GAS met him while in US (1863-4), to record hig
impressions of the Civil War for the DT Life 406) He refers to him as "Uncle Sam," one of the
"closest of my American friends." Yates also refers to him as 'Uncle Sam' in WTWS 12
November 1879:9. Sounds as though he could have been the original Uncle Sam. Ward, who
was almost as well known in Inndon as he was in New York(DAB), was dubbed in a DT article
(probably by GAS) the upper class Englishman's ideal of "the typical American" (2 February
L874:5.L-2).
22. See84n3.
23. His doctor (etter 108).
lrl0l
5.30 p.m.1
68
but you ought to know I shall be delighted for you and Mrs Yates to come to the chop2
whenever you like. I have mutton (roast, boiled, stewed, grilled, or baked,) most days. I am sure
to be indoors for the next fortnight at least: after that (if I am well) I shall trot down to Brighton.
Give gg g dalr's notice when you are coming that Mn Sala may have a table-cloth pipeclayed
and I'll write back the hour. Mind; afterthe L$b I shall be (I hope) on the wing.
always yours
G.A.Sala.
I used to dislike Bellew intensely; but he won my real liking years ago. I am very sorry for him.
I have a wonderful story to tell you about -----------J
L. 68 presumably denotes it is from 68 Thistle Grove; placed here because it is part of "bad leg"
sequen@ and before Bellew's death, see 112. No greeting to this letter.
t70
2. I.e., to dine with us.
3. Bellew* was ill after nvo reading trips to America in rapid succession had overtaxed his
hcalth (DNB). "I bave a wonderful story to tett you about ----" probably alludes-to Bellew's
usual pieambl" b"fot" embarking on one of his many "stories." Yates describes him as being
prone to anecdotes, many of them delivered without consideration for their propriety, which
-"Never
lamaged his reputation: did a man so persistently and yet so unintentionally do the
t".ofthiog in the wrong place . . . he would have reserved his strongest and most piquant story
for his bishop's ear" (267).
lllu Wednesday [2? Apil 182+11
68 Thistle Grove
My dearEdmund,
Name a day next week (if you are in town) when Mn Yates and yourself will condescend
to eat kabobs here, withotrt ccremony ot2
fm going to-night whithcr you went some yeals ago, they tell me - to take the chair at
the Shakespcarc Annual of the Urban Club. A rummy lot, I guess?
Poor l\[rs Ponny Mayhew off her chump at last. Keepen. Dr Tuke. Alcoholic amentia.3
lv{rs Brooks4 back, - I hear from her. Am going to see her this afternoon.
Did I tell you my Cousin had le{ me I20; 20 books; a silver inkstand and a
"fanlg&uly'? What the trell is a Canterbury?S My niece Alice gets 1700
always
GA.S.
What is this in the P.M.G.6 about a benefit for Shirley's family.
The "Punch" lot seems to have done pretty well by the public.
t. Douglas Jerrold: - "memorial performances" - pension
2. Gil a'Bcckett f,1000 a y€ar police magistrate
3. Mark lrmon - hat scnt round - pension
4. Tom Taylor g1m0 a year, superannuation
5. Charley Bennctt: hat sent round, memorial performance
6. J.I-eech: forced sale at fancy prices of duffing sketches - pension
The Royal Family of Whitefriars, by Gum!
2. hesumably this should read "without ceremoDy or white tie." Instead of text he finishes the
sentence with an illustration 6f himself in formal dress with an exaggerated bow tie.
3. tvlrs Mayhew has succumbed to the demon drink (109n15). It sounds as though she has gone
off to Hanwell Asylum (Sana) under the care of John Conolly, a disciple of Quakers Samuel and
William Tuke (1i33-L822), who contemporaneously with Philippe Pinel in France pioneered
new methods of care and treatment of the insane (Chambers).
4. lvl$ Shirley Brooksf .
t7L

5. A C-anterburl = stand with light partitions to hold music etc L849 (OED).
6. On 2I Aprjl a small piu app@red in the Pall Mall Gazette about arrangements for a
performance for the nwife and children of the late Mr. Shirley Brooks." GAS himself was
responsible for obtaining a pension for Mrs Brooks. In his memoirs he complains "how di
it was for a modern Englishman of letten, even with an income amounting to €2,000 a ye:r
own] to save anything substantial for those whom he left behind' because of the
involved in his profession including entertainment, administrative costs, travel, philanthropy
taxation (Life 620-2I). Cross confirms that this was a problem shared by most professioni
writers of the period, for unless they were continually employed as editors or sub-editors the'
had no regular salary, but had to live on their contributions alone, and ill health was not takenl
into account (115). In June the previous year GAS himself had been forced (because of his
illness) to apply to the Royal Literary Fund*.
7. Punch's office in Bouverie Street was situated within the precinct of Whitefriars, which
incorporated the site of the former House of Carmelite or White Friars, founded by Sir Richard
Gray in 1241 (Harken 624-25). Like Shirley Brooks, the following were members of Punch's
staff:
Douglas Jerrold+, died 1857; 12,000 was raised for his family from performances
organized by Charles Dickens (DNB).
Gilbert d'Beckett (1811-1856), journalist and humorist; after a long and noteworthy
career in journalism and theatre (including contributor to Punch and leader writer for the Times)
he was appointed in 1849 metropolitan stipendiary police magistrate, for senices rendered as a
poor-law commissione r (DNB).
Mark Irmont died in 1870; a testimonial was subscribed for his widow and children
(DNB).
Tom Taylor (1817-1880), prolific playwright, journalist, long time contributor and editor
(from 1874) of. Punch. He was a graduate of Trinity C-ollege C.ambridge and early in his career
taught English Literature at the Univenity of London (1845). He also practised law and in 1850
was appointed an assistant secretary to the Board of Public Health, from which he retired in 1871
with a pension of f650 (DNB).
Charles Bennettr, died in 1867; the "Punch staff got up a first-rate benefit for his wife
and children, playing at the Adelphi, where Cox and 8o4 libretto'd by myself from Maddison
Morton's farce, and set to music by Arthur Sullivan, was done in public for the first time, and at
Knowles's T.R. [Theatre Royal]. Manchester, for the Bennett Benefit Fund' (Bumand 2: ?33).
John kech (1"817-1864), illustrator and artist; by 1841 England's favourite cartoonist
through his comic genius in Punch, which he is said to have supplied that magazine with some
3,000 drawings, of which at least 6(X) were cartoons, while at the same time providing etchings
and woodcuts for many other publications. In L862 he held a very successful exhibition of his
"sketches in oil" at the Egyptian Hallt; a selection of his Punch drawings, which had been
enlarged, transferred to canvas and lightly coloured with oils. Their sale brought him nearly
f5,000 (DNB).
I72
ltL2l
Friday [early
June Lffi+1I
Brompton
My dear Edmund,
IhUSdey next at SgyjD" here. No dress; and for God's sake ask Mn Yates [qg to wear her
diamonds: (I mean the [?curlicu] with the emerald hermit-crab in the centre eating a ruby
nhrimp)2. You know whai ladies are; and lvlrs Sala's gamet brooch is at Dobree's3 late Vaughan.
Poor dear old Bellew! Do anything with my name you like. I have'nt got any money
now; but I'll Igad C-olonel Quagg or "Our Nice Servant" or both or anything, at any room or
theatre the C-ommittee (on which put me) can collar.4
The Urban was a great success, and the lot turned out to be the old crew - Dr B.
Richardson, A.B. Richards, George Cruikshank, Heraud, Hardwicke, Marston, Jonas lrvy and so
forth.5
always
G.A.S.
l. Bellew died 19 June. This probably during lead-up to his death (1,10n3), as Urban Club
meeting (23 April) of previous letter is mentioned.
2. Compare his description of Mrs Prometheus's diamonds in "The Patent Woman": "that
wonderful necklace . . . an eagle (some might say a vulture) in brilliants of the purest water,
pecking at a heart (some say it was a liver) made of a single ruby" (Belgravia 27 [December
18751: 184)
3. Dobree's = London pawnbroker; mentioned by Thackeray in Pendennis.' when Lady kvant's
diamonds were put in pawn "they were taken [in two cabs] to Dobree's' (353). Another dig at
Yates's sucoess, and his own inability to handle his monetary affairs.
4. Sounds as though a benefit is being organized for Bellew. "The Conversion of Colonel
Quagg" was one of GAS's early stories in HW Q49 [30 December 1854]:459-65). Together with
"The Key of the Street" it secured his early reputation as a writer with potential, and was greatly
admired by Swinburne, who referred to its hero as "the immortal Quagg," including a reference
to him in one of his clever parodies of Tennyson published in the Nineteenth Cenrury November
1881 (Iang 4:243n). "Our Nice Servant" appeared in Belgravia (10 IL869/701:2L3-25).
5. Shakespearian Dinner mentioned in last letter. Scott records that Dr B. Richardson (1828-
1896), J.A. Heraud (1799-1887) and Henry Manton (1819-1890) were "Shakespeare"
presidents. Marston and Jonas lrvy" (together with Hain Friswell and Stirling Coyne) were
Urban Club founding members. All had an interest in literature and theatre of some sort. "They
were ardent Shakespearian scholars to a man, loved the playhouse with enthusiasm" (Scott 1,:
308). Benjamin Richardson, a surgeon, wrote prolifically on medical subjects and started the
Social Science Review, 1862 (Boase). John Heraud (1799-1887), poet and dramatist and
journalist, edited a number of magazines, including Fraser's (1830-33); he was drama critic for
theAthenaeum for some time before his retirement in 1868 (DI{B) Henry Marston (1804-1883)
was the stage name of Richard Henry March, who specialized in Shakespearian roles and had
taken a leading part in Samuel Phelp's Shakespearian revivals at Sadlels Wells I844-6L (Boase).
173

c;olonel Alfred Bates Richards was editor of the Morning Advertiser and a playwright (Scott'
472). George c"'LJr'oJ?si-t'yaS, *u: .u1,,1'ti:l-11 ry0.I"1]Ht:::::1"t1i,"*:T :
theatre held a speciat inspiraiion, for insfance his illustrations of the old Princess's Theatre in
Memoirs of Joseph(1fu8);h" 1iie story of the famous pantomime clown (1779-1837), edited
Charles Dickens pou*"1.'S"" GAS's biogaphicat artiiie on Cruikshank DT2pebruary L878'
1113I
Torrens?2 Ach! Gott!
The prospectus of the new paper3 is one of the pluckiest things I have seen for a long
time. I can fancy myself writing in it an article on Polb - and on the Df' article upon Polo
playing. If it comes'to *Viftini I shall be glad to write all kinds of things in it: on the sole
condition that you keep my doing so a profiund secret, and that I am allowed (discreetly) to
disclaim all participatiin in it. tianybody says that a particular paper is like G-A'S' you can
laugh, and say that G.A.S. .even has imiiatqs; and looking at the quantity of cols now of
commissiorr", Gr""nJo;? r;; oia-ota'rS which I am supposed,to-write, and the hundreds
of articles which nobody (not even yourself) knows that I do- write, I shall be able to keep my
own counsel well aid me in
"";rfi,';iyou (""ping it. Theodore Hook's6 style was pretty well
known; yet for v"uonof,oav Luta *y with certliniy whetherhe wrote in the "John Bull" or not'
But I dwelt on this, for the reason that the paper ougttt to lick up a shine il-u.""ty remarkable
rn*"r; and I should not wish the l-evys to
I had anything to do with it'
$:;'J*
G.A.S.
Monday moming [8 June l874lL
68 Thistle
DearEdmund,
An article on "sculpture" in the D'T. completely took the starch out of me on Saturday'
-uio
else we were to have met at the Jenolas. you gof Did you meet Mr [&] Mn McCultaeH
How about the Brighton gaff?
t. IA""O"V "ter article on Sculpture (Ibelfth Not'rc, on the Royal Academy Exhibitions)
appeared in the DI6 June 1874: 8'
Z. Mr.William McCullagh Torrens (1813-1894), politician and historian, had been secretary to
H""ry I-abouchere in igi6; tr,tn tr,tcCullagh Tonens was Margaret Henrietta, his firsr wife' He
manied again (presum"uti "t"t her deat-h) in 1878' The J-enolds' gathering Ti4t have had
something to do with ,ft" frta Mbyor's Liierary "Feed" coming up in letter 117, since Torrens
was a cloie po[tical associate of Mayor Ilsk (DNB)'
3. The prospectus to the World; mainly the work of co-founder Grenville Munay't It was
,,generally voted very clever and extremety impudent" (Yates 434). Yates had it printed and
circulated among th'ose whom he thoughi woutd be interested. It was also inserted as an
advertizement in the sR and the spectator, and published in the first issue of the world 8 July
1874. Its text can also be found in Yates's memoirs ppa38-a'
4. James Greenwood (c.1832-1929), who was on the DT staff at the time (Robertson scott 170);
brother to Frederick.*' It is acceptel that it was James Greenwood's 3-part paper "A Night in a
casual ward, by an Amateur c.asual" that rescued the Patt Mall's flagging circulation 1'3, 15, l'6
January 1866, its "realism" causing a sensation at the time (169)' '[t was a piece of journalism in
GAS's "Key of the Street" style; the sort of slumming journalism that Dickens and Thackeray had
found so appealing in his early work, so it is not .itptiting that their styles could be confused'
t74
Jamcs's speciality on the DI seems to have been articles along the lines of what modem
ncwspapes would call "Policc Rounds," which often carried a "Commissioner" byline, probably
why GAS refers to him by that name. This is backed up by Robefison Scott's mention of him at
thc end of his carcer as "flickering out in police court newsPapers" (171).
5. Edwin Arnold (1832-1904), scholar, poct, orientalist and (more importantly here) journalist
and leader writer for the Df, with which he had been associated since 1861, bccoming head of
staff (under Rlward Levy-Lawson, who always retained the role of editor) from 1873 to 1879.
Amold had been principat of Deccan College, Poona, 1856-61, and had travelled extensively not
only in India but all over the east, including Japan.His wdting style canied a distinctly eastern
influencc, nan Oriental exubcranco of epithets," as GAS puts it (Life 375). This "exuberance"
accounts for the similarity GAS accords their styles. Dits conjectures that Amold was as
rcsponsiblc as GAS for the "roaring tones" with which the Telegraph began to answer the
thunder of the Times in the 1.860's. Togetherwith Godfrey Tumert and I they were accorded the
title of "young lions of the Da ily Telegraph" by Matthew Arnold (see intro).
6. Theodore Hook (1788-1841), novelist, dramatist, famous wit and infamous debtor; prolific
journalist; n L824 he edited thc Tory fohn Bull (LU0-1892) from the "rules" of the King's
Bench prison (Cross 44). Captain Shandon h Pendennis is modelled after him.
1114I
Tuesday [182+11
Brompton
Dear E,
In &t Criticism for the Session of '74 I'm nUnngd out. No morc adjectives left. I'll bide
a wee, and scc how tlc World prcpocos to roll. Its Mercatot's projection (maybe) will not square
with my cosmogony.z
always
G.A,.S.
Inok sharply after Winchelsea'53. prooft. He's a game old man and very clever (though
inaccurate) but gg tr E Ubsllass.a
./' "",
1:r
,',..,,,,...-',
I had a bctter titlc than the "World"; but it was for an exclusively literary and artistic (not
social and political) Review. We'll do it, some of these odd-come-shortlies.)
[Part of letter cut away here.J6
'Guerrag[ Cuchillo"
It would'nt be a bad sub-title by the way for the litcrary departmcnt of the "'World". How it
would tenify the authors!
1. Short time bcfore the World starts on 8 July 1874, as idea of using "Guerra al Cuchillo" for
World's literature review was used in first issue (n5).
2. Uscd to present world map of 1568, and named after its designer Gerhardus Mercator (1,5L2-
94), Flemish mathematician and cartographer. The globe was projected on to a cylinder and the
meridians of longitude were at right angles to the parallells of latitude.
L75

3. George Winchelsea, Viscount Maidstone (1815-1887), contributed to I-ady
Keepsalrc and the Gentleman's Magazine; under the pseudonym John Davis he wrote on
subjects for the Morning Herald and political lampoons in other magazines @oase). During
first three months of the World he contributed "some excellent articles on racing and the
generally" (Yates 435). GAS's waming is prescient here, since in 1884 Yates, as editor of
World, went to jail as the result ot a libellous article by a member of his staff (136n12).
4. Underlined many times for emphasis.
5. I.e., one of these days
6. It was probably the original of the sketch of the paper knife that Yates used, in conjunction
with the heading nGuerra al Cuchillo,n war to thc knife, for thc logo of the World's literaturc
rcview column, as GAS suggests herc.
t1lsl
, (i i;1.:trti.r Al, r :l;('llI l,l.o.
Monday nightl
68 Thistle Grove, Brompton
Unfortunately, my dear Edmund, I CAnne! or t wpglSl. Non omnia gASSlmU$ omnes.
(htin Delectus.)z
Who if this wonderful unknown correspondent of mine, inside,3 who, for years has been
scnding me flowers, cream cheese, new-laid cggs, and - when I was ill - hop-pillows and
knitted counterpanes? Do you recollect anyonc by the name of Rose King that Albert4 used to
know?
Mem: Bob Brough once began a translation of Molitrc: - that is to say he drew f60 from
Ingnm & Cooke on a/c, and thcn the_ translation stopped short. But he would have done it
Ueautinrny. I mean to do a monognphs of him i la Hogarth, some day.
always
GA.S.
[Inside the followingl
Please accept a country posie in remembrance of Albert Smith. May 23rd24th --
'His kindly memory will be affectionately
cherished so long as the hearts of the
friends who loved him bcat" -
Thanks forffi and much, very much more,
fto:n your humble servant
Rose King.
I-eominster
To G.A. Sala Esq.
t76
IGAS notes:l
il must have written this in the lllustrated News, t guess.)6
l. Exact dating difficult. Positioned here because it must come before next letter, which
mentions "my mysterious friend from Irominster," and was clearly written near the publication
of the first edition of.theWorld. Again, no greeting.
2. "We can't all do everything. Choice Latin." Possibly also relates to next letter where he
cxplains that the reason that he has not contributed to the World is fear that the DI proprietors
would not approve.
3. [.e., on the reverse of this page.
4. Albert Smithr, died 23 May 1860 @8n2).
5. Nearest he ever go to a monograph of Brough was his editing of Brougb's own memoir
Marston Lynch (ha). A la Hogarth must mean that he planned to repeat the informal, gossiping
style that Thackeray had suggested for his Hogarth papers (see letter 35 par 2).
6. This was the closing sentence of his first "Literature and Art" column in the lllustrated
London News, the last part of which he devoted to a memorial of Smith (2 June Supplement 1860
1:534).
tllq
Monday night [187a]1
Brompton
Dear Edmund,
My mysterious friend at I-eominst"& cut scarcely be the "Idgit", unless Albert's father is
alive; since she frequently writes to me about her old father, and thanks me, on his part for the
leaders I write in the D.T. on sporting matters, apparently labouring under the pleasant delusion
that Frank Lawley's3 articles about Flying Childen and the Godolphin Arabian(he never comes
nearer the actual condition of the tu{ and his papers, from a Tattersalls point of view, are
naught) are mine. She is a rum'un, any how; and I suppose there must be some good people in
the world. Was there not some legend of a poor body who kept a lollipop shop at Knightsbridge,
and who was rescued by Albert from the brokers by a slight loan? Albert like he once asked me
for 3/6 balance of 4,6 he had advanced fior some pudding to his Mont Blanc4 (but perhaps the
demand was a joke) it is said that he took out his loan in ginger beer and almond rock at the poor
body's shop, and so ultimately "bust" and died. I do not look, myself, very handsome in a
hansom; but I shall never forget the awful appqrance he presented in a cab one day just before
the Derby when I passed him - I coming from the D.T. to Alexander Square; he going from
North End to the Egyptian Hall. It was Pallida ![q$ with a beard.)
I want very much to have fifteen minutes conversation with you in deadly pgiy3ry about a
certain manuscript which (see prospectus of the "World") might be "buried at midnight in a
thunderstorm".o Where is the Rendez-vous to be? The Proprietors of the "Omnibus
Knifeboard"T might object if I made the appointment at the D.T. office. At any Club Jawkins8
would [be] sure to be behind a pillar, listening. Here would not do, for this particular purpose, as
Mrs S. is a lrvyite ofJhe l-evyitesv - (quid levius pluma? ventus, quid levius ventus? Mulier.
Quid muliere? Nihil.)ru and would [?blurt]. I wanted to write for the "World" which is not at all
the object I have in view. Your place is too far off; and, besides, I hear that you have got a butler,
and I am afraid of butlers. And a bench in St James's Park or the top of the Monument would be
too romantic. What do you say to Epltaufll under the opera Colonnade on XednEsde$ either at
t77

twelye o'clock, noon, or at Six o'clock pg? at either of these hours I shall be disengaged. Write
b@
Yours always
G.A.S.
Or; if you can suggest any more convenient locality for Wednesday I can come; but the hours I
have named, are the only ones at which I am at liberty.
1. hobably just after World starts. "lwanted to write for the 'World" Qw 2) seems to point to
fact that it had gone to press, or was already on sale. Sequence difficult with letters around this
period. But all linked through references to the early days of the World.
2. "Rose King," Albert Smith's admirer: see previous letter.
3. Francis I-awley (1825-1901), journalist; mentioned by GAS in his memoirs as one of the
"young lions" of the DT, 'fast growing to be middle-aged lions," and later, with Edwin Arnold
and himself, "rather ancient ones" (379). He and GAS were together as DZ conespondents in
Paris during Franco-Prussian war (553). As I-awley was interested in racing (a03) and wrote
sporting articles, supposition is that Flying Childers and the Godolphin Arabian are horses; rest
of the sentence backs this up. "Tattersalls" refers to the great racing centre, which evolved from
the auction rooms for thoroughbred horses set up on Hyde Park comer by Richard Tattersall
(L724-L795). They moved to Ituightsbridge in 1.864. In describing Lawley's style as being
"naught" from a "Tattersalls point of view" GAS seems to point to the fact that, like himself,
I:wley tended to produce colour pieces rather than the strictly factual reports on racing
conditions that no doubt Tattersalls prefened.
4. GAS had contributed to Albert Smith's Mont Blancf "entertainment." Hence "pudding to his
Mont Blanc."
5. This must have been just before Smith's death. He died on 23 May L874, Derby day. No
wonder he looked like "pale death" with a beard!
6. Quotation from part of the World prospectus:
The World has pleasant tidings for the Court and the Aristocracy. [t
will receive contributions from people of rank who know anything
worth communicating, and who can write a legible hand. The
spelling and grammar of nobility will be conected, and manuscripts,
when done with, will be discreetly buried at midnight during a
thunder-storm. in order that the capital sin of possessing intellect
may never be brought home to anybody (Yates 434).
7. Phrase coined by Yates in the World @umham 6); refers to the Daily Telegraph, denoting its
popular appeal. The "knifeboard" was the bench on the top of London buses, usually occupied
by the ordinary Londoner, the "man or woman in the street". This epithet was considered
perjorative by Matthew Arnold's upmarket cultural lobby group, who regarded the Telegraph as
a "rag" and "sniffed at it . . . as the landlady's paper" (Robertson Scott 171,).
8. Probably a metonym for someone who would "jaw," i.e., the club gossip. Thackeray
describes Arthur Pendennis "flying from Jawkins" after he had tried to engage him in
conve$ation at the Club (Pendennis 478). A similar character, James Jorkins, appears in the
World in conjuction with its political column, "Und€r the Clock" (written by Henry Lucy). A
"Notice" in the 28 July 1,875 issue states that "Mr. James Jorkins (Winder, by Appointment, to
L78
the Clock of the House of C-ommons) begs to announce to his numerous friends that during the
Recess he will - h'm, occasionally - have something to say on Current Topics . . . ."
9. Tinsley gives evidence to show that Mn Sala had good cause to be a faithful "Irvyite," since
the Levys (father and son) both held her in high regard, and always made sure that she had
cnough money to tide her over when GAS was on one of his drinking sprees (1: 155).
10. What is lighter than a feather? Wind. What is lighter than wind? Woman. What than
woman? Nothing.
11. Epitaux is perhaps the name of a restaurant suggested as a place of rendez-vous. The opera
colonnade (Bow St., Covent Garden) was just near the World's editorial office at L York Stieet.
A number of eating places sheltered beneath the Covent Garden Colonnade. Evans's Supper
Rooms (19n10) were just across the way.
ltLTl
Sunday night [12 July 1874]1
68 Thistle Grove, Brompton
DearEdmund,
You have by this got your pasteboard, no doubt, for the Lord Mayor's Literary Feed. But
if you have ggf let me know, iq order that the omission (which is scarcely likely to have
occurred) may be rectified at once.2
The first no of the "World" strikes me as being full of promise of lb right thing. The
gastronomic department,3 I confess, !e[ mi piage.4 -The "chbufleur au gl"tin' i. all ivrong.
None but barbarians brown gratins by putting them in the oven. Has Filet de Sole never heard of
a Salamander? - an excellent substitute for which is the kitchen shovel made red hot. And "ray
fish" "au beurre noir" might be an excerpt from Mn Glasse. "Ray" is a piscine pg, including
the thornbul and the torpedo: fish, I apprehend rarely to be met with at Charles's5. That which is
called in the French cuisine, "raie au beurre noir" is simply Skalg. But I may be hypecritical [sic]
in this matter being busily engaged in a book on cutittuffitiquities.6- Here'is one of the
illustrations which I am etching, myself, by a new ptoc"ss.7 It is ihe centrepiece of the Roman
"gustatorium"8- the wine skin-of the Silenusgcontaining "garum" - the antique anchovy saucel
and very stinking stuffit must have been.
If you want copy from me (g!& rosd)lofor the World the following topicsll have
occurred to me.
1. Art Criticism and Art Critics. (I'll pitch judiciously into myself as one of the most
offensive types of the A.C. so as to throw blockheads offthe scent.)
2. Charity Dinners.
3. Actor Managers and Amateur Managers.
4. Ecclesiatical Millinery.
5. Picture Dealing.
6. The Club Mania.
7. Conservative Cads. (Complimenting Tories of the right sort: pitching into the miserable
little scrubs, (usually sons of rich tradesmen) who thing [sic] it "the thing" to be Tories.)
Answerwhich you will have
alwaYs
G.A.s.
1.. Frobably the Sunday after fint issue of world on wednesday g July 1g74.
L79

2. The lord Mayor's Literary Dinner for representatives of Literature, Art and Music
English and French) on Tuesday 2L July 1874. Yates did go, his name appea$ on the 300
guest list intheTimes (22 Jrly L874:9.5.). GAS is recorded as replying, on behalf of the press
the I-ord Mayor's toast to "English and French Joumalism."
3. This was the first in a series entitled "This Week's Dinners" (World 8 July 1.874: L0),
set out a seven-day menu intended "to diet the British nation into grace of body and vivacity
mind." It was signed "Filet de Sole."
4. Doesn't please me. i
5. Yates recalls how as a young man he enjoyed the pleasures of "Simpson's in the Strand,
presided over by "Charles - formerly of the Albion" (102). GAS could be using the name a$,
iepresentative of someone expert in food, or could be referring to an actual restaurant. I
6. C.an't identify. His cook book, The Throrough Good Cook,wasn't published until 1895.
7. Not included with MS.
8. Gustatorium = a dish or tray on which hors d'oeuvres are served.
9. Silenus was a drinking companion of Bacchus, depicted in myth as a bearded old man, like a
satyr, sometimes with the tail and legs of a horse.
1,0. In confidence.
11. Titles in the World like "The Mystery of Picture Dealing," and "West End Touts" sound as
though Yates took up some of these suggestions. However, again, anonymity makes definite
claim of GAS's authorship difficult.
tl18I
Thursday (L3 August LSTIL
Brompton
My dear Edmund,
It has not been through lack of will, but through absolute lack of limE that I have not sent
you any copy. The days pass, and do not resemble each other; but in my treadmill grind there is
no variation. We are short handed at the D.T. and in addition to six leaders and as many subs as I
can do hebdomadally they worry my guts out for headed articles as padding. I-ast Sunday, when
I was bent on writing an article for you it took me t hours to write (after consultirig about 50
books) an article on the infemal Reredos2 controve$y and now (it is four o'clock on Friday
morning, and I am half blind with writing) I am grinding at an article on the Curiosities of the
Police.r Better be a Dog, or a Dwarf, or a Greenwood.a The pace pays, but it kills - and kills
ingloriously. There is a difference between dying on the tented plain, and being choked with
bourgeois and long [indecipherable] in a blind alley. However, I will see what I can do for you
on Saturday. You remember what poor Angus Reachl used to say: that the holiday of a daily
newspaperman was to write leaders for the "Observer".6 The "World" seems to me very good. I
hopelt is "going". The kicester Square book t ca'nt review; as Bickers,T the publisher thereof is
a "ticlar frez" of mine, and deluges me with presentation copies; but I have stuck the list of
papers I promised you on the looking glass, andl'll do them, co-0te qgg cq0te.8
I guess I shall meet you tonight, at the farewell dinner to Stanley.g
^*utto.o.r.
180
An idea has struck me that you might have a weekly Paris letter, full of gossip (which could
casily be culled from the "Vie Parisienne," the "Gaulois," and the "Figaro" without going to
Paris) with the title: -
"The Ghost of the late Felix Whitewash, Esq'.10
Well done, it would be very rich. Motto: "Ngge!0g!4Eedgl'll
l. Thursday after article headed "The Reredos Controversy" appeared in DT on Monday L0
August 1874:5.5.
2. GAS's article attempts to cast light on a complicated theological legal dispute about the
orthodoxy of the "reredos," the ornamental screen covering the wall at the back of the anglican
altar. Question seems to be: was this often sumptuous backdrop, a reminder of Roman Catholic
religious opulence, to be an accepted part of Anglican worship.
3. Appeared as leader inDlthe following Monday 17 August : 5. 4.
4. I.e., anything is better than this! "Better be a Dog, or a Dwarf, or a Greenwood" refers to
James Greenwood's sensational report in the DI,'What Followed at Hanley" (6 July 1874 :5.5),
of a fight between "Physic" a white bulldog and a human dwarf called Brummy, in which he
describes in lurid details the savage combat that took place in a secret room for the enjoyment of
a very dubious crew of thrill seekers. Greenwood was accused of fabrication by the Times,
leading to a House of Commons' enquiry, which concluded that the story was true, resulting in
praise for the Telegraph's ingenuity in bringing such a horror to public notice QAorld 29 July
1874: 10). Such human interest stories, an innovation of the DT to appeal to a working-class
audience, were decried by the serious minded, who considered it to be a lowering of standards in
order to pander to the masses. A subsequent investigation, instigated by the civic authorities of
Hanley and the RSPCA5 found that Greenwood's report was indeed bogus; no evidence that the
incident had ever occuned could be produced, other than vague reports of a legend that
something similar had occuned fifty yean before. Greenwood was sacked and ended up on the
Standard, while the World took the opportunity to do a little of the DT bagging that GAS
complains of in letter 1.26; heading its fint story "The Sensation Dwarf,u dwarf referring both to
the dog/dwarf incident and the "sensational" Dlitself (World 29 July 1874: 10); its second story
"Usque ad Nauseum,'which translates something like "continuously sick-making" (5 August
1874:7); and its third story 'Penny Wisdom', in which the Telegraph is deemed "remarkable only
for its blunders" (23 December L874: 4).
5. 'Pooru Angus Reach (1821-1856), joumalist and "one of the most laborious and prolific
writers I have ever met with. It was no uncommon thing for him to work sixteen hours a day"
(Life 164). Reach died at 35, reputably insane through overwork (Straus 139). His first articles
were published by the Inverness Courier, which had been ovned by his father. In1842 he joined
the Morning Chronicle as criminal court reporter, producing in 1848 a series "Iabour and the
Poor" which was highly praised. He later became the Chronicle's music and art critic, as well as
principal literary reviewer. He wrote for many other newspapers and magazines including the
Z{ where he pioneered "Town Talk and Table Talk," the gossip column taken over by Peter
Cunningham*, zlrd which in turn became GAS's 'Literature and Art' and finally "Echoes of the
Week." In 1849 Reach had joined Punch and begun a close friendship with Shirley Brooks. He
was also close to Albert Smith with whom he conducted the Man in the Moon*. After his
father's death in 1853 Reach became london conespondent for the Inverness Courier, until his
health failed in 1,855, and he was succeeded by Yates (91na) (DNB).
6. I.e., I'll use my "holiday," Saturday, to write something for the llorld.
181

7, Blckcrs and Son rccorded as publishers at 9 Leicester Square and 54 lricester Square 1863
lll70 ln Phillip Brown's London Publishers and Printers 1800-1870. Must have continued
l.clccstcr Squarc after 1870 as well.
tl. Cost what it may.
9. Hcnry Morton Stanley (1841-1904), Welsh-born (at this time US citizen) explorer,
administrator, author and joumalist. In Autumn 1,874, under a joint commission from the
Herald and the Daily Telegraph, he set out for Africa in an attempt to settle some of
geographical mysteries left unresolved by explorers such as Richard Burton, John Speke
Henry Livingstone (who had died in May 1873). Gordon Bennett of the Herald had sent him
the well publicized trip to ufindu Livingstone in November L868, that culminated in
outstanding journalistic coup when he reported his meeting with Livingstone at Ujiji on 10
November L87L.
See the DT 4 July 1874: 5. 4-5, for announcement of this transatlantic newspaper
partnership, which, according to Stanley's most recent biographer Frank Mclynn, in Stanley: The
Making of an African Explorer (1991), was a very uneasy one, since Gordon Bennett was jealous
of the fame that association with Livingstone had brought to Stanley, and only entered into the
iurangement because he didn't want to be left out when Edwin Amold called on him to match the
f6,000 backing that Edward Levy-Iawson had agreed to provide for Stanley's expedition (239).
TlrcWorld story "Mr Davids and Brother Jonathon" (27 Oclober 1875: 9-10) backs up this view,
as it amusingly relates an impending rupture in the partnership, caused by the Telegraph preempting
the Herald by early publication of Stanley's reports, thus breaking a prior arrangement
of their strictly simultaneous release. Stanley tells the story of both expeditions in How I Met
Livingstone (1874) andThe Dark Continent (1878). No record of the dinner can be found in the
pfess.
10. Play on name of Felix Whitehurst (?-1872), who, as its special correspondent in Paris,
supplied the DTwith fashionable gossip from France during the last ten years of Napoleon III's
reign. He had ready access to infomration as he was a privileged friend of the emperor and his
wife. The fact that he was unusually well off for a journalist (a baronet uncle had left him a
fortune), and he affected the style of C-ount D'Orsay, "the king of the dandies," no doubt made
him "particularly suited to describe the glitter and colour of the Second Empire" (Burnham 55).
ln a story titled 'Newspaper C-onespondents Abroad' the World (9 December 1874:L2) mentions
the "stream of brilliant letters from the French capital" that "flowed . . . from the pen of the late
Mr Felix Whitehurst" (9 December I874:I2).
11. Non omnia moriar :Horace. "[ shall not wholly die (my works will preserve me)."
trlel
Thursday 15 October 1874
68 Thistle Grove, Brompton
DearEdmund,
I! was very kind indeed af ygg to give me that lift about my column in the Illustratedl -
and indeed I have had many kind letters from friends, known or unknown, about it. But, ye
gods! the task is a difficult one. Figaro's projected joumal (I mean in the Barber)2 was nothingio
it. Censors within the office are useful; but the name of outside censors over a paper which "goes
into families" is simply lrgion. I arn in the happy position, however of not caring a "tam"3
whether I get the sack or not from my employers. One can always earn a pound a week,
182
somehow; and nvo people can live very comfodably on a pound a week - if they ca'nt get more.
"One can be good ana fuppy without socks" said the philosopher, William Barlow.4
I am sorry for your row with the -Lrvys) - the more so as it does not seem to be a
mendable one. But, ggg mea I9S agitur.6 I knew at Algiers, long ago, one of the doctors
belonging to Bedlam Dr Helps (he went mad himself I am afraid, poor fellow, afterwards and
died) who_had one unvarying :rnswer when things were said about people. "I am not his
perfumer" / he was wont to say.
I am going to Stratford-on-Avon on the 2%h it the Worshipful master will lend me an
apron, and coach me up a little in the use of that mallet and chisel whic_h I have forgotten how to
handle. I do'nt think that I could build so much as a [?sonnet] if I tried.S
always yours
G.A. Sala.
t. Par appeared in the WTWS World 14 October 1874 12, about the revival after several years
of GAS's column in the lllustrated LandonlVews under the new title of "Echoes of the Week,"
with his famous initials appended.
2. Reference to Figaro's letter that causes all the fuss in Rossini's opera The Barber of Seville
(1816).
3. One of C-aptain Smith's "tams". See 9n9.
4. GAS quotes this saying of "the enatic philosopher Billy Barlow" in his memoirs, adding "but
Barlow had never felt the want of socks" (203). Could he be William Barlow
5. Not sure exactly what this row was. the World threw plenty of mud at the DT which must
have upset the levys. It could have been all, or any, of the stories mentioned in last letter ns 4 &
9. And they continued; see t26n3. However, everything was forgiven, see letter 127.
6. It doesn't worry me.
7. 1.e., it's not up to me to make him smell nice.
8. Sounds like some sort of Masonic function at Stratford, but no details have been found.
Ir20l
Saturday L6 October 1.8741
68 Thistle Grove, Brompton
Dear Edmund,
This is briefly the state of the case as regards stories. I have just two plots available in my
stock book. One is called "Camagugh'Z aiery pretty pathetico:picturesque story of the first
French Revolution.
The other is called: "Ibg Palgtrt'Woman" - a story found among the memoranda of the
late Mr Prometheus C.E. It is fantastico-humorous and a SglpitglE[.
Both stories are told in the first person and are completely brain-made, so that the tap
may be turned on from cerebellum to paper; but I have not an instant of time to devise any story
to pattem.
I get a great deal more now than 30/- a page for this kind of work: indeed, by increasing
my demands, I have placed a virtually prohibitory duty on my magazine articles. William
BlackJ tells me that he asks f10 a column, and that the editors are beginning to leave him in
peace. Make a name first, and then abandon letters for leaders: that seems to be the modern
recipe for combining popularity with pocket filling.
183

lf tllhu of thr two rtorlor namod will do, you shall have it, before Chill October comes to
ri till,
L,ct mc know by return
always yours
G.A.S.
Frlswcll is not.so bad, I hope. I always fancy he will survive to write our lives; and then
Gccwillikins!4
1. He has the date wrong, according to the perpetual calendar Saturday was the 17th.
2. "Carmagnole; the Wickedest Woman in Fran@" appeared in the L876 Belgravia Christmas
number: L0; "The Patent Woman" Belgravia 27 (Decnmber 1875): 184-196). The will of the
late Mr hometheus, C.E. appcared in a Punch article by GAS, 20 October 1881 (81:81), "Wills
and Bequests (From the'Willistrated London News')."
3. William Black (1841-1898), Scottish novelist and journalist; Morning Star war
correspondent during Austro-Prussian war, later sub-editor on Daily News. He did the opposite
of what GAS suggests, since around this time he abandoned leaders for letters, i.e., he left
journalism to take up novel writing full-time after a series of successful novels, (l Daughter of
Helen, l87l,The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton, I872,A Princess of Thule, L874)(DNB).
4. Friswellr did not "survive to tell the tale". He died in 1.878, aged 53.
trzll
Wednesday [3 December L87+]I
D.T.
My dearEdmund,
Poor Watts Phillips died this morning. He had become latterly perfectly unbearable; but
now the poor devil is gone his offensiveness must be forgotten. He has died utterly penniless and
destitute, and i! ig g quest^bn g[ how he iS^!A he buried. t fear that he had worn out all his friends
- and I know I:bouchere2 and Chatterton3 h"d been most kind to hirn; but there he is, dead, and
the undertaker will not even begin his abominable devices until money is forthcoming or
guaranteed for the funeral. There is a wretched morganatic wife and trvo small children, a bill of
sale on the furniture, and not a mag.4 I believe Mrs Crabbe5 has sent a Sov; and of course my
wife is doing all she can. If you will be a Sovereign (I dare'nt ask for more) send it to Mrs Sala in
a p.o. order to 68 Thistle Grove. I shall try J.M.L.6 when he comes up to town on Friday.
in haste
G.A.S.
I've had a honible twist of bronchitis these last five days.
1. Day of Watts Phillips's death.
2. Henry labouchere (1831-1912), journalist and politician. In 1854 he entered the diplomatic
service for ten years; later became an MP, journalist and newspaper proprietor, having a part
interest in the Dil and establishing and editing the weekly Truh January 1877-1,900+. He
wrote a series of "City" articles for the WorI4 commencing in its second issue (Yates 435). He
was not an admirer of the D?s popularist style, describing it as only suitable "for the pot-house
and the kitchen" (qtd Burnhmt 26). However, he and GAS enjoyed each other's company,
probably because they had a similar caste of mind; kbouchere "was the only English politician
of the lfth century who made himself popular by cynical wit" (D/tiB). Also both were great
184
travellers and enjoyed comparing notes on Mexico, America (I-abouchere had travelled there
cxtensively as a young man, at one stage spending 6 months in a Chippeway tndian camp) and
Russia, one of his diplomatic postings. He visited GAS during his erythema illness (Life 585).
In 1868 he became actively interested in the theatre as that year he married actress Henrietta
Hodson, the manager of the Queen's Theatre, and was always seeking new pieces for
performance. Watts Phillips provided him with what GAS calls "singularly powerful and
compactly constructed" dramas, like The Dead Heart, recognized as Phillips's best work (Irle
50e-10).
3. Frederick Chatterton (1834-1886), manager and lessee of a number of London theatres
including theLyceum, St. James's, Drury Lane, Princess's andAdelpftd (Boase).
4. Mag = %d (hal&enn').
5. Actress Louisa Herbcrtr, who had played the leading role in Watt's Phillips's drama, Maud's
Peril (October 1.867).
6. hobably Joseph Moses lrvy, proprietor of the DZ
It22l
Monday 3 p.m.l
Brompton
My Dear Edmund,
Here is the story. The Nishni scene has at least the merit of being original, and will bring
out in stronger relief the blood and murder sc€ne. With another ten cols I could have brought out
the Vafra more dramatically; but even as it is I am afraid that I have somewhat exceeded the
allotted span. I ought to see a proof to make sure of the technical business about opals. The
pigeon [sic] English is quite correct, as I have verified every word I have used by reference to
Simpson'sz book on China. ['m sorry that it was not ready this morning; but I have a very bad
cold
In haste.
G.A.S.
I have made the Vafra a Neapolitan as it is as well not to wound anglo-saxon sensibilities by
making the [?comik] a Yankee.
1. Dating and address. It is assumed that this letter and the next are a pair because (a) dated
Monday aftemoon and Tuesday morning (b) business of the proof (c) ink colour and handwriting
match (d) watermark (which looks like I J D L & Co) on notepapers identical. Therefore since
next letter is from Thistle Grove it seems fair to assume that so is this. If story was for the World
it must fit in somewhere behveen 8 July 1874 (start of.World) and letter 122 (3 February 1875)
from Spain, as on his retum GAS moved to Gower Street. However, since story cannot be found
in the World date parameters can be widened to 1872 when Yates could have been living in
Wimpole Street (see next letter). GAS first moved to Thistle Grove in July 1871.
2. Could be by Sir George Simpson (1192-1860), explorer. He published A Narrative of a
Journey Round the World During theYears 1841-1842. However, no record of a book on China
by him has been found.
185

L23l
Tuesdav 11.30. a.m.
68 Thistle
DearEdmund,
Cheque for f1.0/10/0 duly to hand. Thanks. Story seems to me to read very well.
just corrected, and sent by Devilr who Waited.
I am sorry that your son2 should have had the trouble to come twice to Brom
yesterday; but the C.opy being ready by 3 p.m. and we deeming every moment of consequence
Mrs Sala took a cab at 3.30 p.m. and delivered the M.S. at Wimpole St,r herself.
always
GA.S.
1. Assumption is the uproofs" are those of the copy sent in last letter.
2. A printer's devil is the errand boy in a printing office.
3. Yates lived at 14A Wimpole Street 1873 (or possibly a bit earlier) to 1.875 (or possibly early
1876).
IL24l
3 February, 1875
Madridl
My dear Edmund,
I have it on the best authority that Mrs Yates has got a fu1coat - not a jacket, or a mantle,
but a f.ea!. The same authority tells me that you are looking well; and from the Times of January
28, received this morning, I learn that the Anrndel Club has been burnt out2: -
"TWas Jonas Irvy getting tight,
with Joyce Q.C. set it alight,
and burned the hovel down"
I have had a variety of adventures since I have been in Spain, and the 3 weeks seem to have been
3 months. I suppose my letters (if any of them have reached England) must have cost the D.T.
about f5Oapiece; but Spain is a peculiar cgutry, as you know. The most peculiar of the gqgg
d9 Etpaflaj are the Englishmen in Spain.a I have already recognised 5gg notorious fugitives
from justice (one of them is the representative of a very great English journal) who all hear [sic],
rejoicing in the non-existence of extradition treaties.
I-ayard) is very much to the fore, but somewhat uneasy about his berth. I am going
tonight to Seville, and Cadiz and shall come home by Gib - not caring about being wonied by
the C.artists6 on the Northern route.T I think I shall look in on Lisbon; but Moran,E I fear, is it
Nice, and lord Lytton9 is not yet there, they say. Nice I mean to take on my way back. My
ancient spinster Cousin, Miss Edmonstone Ashley,l0 is there - seventy two, and frisking her five
franc pieces on the red when she goes over to Monaco. The family was always "game".
I came here with a honible fit of bronchitis. I nearly choked at Barcelona, and (knowing
the wind from the Guadanamall of old) I really thought my goose would be cooked before a
week was out. But, wondrous to relate the bronchitis has altogether disappeared. The weather, it
is true, has beel-beavsak - bright, warrn, sunny, and the air absolutely [?eatable1.t2
Forbesl3 was here, bragging his head off. Clever men are, Iiaice it, mainly unbearable;
but he is the most intolerable celebri!;r (except Stanley)14 I ever met. There are some very genial
Yankees here. Good old Gallengar) was here anon, and we went together by the Royal train to
186
Zaragossa.l6 Th" old gentleman got me into a devil of a mess at a place called Siguenza. He
insisted on interviewing the bishop; and while he was talking to him, the Royal train moved on,
and we were left behind. We had to come into Alhama with a convoy of troops, did not arrive
there until 3 in the morning, and were nearly frozen to death; but the whole affair was too
ludicrous for newspaper, so ishall make a "Belgravia" article of it.17 Thus G. & I went down to
Barcelona. G. started offfor Rome on a bogus report of the Pope being dead.
I saw young David HannaytS (an iltconditioned cub enough) at B. He is a clerk in the
Consulate where his father once reigned. The consul is one Don Juan Prat, a Catalan who speaks
English. The accounts I got in Barcelona from people who knew poor Hannay welg as respect
his last days absolutely appalling. [t was the story of Swift in Dublin, only with lushrv instead of
lunacy and poverty superadded, and he died literally "like a poisoned rat in a hole". Heaven keep
us from Consulates in our declinine vqus: v Dios te suarda dc mal libro dc aleuaeiles. v dc
muver oediqiiefra y treadssadslda)2O ;ht"b -ifT; r,uu. totgou; y"* c"r,iri-
G6-ou"trler iif trinstte for you. fh"r" is a portrait of I,ciente r22 i"r" & ti. luan Prim23
wonderfully like L. and I am not quite certain that the Marques de Castillyos was really
assassinated.
Goodbye
G.A.S.
1. uThe year 1875 was to me a most eventful one, and fruitful in adventure. [n the second week
in January I made a second journey to Spain" (Life 595). T\e DT had sent GAS to report on the
triumphant "progress" of young Alphonso XII (1857-85) through his kingdom to Madrid from
the northern city of of Murriedro, where he had just been proclaimed king by the Ioyalist army,
victorious over the waning Carlists, who had ousted his mother Isabella (102n3).
2. "Yesterday moming, between L and 2 o'clock, a fire broke out at the Arundel Club, in
Salisbury-street, Strand . . . a front room on the second floor was destroyed, and other parts of
the building were seriously damaged. The cause is unknown" {Times 8 January 1875: 11. 5).
The Anrndel, founded in 1,859, was named after Arundel Street, Strand, the site of its first
premises. In June L8621t moved to 12 Salisbury Street. Clement Scott describes this as a "fine
old river-side mansion. . . probably the home of some rich city merchant". In his description we
can locate the upper room that was destroyed in the fire, "a magnificent sitting and general room
(above the ground floor) . . . where the memben of the Anrndel smoked all day and supped as
well as smoked all night" (1: 329). They were well and truly smoking this particular night.
However, the damage was repaired and the club continued there until 1888, when it moved to
Adelphi Terrace, Strand. Like the Savage, the Arundel was a home-away-from-home for many
of our Bohemians, including GAS. There seems to be some conjecture as to which came first,
some say that the Arundel was a breakaway from the Savage owing to a "little disagreement.
Scott maintains that it was "the first and the best of the old Bohemian clubs." His homage to it
fills 15 pages in his memoirs (L: 325-339); surprisingly he doesn't mention the fire. He does,
however, record that Samuel Joyce (1817-1876), a barrister, and Jonas Irvy were committee
members in 1863, as was GAS
3. Spanish matters, literally "things Spanish."
4. One of these fugitives could be co-founder of the World Grenville Murray (103n11). This
would make the "very great English joumal" the World. There were quite a number of
Englishmen in Spain at the time. In WTWS of 3 February 1875 (same date as this letter) Yates
notes: "English joumalism is just now excellently represented in Spain. Mr Antonia Gallenga is
t87

there for the Times, Mr Archibald Forbes for the Daily News, Mr George Augustus Sala for
Daily Telegraph, and Mr l-egge for the Morning Post' (World: L9).
5. British Minister at Madrid (102n5).
6. Troops of the Carlist faction, a politically conservative group, which had its origins in
allegiance to Don Carlos, second son of Charles 4, whose claim to the Spanish throne in 1833
the death of his brother Ferdinand was thwarted by the accession of his niece Isabella, with her
mother Maria Cristina as regent. This claim was pursued into succeeding generations by his son
and grandson, both of whom bore the name Charles.
7. GAS's description of his actual southward route home reads: "There was nothing to detain me
in Madrid . . . I wended my way without further adventure, over the Brown Mountains down to
Cordova and Seville, and other cities of interest . . . from Sevilte . . . to the ever detightful city of'
C-adiz. . . on to Granada ... then took a trip to Valencia, returned to C-adiz, and thence took a
steamer for Gibraltar, . . . having some weeks at my disposal I crossed from Gibralter to Oran, in'
Algeria, . . . thence t took a mn by rail to Algiers; whence I crossed to Carthagena, in Spain, and
so made headway to Marseilles"(Lrfe 614-16).
8. Benjamin Moran (1820-1886), US diplomat and author. WTWS, L3 January 1875, notes that
"before finally quitting us for Lisbon Mr. B. Moran, the new United States minister to Portugal,
has gone to pay a visit of a few weeks to his friend Mr. James McHenry at Cannes" (World: 15),
Moran was US "resident minister" in Portugal in 1874, and charg6 d'affaires L876-L882 (DAB).
9. Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton, first Earl of Lytton (1831-1891), poet, diplomat, statesman.
He had been made chargd d'affaires in the British embassy at Madrid in 1868; British Minister at
Lisbon 1.874; and was to become Viceroy of India 1876 to1880; when he was created an Earl.
1"0. Miss Sarah Edmonstone Ashley, a spinster cousin, who had promised GAS a small legacy in
her will (Straus 243). He had dedicated to hcr his first story, Gerald Morlan4 or the Forged
llill, witten when he was fifteen. The manuscript of this never published juvenile work was
exhibited, with other Sala memorabilia collected by biographer Straus, at the lnndon hess Club
in Salisbury Street in L942. (This collection is now held by the Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library at Yale University.) Publication of GAS's life story and the diamond jubilee
year of the hess Club coincided; appropriate since he had been nominated its founding president
in October, L882 (TLS 31 October 1942: 540). Gerald Morlail,6 an extant piece of juvenilia is
also mentioned by second wife Bessie in her preface to his last work, Margaret Forster. A
Dream Within a Dream, published posthumously in L897.
11. He has already complained about the Madrid winds causing his bronchitis to flare up in letter
102, penultimate par.
12. Perhaps it was so fresh it was 'good enough to eat."
L3. Daily News correspondent Archibald Forbes, Yates's old "room-mate" at Vienna Exhibtion
1873 . GAS had only met him twice before, but had heard about the "amiability and geniality of
his private character" from Yates (Ltfe ffiz} It seems that there w:rs some difference of opinion
over Forbes! The description of Forbes as an intolerable celebrity "bragging his head off' fits in
with previous derogatory remarks (98 par 2). But Forbes retaliated at a "congratulatory" dinner
given him by admirers in 1877 (134n1), when he refened to GAS (who was chairman) as "this
old Brutus" (Life 677). GAS's memoirs go on to ponder ingenuously over this: "Why he should
have alluded to me . . . as'Brutus' I have not the slightest conception" (678).
188
14. H.M. Stanley, at this time on his DTINY Hercld sponsored second African exploration trip
( l t8n9). His earlier (i6 N;;r-b er 1872) discovery oi Henry Livingstone at lake Tanganyika
the subsequent fame it brought him, caused resentment in England. The Royal-Geographical
'nd Society, backed UV ttt" p."o, ihr"o, doubts upon the authenticity of this expedition and his
qualificationr "r u g"ogtiph"r. St-l"y defendid himself (and Livingstone) in the most forcible
manner and was tuUtiqu'"ntty labelled arrogant and self-seeking, as thol1 by GAS's remark
hcre. Although the facts, and his furtherlxploits, vindicated Stanley, his public outbursts
i'created u prrfuOi.r ajainst him in certain t".tion. of the English press and London society
which left traces for years" (DIVB).
15 Antonio Carlo Napoleone Gallenga (1810-1895), Italian-born naturalized (1846)
Englishman, to whom Inn-don was a t"*tfr home. He led an exciting life as author, journalist
(wrote for DaityNews and Times,DlvE calls him "one of the great special correspondents"), and
cven academic (he was honorary professor of ltalian lanuage and literature at London University
1848-1859, compiled an ltalian Grammarbook which ran to 12 editions between 1858 and
igAU. He would have been 65 at the time GAS was writing this and still going strong, his
connection with the Timeslasted until 1883. Twenty yean later in his memoin (published 1895'
,rt" yr"t Gallenga died, and the year before GAS hirnself died, he remembers "dear old Antonio
Gallenga . . . was there ever " *or" valiant and indefatigable journalist and littirateur" (600-01)'
He reiterates all the adventures in this letter with miny amusing embellishments (600-609)'
yates was also an admirer of Galenga . T\eWorld named him one of the top-ranking journalists
of the day.
16. GAS himself in his DT article "King Alphonso in the North" (27 lanuary 1875: 5.' 6) says the
correct spelling is 7-aragoza, althoughlt ii sometimes spelt Saragossa' Here he has the two
versions mixed uP.
17. He did make a Belgravia article out of it: "kft Behind at Siguenza," subtitled, "A
Melancholy Instance of the Mutability of Fortune" Q7 [October 1875]: 55-64)'
18. David Hannay, son of James Hannay.*
19. Lnsh = drink, slang (OED). Swift died in L745. It is now thought that what was considered
his madness in later 1ifI was aitually the symptoms of Meniire's disease (from which he suffered
all his life) exacerbated by old age (OCEL)'
20. And may God protect you from the "bad" book of the alguiciles (perhaps "pelty officials"),
and from demandini roundlcheeked women. I-ast word probably a composite made up by GAS
and possibly has seiual connotations. It is certainly not in common use. In Spain the "mal libro"
is a book in which local government officials keep records of all the favours they dispense, and
for which they finally uli"yr demand payment. ln other words God save us from having to Pay
for our pleasures in the end - like Hannay.
21,. Henry Labouchere*, an old friend and colleague of Yates, at this time writing the financial
or ,,city,, column for'World. His family had commercial interests in South America, where he
must have learnt his Spanish, having bein sent there after running up large debts at Cambridge as
an undergtaduate. He endei up in-Mexico as a circus performer, in love with a fellow "artiste"
(DNg). 1'tr"s" may seem strange places to pick up C-astilian, considered to be the purest Spanish,
and the standard literary mode] gut torn what GAS says here he must have been at least capable
of reading it. perhaps more likely explanation is that GAS's Spanish is his own hybrid, a far cry
from Castilian, and he is just having his little joke.
1.89

22. Francisco Josd de Goya y Lucientes (L746-I828), best known as Goya, Spanish painter;
famous for his portraits, colourful frescoes and sardonic representations of war (particularly the
series Disaslers of War, commenting on the Spanish War of Independence, L808). GAS was
proud of his collection of Goya engravings - the "Bull-fighting" and "Prisoners" series, plus
"Desastr€s de la Guen4" "C-aprichos," "hoverbios" and two copies of "I: Maja," draped and
undraped (acquired when he was on his first trip to Spain in1865) (Ltfe 423).
23. Don Juan Prim y hats (1814-1,870), Spanish general who guided the movement that
overthrew Queen Isabella in 1,868. He was created in turn general, marshal, Marqu6s de
Castillejos (1860), and became virtual dictator of Spain before securing the election of Amadeus,
second son of ltaly's Victor Emmanuel, as King (1870). He was shot by an assassin.
tl2sl
Tueday 2O July L875
49 Gower Street, Tottenham Court Roadl
My dear Edmund,
I read Charles Reade's letten in the Pall Mall;2 but to my mind they conveyed no greater
purport or significance than that the writer was Mad. but sufficiently methodical in his madness
to want more money.
Please to thank Mr J.G. Bennett3 for his courteous intent in my regard. It is not possible
for me to do that which he wishes, first, because I know very little and care much less about the
Rights of Authors, and next because I fancy that the majority of the members of the Association
of which I am a member scarcely know what they want, themselves. That most of them hate
each other cordially I am glad to believe. I only went up with the deputation4 to Downing St
because Braddon wished to be introduced to Disraeli,) and because I wished to have an
opportunity of saying something disagreeable about the Country ncwspapers which steal your
articles, while you are blackguarded in the letters of their london Conespondents.
For the rest C.opyright may go hang. Most of my books were stolen, years ago, by the
American publishers; but as I do not write any books, now, they cannot steal any more of mine,
and I naturally derive intense pleasure from the spectacle of their robbing other people.
always yours
George: aug: Sala.
1. GAS made his home here on his return from Spain, via Algiers and Venice (to report on
Austro-Italian relations at the meeting between Emperors Franz Joseph and Victor Emmanuel)
and lived there, when he was in England, until he moved to Mecklenburgh Square at the end of
1877 (Straus22L,225). He wasn't at home much though, since as we shall see (1.27n1 par 2) the
Dlordered him to St Petersburg again late in 1876 when war seemed inevitable between Russia
and Turkey; he remained in Europe, travelling to Constantinople and Athens, returning home in
the summer of.1877 (DNB).
2. Charles Readef took a keen interest in the legal protection of intellectual property. He
instigated a number of unsuccessful and expensive lawsuits in an attempt to gain a better deal
from his publishers, and to defend his right to claim copyright on the pcrformance of his plays.
He set out what he perceived to be authors' rights in The Eighth Commandmenr (1860), also
advocating a scheme for international copyright. These same issues form the basis of trvo letters,
which appeared in the Conespondence column of.Pall Mall Gazette 15 July: 3 and L7 July: 4-5
1875. Perhaps GAS's remark that Reade was "MAd" refers to the fact that Reade himself
plagiarized other write$'plots for his own plays (including Trollope's Ralph The HeirllSTll for
190
shilly shalty tl872l) ' According to Trollope the crusading Reade ,,simply didn,t know the
meaning of literarv honesty" (suth;rlanJJrl;:'R""d;;;t""t for writing lerters to rhe editor
became for him "a genre in itself,(Kent Z).
3' James Gordon Bennett (18-41-1918), Ame{can_newspaper proprietor and editor of the.f[ew
York Herald, son of lamei Gordonilnnet, its scottistr irn'nigr*t foyrler (1g35); already
4' 'A few months ago I accompanied
" iTF o{-y literary and journalistic am glad to say' sisters brethren - on a uisit to - and
Downing-street I
. . . ou, object was to prace before the
Prime Minister in a very submissive miu,ner the commercial grievances of liierary men and
women' and to ask the Governrnent to $ant us a c-ommi*ion,-"itt", Royal;, i;ilr""ntary, to
take evidence on the subject, una ,ii"port on the whole question of literary copyright,
internation and domesfic (rLN l3-No;em'ber rszs: +e;i. ' d;. ;;;","u"".litrto a Royal
commission into copyright, whiJ h;il;;; first meeting t-#roilowing January (ibid).
5' GAS's memoirs rellrc pw Disraeli (who was chancellor of the Exchequer at the time) came
right across the room to inhoduce rri,n""ir ana request-;;;;;r.r"nted to Miss Bradd on (Life
,7?, fl i:XH#, ill?lfr]rz- isil j,;otr,", .l' i; ;ft : dep u tat i on, ; ;[; presen ted
lt2e1
My dearEdmund yates,l
Thursday L1 November 1g75
49 Gower Street, Bedford Square
I did not answer your note about Mictrael Angelo or Michel Angelo or Michele Agnolo,2
because I had nothing definite ;;t'"1 the subje-ct- \tirh reference to yours received this
afternoon I will say tu*ry tnut, p"olnuity ,o t ulr-i u,n c#".rr"d, there has not been, there is
not' and there will not be betw"in vou *o-r: G.d!a;"tft*dl, feering. The abuse you
have lavished not only on th. p;;;;;rs.of theElv-rfirrlol^bu, on thegenerar style and
conduct of a journal with wtrictr i;;;; been crosery *nnloro for eighteen years has given
myself and my wife much pulu uui tor the outseil il;-"p my mind neitirer directly nor
indirectly to notice mr lttaclt on n,y ti"nor ya!"irr"er..I .r ** indeed fairly ,,riled,, to find
that among numerous qther fri.ends.ir-*i" who have bEeg-vilified in the ,world" a cru"l sn"e.
was levelled at poor old vine,4 r"" "lr'i.' u-rioo Hour.i*ho, on the occasion of rora Mayor
['usk'so Literary and Artistic'il9;"*,, aio,-g FI-q3+"af'poritiu. soricitation go out of his
way to do you a favour by sendini vi, " *to ror rh.T"r;;"i which otrrerw@o-u wourd not
have received. I insisted trrut you riduio iru" it, and i, *", 1""i. kq howeve., utirt i, pass. we
have each of us our several *"yr "ii;;ki"t l lnilrr, you rruu. you. ,,.worrd,,, and I have mine,
which last is growing every day u woriJiuch tulre-r ii u*i. ""0 qui"t memorils-tiu' or fiving
people' I scarcelv go anywh"r. out of the immedi;;; of my business and domestic
associations; and tireie i. not tr," *rilii"Ji r"uron why we shouid ever clash, or -uintain any but
the old amicabre feering lor one *"t"t. '11,:,,;ir.;;lir"e"rl,r, different. t wisrr you luck,
and I am glad to believe that you *irr, ,n" ih, ,ur", *o *rrul *?r can or need be said?
Believe me to be
{ways yours faithfully
George: Augustus: Sala,
l. Note unusuaa
191

2. Reason for annoyed tone can only be guessed at as we don't know what Yates said in "yours
received this afternoon," which soems to have been the catalyst for this aggrieved note. A par in
WTWS about six weeks earlier complaining about changes that were occurring in the
pronunciation and spelling of well-known names is clearly relevant, since one of the names cited
was Michael Angelo (1875 was notable as the 400th anniversary of his birth), which "has within
the last two weeks been ruthlessly deprived of a letter, and universally acknowledged as Michel.
Even Mr Sala, generally so conservative in his spelling has given in to the new heterodoxy"
(World 22 September 1875: 1,4). Name-spelling had again cropped up in WTWS the week
before this letter (27 October 1875:15) in reference to the incorrect spelling of GAS's own name:
"There is some compositor on the Illwtrated London rVews who owes Mr. Sala a grudge.
'George Augustas Sala' is not the way that most amusing and un'as' (s)-like writer usually writes
his Christian name, although the posters of.the lllustrated extra lndian number choose so to spell
it." Since both these pars seem harmless enough, GAS's outburst seems likely to stem from his
mulling over what he pcrceived as the World's unfair treatment of his friends..
3. Some of this has already been discussed in 11,8n4. A number of other examples echo a long
article, part 4 of a series titled "The English Press" (5 May 1875: 409), which, with heavyhanded
satire, accuses the Telegraph of mediocrity, purveyed through hypocrisy and fabrication,
in order to capture the largest audience possible. [t colourfully describes how the Telegraph
lumps together religion, commerce, art, literature, society, politics and morality so that "the
infinitely great and the infinitely little" cannot be discriminated from each other. Another
feature, "The Spirit of the Daily Press" (12 August 1874: 10), comp:lres all the London dailys and
sneers "that the Telegraph swims with the tide and studies the science of popularity with brilliant
success." It is disparagingly compared with the Pall Mall Gazette, which "is the only paper in
london which possesses an idea of its own, and which can afford to be independent." ^1trc DT
was after high sales, while PMG, with the integrity and wealth of founder/owner George Smith
behind it did not attempt to woo the greater share of the public. Thus, although it was high on
journalistic style and standards, it never really lived up to its "pecuniary promise" (Sydney lre's
"Memoirof George Smith" DNB).
4. Ivlr J.R.S. Vine is listed among the 3fi) guests at the banquet by the Times (22luly 1874: 9. 5).
5. The Mansion House was built in L739-52 as the London Inrd Mayor's residence during his
year of office; architect G. Dance, City Surveyor.
6. Sir Andrew Llsk (1810-L909), grocer and sugar merchant made good; became Iord Mayor
of London, 1.873, knighted August 1874, month following the "Literary and Artistic banquet" of
21 July (LItnZ).
IL2T
Wednesday L1 October 18761
38 York Road, Brighton
Dear Edmund,
That is a rare lift you have given the D.T. in this week's World. Have I-ancaster Gate,
Norfolk St Park Lane and Cavendish lquare shaken hands?2 I sincerely hope that such. may
have been the case. By the way Old JoeJ is here, in Brunswick Tgrrace, and George Lewis.4
The Iowe at Sherbrooke) is the best Celebrity at home6 you have done; but that story
about the goggtesT is a funnyproof of how little the political caricaturists know of public men
personally. I believe TennielU has been known to boast that he never saw Palmerston9. No
"cartoonist" that I am aware of has yet drawn Lowe in his goggles. At the same time that passage
r92
about Robertl0 being stopped in his study of Euclid by the "elements" puzzles me. Does it mean
that it came on to rain when he began his mathematical count? I use-d to know a good deal of
Euclid's Elements; but I was not aware that anything else that the buffer wrote was ixtant at this
time of day.
When did Forbes- go mad enough to print the account of his row with Stewart [sic]
Glennie?11 The pamphlel has been seirt to me. The quanel should have been settled i la
Lieutenant Lismahagorz by mutual "funking" with pipes full of sulphur. yet it would have been
rare sPort to hear of the ancient trooperA.F. cleaving his adversary from the nave to the chops.13
No more,
Yours G.A.s.
1.Thisletteriselevenmonthstothedayafterl"st;inte'im
missing. Ill-feeling towards Yates re his "persecution" of the Teiegraph is over. tn fact this
letter has been sent off in an immediate response to World article, "The Manufacture of Bogey,,,
published same day (1,1- October 1876: 3), in praise of what it considered to be the Telegiih:,s
responsible reporting of the escalating hostilities between the Serbs and the Turks, which had
given rise to sensational accusations of torture and massacre inthe Daily News. IIteWorld story
was a complete about-face from its attitude described in last letter.
The following month, GAS was in Moscow on the DIs behalf to investigate rumours of
Russia's imminent intervention in the hostilities on behalf of its allies the Serbs, Is England was
diplomatically linked to the Turkish cause. When he anived "the air was full of bellicose
rumours' although I am bound to admit that, socially speaking, there did not seem to be the
slightest ill-feeling existing in Russian society againsiEnglishmen" (Life 625). He informed the
Telegraph that there were plenty of indicationi of RusJian preparations and was ordered to
Wa$aw, via St Petersburg, just before the Russo-Turkish War (nll-Aybroke out. From there,
in the role of observer, he travelled to Odessa and on to Constantinople, where ,,special
correspondents of the newpapers abounded" (645).
2' Addresses of the protagonists in the war between the World and DT At this time yates lived
at22B C-avendish SqlTe, Edward Irvy-I:wson at 21, Norfolk Street, park l:ne, and his father,
Joseph M. rrvy, at 103I:ncaster Gate (Iondon post office Directory).
3' Probably old Joseph lrvy.* He and George Irwis, DI solicitor and fellow Jew, were good
friends.
4. George kwis (183-19L1) GAS's lawyer, an "old and dear friend, whose advice I had always
trusted" (Life 569)- He had appeared for GAS in the bankruptcy court (69n1), defended him in
his case against Friswell (89na); and handled other legal matiers for him such as a contract with
an American entrepreneur on his lecture tour of the US in 1885 (ibid). Irwis also handled DT
legal matters and Yates's memoirs give two instances when he successfully acted for the World
in libel cases, both o_f_which were reported verbatim: "The world in court \;Labouchere v
Abbot" (14 October L874:243) and "Boss & Beyfus v. The World" (10 February 1g75:3) The
ensuing publicity provided a much needed boost to circulation in ttre early stages of the-paper
(Yates 439-40). Irwis had also acted for Yates when he was threatened *iitr uait

ather mechanical processes of Sherlock Holmes seemed the efforts of a beginner" (George
Smalley [165N2] qtd DNB). Irwis was an intimate of the Prince of Wales, on whose coronation
in 1,902 he was created a baronet.
5. "The Lowe at Sherbrooke" is reference to the "Celebrities at Home" feature in World LL
October L876: 4-5. Robert Inwe (L811-1892), banister and politician; spent the early years of
his career (1842-1850) in Australia where he practised law; became a prominent Victorian MP
standing against the renewal of convict transportation, and contributed to the influential Atlas
weekly paper. On his return to England he continued both his parliamentary career and, for a
while, his journalism, joining the Times as a leader writer, and later Gladstone's Cabinet, as
Chancellor of the Exchequer (1868), and home secretary (1873). tn 1880 he entered the House
of I-ords as Viscount Sherbrooke of Sherbrooke, in Warlingham, Suney. He was an effective
speaker with great powers of epigram, his best speeches being made during the Reform debates
of tgOO/1. An albino, he had comptetety white hair and eyebrows. This genetic defect also
affected his sight, which was very poor, and towards the end of his life almost non-existent
(DNB).
6. The "Crlebrities at Home" series, a follow on from Grenville Murray's more caustic "Portraits
in Oil," was to develop into "one of the most attractive features of.theWorld" (Yates 440). tt was
still going when Yates published his memoirs in 1884; nearly four hundred had appeared and the
source of subject matter was "practically inexhaustible . . . with the exception of our Most
Gracious Majesty, there is scarcely a personage of importance in the Present day who does not
find a niche in this series" (440-1). tts appeal lay in Yates's detennination to angle each famous
profile away from the pubtic to the private, thus building in a voyeuristic quality that had great
public appeal. Yates's "society journalism" had hit on a winning formula. Even the Prince of
Wales agreed to be "at home" in Sandringham to Archibald Forbes for an interview (44L). It
seems you hadn't really made it until you got into the World. GAS himself was featured; see next
letter. However, the series was not without its critics, which Yates vigorously shook off, like
water on 'the back of the proverbial duck." Their main advantage he claimed was their "useful
purpose in the future" as a record of their times(World24luly,1878: 10).
7. See n5. The ordinary glasses of the period coudn't not keep out the glare, so Inwe himself
developed a pair of very distinctive goggles, "composed of a couple of pieces of metal known to
anglers as spoon-bait, connected with a bit of elastic webbing across the nose, and a longer piece
to fit around the back of the head" (World l.l. October 1876 : 5).
8. John Tenniel (1820-1914), artist and caricaturist. He is best known as a book illustrator (e.9.,
Alice in Wonderland) and cartoonist for.Pnncft .
9. Henry John Temple,3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784-1865), politician, prime minister (1855-
1858, 1859-1865), nicknamed "Firebrand Palmerston"; ideal lampooning material.
1.0. I.e., Robert [owe. GAS making a joke about sentence in Lowe "Crlebrity": "An advanced
spirit undertook to teach him Euclid, but was stoPPed by the elements".
11,. Forbes's pamphlet cannot be located, but in L877 Stuart Glennie published what must have
been a response to it, Travellers and Conestpndents: A Letter . . . uposing certain slanders of . .
. Mr Archibald Forbes, etc. Ttrc pamphlet can also be located in the British Library in a volume
called Tracts Relating to Personal Affairs; a very mixed bunch, by many hands; p22, in the form
of a letter to the editor of the DN. Glennie says Forbes made a "nrffianly assault" on him, fte
threw Forbes to the floor, was challenged by Forbes, accepted the challenge, but "he (Forbes) did
not follow it up in the usual way." Forbes had published his pamphlet mid-September 1878, but
194
no copy had been sent to Glennie. Apparently in his letten to the Di/, as their special
correspondent to the East, Forbes had charged Glennie with concealing the fact that he was
acting as a correspondent for the Standard, and of claiming to be an MP. Glennie rebutted the
charges in a letter to the Dl/, 8 January L877, which wasn't printed. His pamphlet in British
Library is stamped 9 January L877. Sounds like a lot of huffing and puffing. As for GAS's
image of war correspondent Forbes as an "ancient trooper" wielding his sword, he must be
alluding to par in WTWS 1l. October 1876 (same day as this letter): "There has been a duel, or
rather a challenge, between two English correspondents in Servia; but there was nobody hurt.
The reason, in all probability, was that neither came to the encounter." Sounds like a definite
case of "mutual funking."
12. Lieutenant Obadiah Lismahago, the irascible old Scot in Smollett's Humphry Clinker, a
Quixotean figure of suitably pugnacious, but ineffectual character.
13. 'Till he unseamed him from the nave to the chops" (Macbeth L2.22).
11281
Thursday night L4 June 18771
40 Gower St, Bedford Square
My dear Edmund,
English "lnterviewers" do not, thank God, take short-hand notes of the conversation of
the people whom they interview, thus J.C.P. only committed the very pardonable slip of writing
"dedicated" instead of "inscribed".z Fortunately, withthe facts very indelibly impressed on my
memory, we can have this bog-trotting varlet Kenealy,r on the hip.
You will remember that, many ye:rrs ago, he was put into gaol for whacking his kid.
Some years afterwards (in 1861 or 2 I think, but at all events it was before I went to America) he
was beginning to rise legally and socially to the surface again. In some journalistic quarter or
another the child-whacking story was called up again, and a very cruel personal attack was made
on him. Knowing him of old (not personally, but by repute, and by reading his articles in Fraser
[sic]) to be a man of rare scholarship and rarer eloquence, I took up the cudgels in his defence;
and, in the Telegraph, in a leading article, I pointed out that he had paid both in meal and in malt
for his misdeeds; that the Vindicta Publica4 being satisfied, private malevolence was not justified
in aspersing him, and that, in common justice, he should be allowed a fresh and fair start. Shortly
after the appearance of this article he wrote me a letter full of the most fulsome expressions of
gratitude, and shortly after this he sent me a copy of a book of his called "A New Pantomime" -
it was about Goeths) - gg $9 title p4g9 of which he had written ag llscliption to me. couched in
outrageously flattering terms. I never heard of the Varlet again until, when the Tichbome case
was over, taking up tbe "Englishman" one day I found myself most abusively alluded to as "Sala
of the Spotted Dog".6 That was his gratitude; although what he meant by the Spotted Dog I am
sure I don't know. And I daresay that I have been blackguarded scores of times in this same
"Englishman" which, I need scarcely say I do not "take in".
J.C.P. will tell you what we all think of the "Gower St" paper.T It is first rate.
arwavs
L:rr.
1. Envelope retained. Post mark: Inndon W.C. / Ju /1,5 177. Address: Prepaid / Edmund
Yates, Esg / n. @) Cavendish Square I W I George: aug: Sala [finished off with Sala's
characteristic signature fl ourish].
195

2. loe Parkinson* had written "Celebrity at Home 48,' uMr. George Augustus Sala in Gower
Street" (World 1.3 June 1877 :4-6). It opens with a quote from Dr. Kenealy casting aspersions
on journalists who live "hand to mouth in garrets," and then goes on to describe GAS and his
anything but threadbare "garret". GAS it seems was a bohemian at heart but not hearth - he
enjoyed comfort and rare and beautiful possessions (even though he couldn't always afford to pay
for them). Bone of contention here seems to be Parkinson's mistake in reporting that "Dr
Kenealy once glggligglgg! a book in terms of glowing eulogy" to GAS, when it was merely
inscribed to him.
3. Edward Vaughan Hyde Kenealy (1819-1880), Irish barrister, called to the English bar in
1847, Queen's Counsel 1,868. He was most famous (or infamous) as the leading counsel for the
claimant in the Tichborne case (91n11), taking over from Sergeant Wamer Sleigh in April 1.873.
His handling of the case was extraordinary; he insulted the bench and protracted proceedings so
that the trial became the longest of its kind on record. The jury's verdict canied a censure of his
violent language, and his conduct during and after the trial caused him to be stripped of his legal
credentials. After losing the case he spent the rest of his life trying to organize a royal
commision of inquiry into its procedures, even to having himself elected to parliament on a
"Tichborne" ticket. He also started a "scurrilous," but highly successful newspaper called The
Englishman 11 April 1873-22 May 1886, whose express purpose, was to plead on Orton's
behalf. It made charges against the chief justice, Sir Alexander Cockburn, and the solicitorgeneral,
Sir John Holker, (and, it seems, GAS, who had covered the case for the DZ). His
daughter's memoirs of her father claim that Kenealy's violent and excitable demeanour was the
result of ill-health, arising from diabetes. This could also explain why earlier (1850) his career
had almost been ruined, as GAS mentions here, when he was sentenced to a month's
imprisonment for savagely beating his illegitimate son, Edward Hyde, aged 6 (DNB).
4. Vindicta Publica = Public revenge, i.e., he had paid his debt to society.
5. Goethe: a New Pantomime. Znd ed. 1863.
6. The "Spotted Dog" was a public house and booking office at 298 Strand, run by Thomas
Wilson (Super 28). GAS knew perfectly well what Kenealy was getting at - that he was a
frequenter of such places and therefore a gambler and a boozer; definitely not a "gentleman."
7. I.e., Parkinson's piece "Mr. George Augustus Sala in Gower Street".
196
ll2el
[L8 June 1877]
Who is this? I found it in a sketch book of mine of the year LW. Long before he grew a beard.
G.A.S.
1.8 June 1877L
1. Date attached to blue/black ink sketch of a frock-coated gentleman with a top hat and cane.
On envelope: Front, postmark W.C. / ?L0 / Ju L9 /l?77J; back, London W / cc / Iu 19 I 77.
Address, Prepaid. / Edmund Yates, Fsql22 (B) Cavendish Square / W / George: aug: Sala Esq.
Just who this is not certain. Certainly not Yates, he and GAS had not met in 1847. Looks a bit
like Gladstone.
[1301
Monday morning 24 September L877
49 Gower St
DearEdmund,
Everything here is in such a hellish mess with the double moue,t and upholsteret's men
invading my study that it is as much as I can do to get pen ink and paper to say "Yes" to your
queries about the two pars. We shall meet at Brighton next week and have a talk about t'other
matter. I see no difficulty.
always (with a paper cap and a baize apron on)
G.A.S.
P.S. 1 Upholsterer's men have just sent up for more beer. They have beered 3 times since 8 a.m.
P.S. 2 The cat is going mad; and the rurncock has been seen hovering tentatively in the
neighbourhood. He cannot disabuse his mind of the conviction that this is boxing day.-
P.S. 3 The Jehoshaphats3 opposite think we have got the brokers in; and t exiect iehoshaphat
pEfe to make overtures through the area railings for.the purchase by private treaty of "hany
picturs and chiney as haven't got inter the hinventory".4
L97

1. "Double move" involved GAS's projected move to Mecklenburgh Square in December L977,
see letter L35, and his going down to Brighton, where he plans to meet Yates "next week."
2. The turncock was the man who turned on the water mains; presumably he expected to get his
Christmas gratuity before the Salas moved on. It was not until the last quarter of the 19th century
that piped water was available in London from reservoirs built in the upland districts. Up until
then water had to be transported either daily by hand from a stream, pump or standpipe, or for
wealthier families, by watercart to a storage cistern (Mitchell266,378).
3. Jehosophat could be GAS's generic name for a Jew. The brothel owner with the (tell-tale)
diamond ring who split his nose open was also a Jehosophat Qan\.
4. Cf "Echoes" ILN 29 September L877:306: "Is it possible to 'move' without being intensely
miserable? I don't know where I shall sleep tonight. I have no home. I mean that I have two
homes, but there are no carpets at either. . . the cat is going melancholy mad; and the neighbours
opposite have all their noses glued to the parlour window-panes, and evidently think t have got
the brokers in. Just now a man in a paper cap and a baize apron walked into the dining room,
where I am now writing on an empty claret case, and took away my last fender . . . there is
nothing left in my library but a bust of good old George Cruikshank , standing on the bare
boards, and an enormous beer-can beside him, quite empty; for the men who are "moving" me
are affected with a deathless thirst." Part of GAS's appeal to his faithful "Echoes" fans was this
sort of intimate glimpse into his life and household. Although he complained about it (154n2),
he encouraged the undoubted intimacy that developed between himself and his readers.
[13U
Friday 5 October 1877
38 York Road, Brighton
My dear Edmund,
I only went to town yesterday for a few hours and found your note at the D.T. I was very
pleased to find that the paragraph in last week's "Echoes"l w:!s to your liking. That compensut.d
me for the spasm of anguish into which I had been thrown by finding that a bestial compositor at
the Illustrated News had, not with^standing a thrice Revise, substituted au E for a N, in a
carefully concocted Greek pQUlg!4 which I had drawn up for the edification of Glaclstone. I shall
roar with laughter if I find any Oxford or Cambridge gentlemen criticising it grammatically
because I happen !q have copied^i! verbatim g! literatim from a Romaic-ltalian vocabulary.
substituting only Hawarden ParkJ for the original Kensington Gardens. But even the great
Amold did'nt know that yu71a, was Modern Greek for "dinner";4 and I daresay that
Escott5 would be pvzzle{ if fre had to tell a Greek waiter to bring him the Worcester sauce.
That odd little woman you saw with me in the fly t'other afternoon is a link in a very
curious chain. Knows ygg *.il enough. Knows all about Georgs Lewis.6 She is one of thl
daughters of old Tommy Roberts/ of Spring Gardens the racing bill discounter who went to the
bad and died aetat 76 a paral pensioner of ours. llcy Roberts (the little party you saw) is femme
d'affaires8 to the sublime Crabbe9 at Sidmouth Lndge, and had come do*n-to erighton to bring
to school in Brunswict< tefriElUMiss Rochetord-vtituant

7. This must be "My Tommy" of letter 57, who since then (1861) had fallen on bad times. After
acquiring a racing stud he "went on the turf, and he lost, I am afraid, all his money. He was not
altogether friendless in his declining years, and among the usurers that I have known 'My
Tommy'was certainly the least rapacious and the warmest-heafted" (Things 49-50).
8. Translation strictly "business woman" - factotum probably best equivalent here.
9. The sublime Crabbe refen to actress Ruth Louisa Herbert (?1832-192I). See I-ouise
Jopling's memoirs, Twenty Years of My Life 1867 to 1877 (1925). Straus describes Jopling as
one of the friends who helped GAS cope with his bereavement after Harriett's death (255).
Writing to her husband watercolourist Joseph Jopling (n13) in March 1876, Iouise, herself an oil
painter of some distinction, describes an evening out with 'Mrs. Crabbe (Miss Herbert that was) .
. . She came this moming, and said she was going to act at the Consumption Hospital, and would
I like to come to her place for supper" (93). Herbert was much admired by D.G. Rossetti who
gave her the title of "lovliest of your sex and goddess of the P.R.B. [he Raphaelite
Brotherhood]" (qtd Surtees 167). She sat for Rossetti for about a year and in L858 was the model
for Rossetti's Mary Magdalene at the Door of Simon the Pharisee. She was also one of the
central figures in William Frith's Derby Day (1858). Rossetti described her as having "the most
varied and highest exression I ever saw on a woman's face, besides abundant beauty, golden hair
etc . . . she has sat to me now and will sit to me for Mary Magdalene in the picture I am
beginning (qtd Dobbs 125).
I-ouisa Herbert (she dropped Ruth from her stage name) was the first I-ady Audley in the
dramatized version of M.E. Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret, by George Roberts. After the play
opened at the St. James's Theatre 28 February 1,863 Braddon wrote to Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton
that "Miss Herbert was very good" (qtd Wolff 143). Herbert also played the title role in
Eleanor's Victory (May 1865), a dramatization of another Braddon novel, by John Oxenford
(Pascoe165). The most successful period of her caf,eer, which began in 1854, was from 1860 to
1866 when she was attached to the St. James's Theatre. Described as "one of the finest actresses
of the day" (Baker 466) she performed there under the managements of Arthur Wigan and Frank
Mathews, and for a time became manager henelf. Henry [wing's first significant performance
was made under Herbert's management in Boucicault'si Hunted Down in 1866; earlier that year
she had played opposite him, then comparatively unknown, in The Belle's Strangem (Dramatic
Notes 23). ln the same year she was praised by Examiner drama critic Henry Morley for her
portrayals of Mn Teazle in The School for Scandal and Miss Hardcastle in Sfte Stoops to
Conquer (Morley 314-LS). T\e Dramatic Zisr records that in 1869 she returned to the St James's
during Mrs John Woods's management, and that she retired from the stage after her marriage.
There is some confusion over the dates of her marriage, because as early as 1858 she is
mentioned in The Diaries of G.P. Boyce as "Miss Herbert . . . rightly Mrs Crabbe, though she
doesn't live with her husband'(qtd Dougbty 250), and Surtees's biographical note in her Rossetti
C:talogue Raisonnd says she manied Edward Crabb in 1855, the final e being added at a later
date (167).
10. No school in Brunswick Terrace is listed in Page's Brighton Directory L877 or 1878;
however there were three in Brunswick Place - Miss Cripp's Ladies School, Miss Jones's and
Miss Kemp's. GAS's piece of Victorian porn, The Mysteries of Verbena House (86n5 par 4),was
purported to be "a most minute and truthful description of a fashionable Brighton seminary for
young ladies . . . the tale turns upon the corporal punishment administered to the fair inmates"
(Fryer 132).
200
11. An earlier March 1876 letter from Louise Jopling links the Crabbes to a Rochford: "This
morning I trotted off to the Rothschitds's, in spite of Rochford coming at the eleventh hour to ask
me to go to the Boat-race with him and the Crabbes' (91).
12. " r,ugnet I'autre se disent" strictly means "either, or both, are used or said." ln this context it
could mean that she can be called either of these names, i.e., there is something ambivalent about
her parentage. Since her mother is Mrs Crabbe it implies that either Rochford or Milbank or
Crabbe couid be her father. Mn Crabbe's morality is again called into question at the end of the
letter when she is ironically linked with the definitely susPect Bloxam as being "truly pious'"
See letter 143 (last par) where her name is linked with an earl.
L3. Joseph Middleton Jopling (1$1-f 884), self-taught water-colour painter, exhibitor at Royal
Academy (but not member) and other galleries; the painting mentioned here titled "Midge" was
hung in L874 Royat Academy season. For a time Jopling was officially employed to make
drawings of the Queen reviewing the troops @nfB). In 1876 he went to America as Fine Arts
Superintendent of the English section of the Philadelphia Exhibition (Jopling 91).
14. Phrase bonowed from title of Eliza Lynn Linton's (1822-1898) anti-feminist article, 'The
Girl of the Period', (Saturday Review 25 Il4 March 1868]: 339), which captured the public
imagination, with caricatures, farces and comedies following in its wake. Its authorship was not
formally disclosed until 1883, when it was published as the title piece the in 2-volume collection
of Linton's SR articles, The Girl of the Period.
15. NIr Bloxam had been a neighbour of GAS's in Thistle Grove, Brompton. An inner circle of
supporters of Arthur Orton in his claim to the Tichbornef title had met regularly at Bloxam's
home, probably to organize financial aid for the "claimant," such as bail money, and the
celebrated float of Tichborne bonds, which were to be repaid when the title, and the Tichborne
wealth that went with it, was "restored" to him (Life 505). The investment tumed out to be
worthless when Orton lost the case.
1,6. Previously Horace Pitt (1814-80), a staunch Tichborne patron and member of Bloxam's
Thistle Grove goup.
17 Archibald Forbes* had recently returned from Turkey, where he witnessed the Russian
invasion, and distinguished (and seemingly exhausted) himself by going to almost superhuman
lengths in his efforts to despatch his accounts of the battles back to the Daily News (Moy Thomas
17t-72).
18. The Bedford was a swank Brighton Hotel, built in 1829. lt burnt down in 1964..
It32l
Bearer is perfectll' trustworthy.
Saturday 3 Novemberl
Midland Hotel
My dear Edmund,
Accidents will happen in the best regulated families. I happen, this morning to be in a
devil of a mess.2 Send me a cheque to bearer for TWenty Pounds and score it up to coming copy.
Why I sent to you I will tell you when I see you.
always yours,
George: aug: Sala.
201

1.. 3 November fell on Saturday n L877. Period must fall between c.1876-c.1878 when Yates
lived at Cavendish Square, see envelope address following. When GAS comes up from Brighton
for dinngl of letter 134 he stays at the Midland Hotel, so it is very possible he also stayed there a
couple of weeks before when he needed a bed in town, particularly since his friend Etzensberger*
was manager. "Thanks" of next letter is further evidence, since it suggests Yates sent him money
he asks for here. Envelope: on front: Immediate / Edmund Yates, Fsq / 22 !. C-avendish Square
/ -W- / George: aug: Sala
2. See letter L49 where he mentions f20 that Yates lent him one morning "when I had gone down
to Jericho, and fallen among thieves (lady thieves)." Sounds intriguing!
[133]
Wednesday 7 November L877I
38 York Road, Brighton
Mv dearEdmund.
Thanks1'-/llca oV??r orcrl\aq : Ht /! y' ,alf ,t-t ra pe))il rrefa,t/.
(I suppose the accents, not having the text of the Sage by me:; Lscott will tell
you what it means.) isalf glg Alexander:4 because, atthough I know his cribs by heart, I do not
know the Bloke himself personally, and I have an invincible repugnance to writing that which is
not. But we have "Painted Nightingales" qnd another capital subject I am thinking out "Ar1 for
Girls": both of which I will send you anon.)
I am just in from Tunlridgc Wells, where I have been speechifying at a dinner given to
the Marquis of Abergavenny.o A convivial pump.
G.A.S.
1.. Envelope retained: On front, postmark Brighton / B / No 8 / 77. Address: Edmund Yates,
Wln @) C.avendish Square / Iondon W. / George Augustus Sala. On back, postmark London
W lV2/No9/77.
2. Sounds as though Yates must have sent the money asked for in last letter. Greek translates as
"Envy no one his good luck since chance is shared by all men and the future is unknown."
3. He intimates that he is quoting by heart and cannot remember where thc accents that define
the Greek pronunciation fit in. Not surprising since they are quite complicated.
4. C-an't discoverwho. orwhat, this is. Sounds like a translation of some sort; or a review of one.
5. "Art for Girls" could refer to a par in WTWS 12 December pl1 about a "lady artist" who
painted an "improper" picture of a nude. "Painted Nightingales" cannot be found. Perhaps
neither of these was sent.
6. On Tuesday 6 November L877 GAS had travelled from Brighton to Tunbridge Wells to watch
the Maryuis of Abergavenny lay the foundation stone of a new Pump-Room at its spa. A gand
banquet was held aftenvards with "sixteen toasts and about thirty respondents" at the Sussex
Hotel (lLN "Echoes" 10 November 1.877: 450).
202
u34I
9.30 p.m. Thursday [? 22 November 1877]1
D.T.
My dearEdmund,
I got your note at B. at mid-day. Coming up by Pullman to conect a proof I find
enclosed from my dear old friend Etzensberge4 late of Venice and Cairo. I do'nt know whether
the Chairman is pfiyilEegd to invite a friend; but in any case I shall take it as a pgIsgel favour if
you will let E. have a ticket. Nobody will know whether he is a journalist or not; and he is a
thorough gentleman and a good feller.
Sic a time as we shall hae - as the Scotchman said when he fell out the sixth-flat window
in haste
G.A.S.
1. This letter is probably Tuesday before next letter, or is at least sometime near the dinner
mentioned there held Saturday L December 1877 to honour Archibald Forbes and "hosted by his
brother journalists and friends and chaired by Mr George Augustus Sala" (Dlreport on following
Monday 3 December :2.5). It also fits in here because GAS is still living at Brighton ("coming
up by Pullman") before the move to Mecklenburgh Square, also mentioned in nexi letter.
2. Robert Etzensberger, hotel manager; now at the Midland Hotel in I-ondon (Straus
184). In 1866 he had been manager of the Victoria Hotel in Venice, GAS's base during the time
he spent in ltaly covering Garibaldi's campaigns. While he was out in the field Mrs Sala was left
in Etzensberger's care, who had "stood by her manfully" when Venice had been beseiged by the
Austrians (Life 464).
t13s
My dear Edmund,
Tuesday 27 November L877I
38 York Road Brighton
How is the dinner getting on?2 Have you an approximate idea of the number expected?
What is the order of the toasts; and who are the Speakers? kt me know. Billy Russell3 writes
me that he cannot come; but that the meeting has his best wishes.
I hope you have secured g tip-top military swell to return thanks for the Army and Navy.
_ W: come uP to town fQI gOAd on Saturday morning next, and go to the Midland Hotel St
Pancras where I shall be communicable with throughout the day. The dinner is at Seven, I think.
The Decorators - damn them- are only just out of Mecklenburgh Square and the Tapissiers,4
blast them! only just in; so that it will be another fortnight before we ari installed under the lee of
the Foundling.)
t nut'"o.o.r.
1. Envelope retained: On front, postmark Brighton / E / No
Edmund Yates, Esq / 22. B Cavendish Square lOuslgL W. /
londonW/A?2/No27/77.
2. Dinner for Forbes on Saturday L December (see previous letter). Following week's "Fchoes"
(IIN 8 December 1877:554) canied report of proceedings.
3. William Howard Russell.*
4. Tapissien = upholsterers.
203
27 / 77 /B. Address: Prepaid /
G.A. Sala. On back, postmark

5. His new home at 46 Mecklenburgh Square was "under the friendly wing of the Govemors of
the Foundling Hospital . . . north-west comer, no thoroughfare, nic.e garden in rear, one of the
oldest and greenest of full-bottom-wigged squares in front, and a shilling cab-fare to one's
office and one's club" (from a letter to an un-named friend qtd Straus 225). The Foundling
Hospital was built in 1760 as a refuge "for exposed and deserted children."
t1361
Saturday 22 December 1
[1877]
46 Mecklenburgh Square (No other address is genuine)
My dear Edmund,
I have been very seedy (le maledette miei gambe2; since that dinner,3 and have scarcely
left the house. It has been as well as not that I should be so confined; for the pressure of work
lately has been simply fearful..last Thursday for example between 7 a.m. and_8 p.m. I had (1.) to
write 5 cols about "the Stage"4 in a wretched little paper called "Touchstone") in which Willing
is losing 1100 a week. My articles have trebled the circulation of the thing; but il wo'nt g!e.
There is no money to be made by theatrical journalism alone. The Era,6 black mast and all is'nt
worth 12000 a year to I-edger. Wait till I come out with my own journal "Household Wordscum-Once
a Week-cum-All the Year Round-cum-Welcome Guest (very much cum Welcome
Guest) weekly twopenny periodical conducted by G.A.S.'7 and see if t do'nt fetch the [? B.O]
and make a comfortable feather bed for my old age. Wel[; I was saying; after I had finished the 5
cols for the "Stage" I had to read my morning papers, and make up my budget of suggestions for
the D.T. TWelve noon, gouty legs to bathe and bandage. L2.30 a-proof of a story in "Bow
Bells",8 "The Good Young Man" io be corrected. Machine waiting.9- 1 p.ry. u ptooi of a story
called the "Didactic Village" for a d --d, infemal tinpot thing called 'Mirth'l0 whose rate of pay
' to contributo$ may be computed by the price of catsmeat. Ilnch. 2p.m. telegram from the D.T.
"Bryant & Herbert '11 A Thundering Case in the C-ommon Pleas of.2 rh cols to wade through,
epitomise and write a long leader upon, taking care to avoid the risks of actions for libel with
which the case absolutely bristled. But I have written 4,500 leaders with only two suits for libel,
in neither of which did plaintiff get damages.l2 This takes me up to 4.30p.m. Then a Sub. 5
p.m. Knock off now? Not a bit Proof to conect, "Echoes of the Week".lJ Machine waiting.
Finished yet? Not at all. A Revise of the "Bow Bells" story to be re-conected; because there is
some French in it, and the readers are funky.l4 Dinner. 7 p.m. At 8 p.m. comes the proof of
"Stage". 8.45 p.m. To sleep on the sofa. 10.45 p.m. gouty legs bandaged and bathed glg novo.rs
Then the houshold go to bed; and I into my study to write nine letters; to post up my diary; to do
my Greek lesson (Schliemann's systemro which I tried in Spanish with complete success in
Mexico 14 y.ears ago, and while Schliemann was still sifting sanded sugar and mouldy figs at
Weissnictvor /); then trvo of the biggest cigars that "Anselmo del Valle (hija de C-abana y
Carbajall8) tu-"d out, a gill of ftoUanO'J19 in pot"r, water, and to bed at 2 a.m.on Friday.
This "u", is not the way to live to be a Hundred Years of age as that duffing old C-anon
Beadon of Wells20 has done, but it is 4 simple g$! literal record of what a working journalist is
compelled to do in the year 1877.
So; this being Saturday, dear Edmund, I am ggl!writing copy for the ''World"; but never
fear, t shall ggg lhg ligg plapg1ly as we agreed that day on the old Chain Pier.2l After Christmas
the pressure will not be so severe. Touchstone (thank God) will soon exhaust Willings patience.
Dickszz (who is at Mentone, dying) gammoned me into promising to write him 100.stories,
taking my own time, and as he pays me more than double what anybody else does I could
scarcily refuse him. This was at Nice, in March.23 I know where trvo of his five hundred franc
notes are. One is on the number Seventeen; the other is on Zero on the Roulette table at Monte
Carlo. Stop; note number two is on a five of diamonds at the Cercle de la M6diterrann6e, Nice.
Providence ang- Dr Christopher Dresser24 have just decorated No 46 Mecklenburgh
Square in an alarming25 mannet. W" spurn paper hangings and go in for sura[hlpu?6. And ie
pick out our cornices with blue and gold. -hovidence (inspiring the tasteful Mr [?Novotti)
provides us with a drawing room pierglassz/ as tall as Cleopatra's ngedle and a great deal
handsomer. Providence takes care that the carpets shall be ttree pile26 and planned; and the
consoles and cabinets siall be laden with the choicest specimens of Japanese Art from Messrs
Jackson and Graham.29 We are beginning to think scomfully of Mr Gladstone's collection of
China3o(poor devil! and obliged to Iell it,Ioo!). Vellum and irue calf (with morocco, tooled by
Hayday)sr are the only bindings which we contemplate for the future; and ---- what's that
sharp rat-tat? lts the Local Rates. The Assessed Taxes came in yesterday; and there's a guarter's
gas in Gower St standing over; and a hundred and seventy five men, women and children
between here and 135 Fleet St, E.6.rz anxiously expecting their Christmas boxes on Wednesday
the 26th of December next.
This farrago of gossip has run out to inordinate length. I began my letter with quite a
different intent - that of telling you a god story about Tennyson3s which might be worth
printing; but that I'll do tonight when only "the cats and I are awake", and while I am hatching
schemes of fresh leaders for "An Organization which feels no jealousy and fears no rivals".34
Aha! I had you all there, every man jack of you. I had been blowing the Daily News trumpet
lustily from 8.30 to10 p.m. and then it suddenly occurred to me to wind just one little blast on my
own polimikd salpinr.35
The compliments of the Season. Ugh!
G.A.S.
1.. In par 2 he names the year as 1877.
2. ltalian not clear, translates something like "my cursed leg.
"3. Perhaps Forbes dinner of previous letter nZ.
4. There had been three short-lived magazines called The Stage - 1844-1845, 1849 and 1874.
5. Touchstone, 7 April L877-31 May 1879; a twopenny satirical paper started by F.B.
Chattertonf , edited by GAS (Scott L: 190-91), and, as shown here, financed by James Wiliing.*
Ttrc 9. Era, 30 September 1838-21. September 1.939, weekly sporting and dramatic paper.
Frederick Irdger (1816-1874) was proprietor and had been its editor from 1850. Clement Scott
worked for it as a freelance before becoming DI drama critic; he describes it as one of the
"plumsoftheprofession...anywriterattached...must...beastaunchconservativeinmatters
dramatic, a hater of free trade in art, and conversant with the whole history of the stage, from the
mystery plays to the days of Dion Boucicault" (1: a1a).
7. GAS did "come out" with a joumal of his own, but not until 1892. [t was called Sala,s
Journal,3O April 1892-Lt April 1894, and produced with the help of his second wife Bessie,
whom he had married in 1891., after the death of Harriett.* It receivid a warm reception from the
press but lacked advertizers, which led to serious financial problems and sudden closure after
only two years of publication. Straus suggests that its inception was largely Bessie's idea as she
fancied herself as a budding journalist. Initially she took the responsibiity of management with
GAS supplying much of the copy. He soon found it very difficult to keep up withihe demand,
since he still had his responsibilities to the DT and ILN, and was in the throeJ of writing his two
autobiographical works, Life andAdvenrures andThings I Have Seen and People I Have Known.
204 205

See Straus 269-276 for the "rather sorry story of Salc's Journal." The end of GAS's life was
madc morc difficult, not easier, by the advent of the weekly twopenny periodical he envisages in
this lctter. Straus intimates that the socially ambitious Bessie worked her ailing husband to
dcath,
8. Bow Bel/s, November 1862-1887, one of the more popular family weeklies; proprietor John
Dicks (9n22). GAS began his association with Dicks, one of the pioneers of the cheap reprint,
towards the end of 1867 when he was commissioned to contribute to Bow Bells Christmas
Annual (Straus L86). "The Good Young Man" must have been for the 1877 Christmas number,
as there is nothing by GAS in 1.878 Bow Bells Annual. Unfortunately the 1877 issue is missing
from the British Library; allegedly destroyed by WW2 bombing. The British Museum catalogue
lists more of GAS's contributionstoBow BellsAnnual: "Dead Men Tell No Tales; But Live Men
Do" (L884), 'Mrs. General Mucklestrap's Four Tall Daughters" (1887), "Right Round the World,
with some stories I found on it" (1887), "Not A Friend in the World" (1890). John Dicks also
published Stories with a Vengeance, by G.A. Sala and others (1883).
9. "Machine waiting" could mean the caniage which will take his proof to the printer, or perhaps
the printing machine itself. Note it is used like a refrain throughout letter.
tO. Mirth,L-lZz L877-tW9, published by Tinsley.
11. "Bryant and another v Herbert," a court case in which the plaintiffs sought to recover
possession of a painting they claimed was wrongfully detained by Herbert, a member of the
Royal Academy to whom it was attributed. Herbert, denying authorship, refused to return it until
he had discovered the identity of the forger (Times 20 December:I1.2).
12. Yates was no stranger to libel suits since the World made a feature of printing gossip and
personal attacks on newsworthy identities. [n April 1884 he was sentenced to four month's jail
when, as editor, he accepted responsibility for a libellous article by an unnamed member of his
staff about a supposed indiscretion of the Earl of Lonsdale with a young woman. An
unsuccessful appeal saw Yates imprisoned in Holloway jail on 16 January 1885. He was
released in two months on grounds of ill-health (Edwards 7-8).
L3. His feature column in the lllustrated London News, now at the height of its popularity: a
series of weekly digressions on almost everything, eliciting enormous public interest and
resPonse:
"A great army of conespondents, hailing from every quarter of the globe, and
belonging to all ranks and conditions of society - from noblemen and fine
ladies to paupen and ticket-of-leave men; from reverend divines and grave
archaeologists to school-boys and school-girls; from general officers to
hospital orderlies; from physicians to undertakers; from mad-doctors to madfolk
. . . besiege me with questions on almost every imaginable question, and
importune me to answer them forthwith. Very often the reply leads to
contradiction, and frequently a colloquy drifts into a controversy. we have
fierce bouts about the derivation of a word or its orthography; about the origin
of an anecdote; about the authorship of a book or a poem; about the history of
a picture , a statue, or a print. (Echoes of 1883 iv-v)
The "Echoes" were perhaps what GAS was most famous for, not suprisingly, since as
mind had a habit of wandering digressing was what he did best. He admits that his audience
taught him almost as much as he taught them. The whole thing became self perpetuating, for in
order to satisfy his own curiosity, and that of others, he accumulated "a large library on all kinds
206
of out-of-the-way subjects" which provided him with plenty of ammunition for all his writing.
His whole oeuvre had an overtly intertextual basis, that initially sprang from a sort of eclectic
compulsion, but had the bonus of serving necessity, for in order to maintain the journalistic pace
outlined in this letter he needed to have plenty of ideas at hand.
14. I.e., the proof readers. Funky comes from funk, fear or panic (OED). Thus the readers of the
Bow Bell proofs must have been thrown into a state of panic about French words in their copy.
1.5. Anew, again.
16. Heinrich Schliemann (I822-L8n), German archaeologist, excavator of Mycenae and Troy.
He was an accomplished linguist with a knowledge of the principal modern and ancient
European languages. He was also a merchant and businessman, which must account for the
"sanded sugar and mouldy figs." Yates did not agree with GAS's opinion of the effectiveness of
Schleimann's system of language study . ln 'What the World Says" L9 December 1877: 1,4
(week before this letter), he accused GAS of giving "the authority of his great name to the wild
theories of Dr Schliemann."
L7. Weissnichtvo = "Don't/knoVwhere," borrowed from C.arlyle'sSartor Resartus.
1.8. Senor Anselmo del Valle was a representative of the cigar-making firm Hija de Caban y
Carvajal, of Havana, Cuba. Their famous products are better known as simply Cabanas (Under
the Sun 86).
19. Holland's gin - and quite a swig. Although a gill is strictly a quarter pint measure,
colloquially it can mean half a pint (OED).
20. Frederick Beadon, a canon of Wells C-athedral, mentioned in "Echoes" ILN 22 December
18772 594, as having received congratulations from the Queen on his 1.00th birthday.
21. Old Chain Pier at Brighton, adjacent to the Brighton Aquarium.
22 loln Dicks (1818-1881); had one of the largest printing and publishing offices in England
and was a pioneer of the cheap reprint; proprietor of, amongst other journals, Reynold's
Newspaper (1850-1924) andBow Bells (Boase). See n8.
23. GAS had returned from his "Eastern War" assignment via the gaming tables of Nice and
Monte C.arlo in late Spring of L877 (Straus 225).
24. Dr Christopher Dresser (1834-1904), influential interior designer and important art critic in
the second half of the Victorian period; author of Principles of Decorative Design (1873). In one
of his uEcho' pars GAS includes him amongst famous designers like Edward Pugin (1834-
1,875), William Morris (L834-1896) and the firms of Minton, Copeland and Wedgwood, whom
he considers revolutionized "domestic art" in England (Echoes Lzl). A collection of domestic
objects designed by Dresser is held in the Australian National Gallery, Canbena.
25. An appropriate adjective from what we know of GAS's propensity to live beyond his means.
26. Pure surah. Surah is a tn'illed silk and would make an extremely opulent and expensive wall
covering.
27. Pier glass = a tall mirror; originally one fitted to fill up the place between two windows, or
over a chimney-piece (OED). Cleopatra's Needle was one of a pair of obelisks presented by
Egypt to Britain and the US around about this time. After some debate as to where it was to be
displayed it was erected on the Thames Embankment in 1878. The other stands in Central Park,
New York.
207

28. Three-pile carpets are those in which the loops of the pile-warp are formed by three threads,
thus producing a pile of treble thickness.
29. Jackson and Graham was a firm of furniturc makers with a shop at 84 Oxford St, well known
for the manufacture of the popular designs of E.W. Godwin, which were dubbed "Anglo-
Japanese" because they were an Englishman's personal interpretation of Japanese form.
"Japanism" was the trend in fashionable circles. Oriental art had been introduced to the British in
the lnternational Exhibition of 1862, and influential fabric and china designers made use of its
exotic appeal. Christopher Dresser (n24) had visited Japan on a study tour, and many of his
designs bear its influence. (Bridgeman 56, 114). GAS is tilting at contemporary vogues here,
but he was not loath to join in. As already seen, he was an inveterate collector of china and art, a
bibliophile, something of a food and drink snob, liked the best in cigars, and enjoyed
surroundings of sophistication and comfort.
30. Like paintings, a show of china in the parlour was a prerequisite to show off the wealth of a
successful Victorian household. "It is curious to the looker-on to notice how infinitely more
fashion has to do not only with the price of the china, but also with the amount of admiration
bestowed upon it" (from "China Mania," World 3 May, 1875: 19). D.G. Rossetti was a
compulsive collector of blue and white china. His friend and neighbour Whistler also fostered
the vogue by featuring oriental china in some of his paintings. Topical reference to Gladstone's
china collection can't be found.
31. James Hayday (1796-1872), innovative Iondon bookbinder who was the fint to bind books
so that they opened freely. He also introduced Turkish Moroccan instead of the harder straightgrained
leather. His name added twenty-five percent to the value of a book (Boase).
32. L35 Fleet St was the address of the DI from 1.860; it had first been located at 253 Strand
between St Clement Dane's Church and Temple Bar (where the I-aw Courts now stand). The
Telegraph "compound" in Fleet Street also comprized the buildings behind, known as
Peterborough C-ourt, once the site of the hostel for the Abbots of St Peterborough. GAS wryly
ponders on the bills he'll have to pay for his expensive renovations - and all the other bills that
are due to come his way, including the Christimas "boxes" to all those who think they have a
claim on his largesse, from his new home in Mecklenburgh Square to his office at theDI
33. Tennyson was a favourite butt of the World's sarcasm, but nothing about him can be found
around this time.
34. BoastoftheDZ
35. Warlike trumpet.
ILsT
Wednesday Night [23lanuary 1878]1
46 Mecklenburgh Square
My dear Edmund,
Be the anecdote of a turfite2 in this week's "Atlas" who had got a "Rubens out of a
Michelangelo". There is reall!, in the National Gallery a picture (the colossal "Raising of
l-azarus") which, according to tradition, is by FUaStianq del Piombi3 out of Michelangelo.4
Sebastiano came to Rome to give Rafaelld[sic] "fits", his judicious bottleholder being
Michelangelo. Sebastiano was a mighty colourist, but was weak in the knees as regards drawing;
so Michelangelo drew in the figures for him and Seb. painted them. I do not know whether this
story is discredited in Wornum's,6 last Catalogue Raisonn6 of the N.G. but it is generally
believed abroad; and I have seen, over and over again, ltalian photos of the "IJzarus" attributed
!gg! simPlement to Michelangelo. Use this; but note that it was Sebastiano del Biggbe, not
Biomo. A compositor on the D.T. made me say the other day in a leader that Garrard's7 premises
in the Haymarket looked as firm as the Bay of Lundy - meaning Fundy-8 Perhaps lt *"s "
blundering proof reader who was thinking of his beloved Ilndyfoot snuff.9 A tobacconist tells
me that printer's readers, members of the Oriental Club and Masters in Chancery are the only
people left who snuffllndyfoot.
Have you seen that revolting advertisment in the "Times" Ovenvrought brain?l0 Two
ladies, forsooth! Advt. refers of course to our old scriptural and scholastic friend Onan.ll Did
too "IJne dame du monde seule, qui est retir6e i la campagne"? O Tempora, O
#rjtrb
By the way did you ever read the address to the reader in the first logotyped no of that
joumal ? January 1 178--. It is a pure piece of comic capy full of atrocious puns. It would
makg Sreat sport if you quoted it ig extenso and gravely advised the present P.H.S.13 gang to
take it as a model for actual leader writing.
Did I scent the rare "wood violet" of the Hon F.L. in the Lord Wilton article?14 I read it
huniedly. Was there anything in it about the Wicked Earl's achievements as one of the founders
of the Royal Academy of Music which my mother used to call "The tail of Wilton's Harem by
Hanover Square". Catechism on Sunday evenings in Tinterden St was t believe truly edifying.
What rummy world this is. If-you file the Times look for advertisement (Monday, I
lhink)
of the maniagg of a young ladyls who loftily records that she is rhe grand daughtei of
Don Manuel Godoyro Field Marshall, Prince of the Beau, g;andee of Spain and all the rest of it.
One might as well brag of being descended from George lord Jefferies Viscount Flint and Baron
of Wem.r I Godoy was one of the vilest miscreants that ever lived, the paramour of the wife of
Charles [V of Spain, the betrayer of his country and the prime cause of the Peninsular War. The
old wretch lived to be nearly ninety. My late friend Don Eustaquio BarronlS of Mexico found
him very hard up in Paris, and was kind to him in his last days.
G.A.S.
My wife is ill again. Iaryngitis and inflammation, and I am barking with bronchitis.
1. Wednesday 23 January L878, week first "turfite" par appeared in Yatesis twhut the World
Knows" column. Following Wednesday 30 January 1878 a conection appeared that quoted
GAS's words here almost verbatim.
2. Turfite = horse-racing character, presented in Yates's 23 January par as "a gentleman of
sporting proclivities . . . taken to the collecting of pictures." Point of the inecdote iJ to make fun
of such "art lovers." The "turfite's" sole reason for purchasing a "certain florid oil-painting of
unusual dimensions" is because of its pedigree - "by Rubens out of Michael Angelo."
3. Sebastian de Piombo (1,485-L547),Italian painter; worked in Rome with Michelangelo from
1510; reputedly painted the Raising of I:zurus in 1519 (Chambers).
4. Michelangelo, properly Michelagniolo di l-odovico Buonarroti (1425-1564), Italian sculptor,
painter and poet.
5. Raphael, properly Raffaello Santi or Sanzio (1,483-Lsz0), Italian painter.
6. Ralph Nicholson Wornum (L812-1,877), English art critic; from 1853 keeper and secretary of
the National Gallery; rearranged and catalogued the entire collection.
7. Refers to story about Ganard's the silversmiths premises nearly being laid low by the collapse
of a new six-story building on the north side of Panton street. They escaped damage because
208 209

they were "built firm as the Bay of [,undy" (D? Monday 2L lanuary 1878: 6. 3). Context of next
note seems to question just how firm the Bay of Fundy was.
8. The Bay of Fundy is an Atlantic Ocean inlet approximately 161 kilometres long in southeast
Canada between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, noted for its treacherous currents and
high tides.
9. A brand of snuff; named after Ilndy Foot a Dublin tobacconist (SOD).
10. "Over-Wrought Brain. - TWo ladies, of successful experience, Receive Young Boys
suffering from undue excitability of temperament to Board and Educate. High-class references.
Locality Malvern - X,Y,Z. 146, Leadenhall-street, E.C. (Times 23 January 1378).
1.1.. "Our old friend Onan" is GAS's rather coy of way saying masturbation. Onan has already
appeared in 71,n8.
L2. "A single lady who had retired to the country." This ad cannot be found. GAS must have
perused the Times advertisments for "Echo" pars. The two mentioned are obviously not suitable
for IW copy, but he can't resist pointing out their risqu6 connotations and commenting, tonguein-cheek,
from Cicero: "What times! What morals!"
13. P.H.S. - hinting House Sguare, the address of the Times. The area is historically linked
with printing, former nnmes were "Printing House Yard' (1740) and "Printers Square" (1799)
(Harben).
14. "Celebrities at Home," 74 in the series, "The Earl of Wilton at Egerton Lodge" (World L6
January 1878: 4). The Earl is "lauded" mainly for his horsemanship, although the mixture of
music, religion and amour that GAS suggests does get a mention in a description of "the gamut
of his heterogeneous characteristics as they appeared . . . in 1,838" (about the time GAS's mother
would have known him): "Fox-hunter, race-rider, Inthario, psalm-singer, composer of sacred
music, and organist." These are nicely summed up in a little ditty composed by Charles Sheridan
when Wilton was 39:
Next, upon switch-tailed bay, with wandering eye,
Attenuated Wilton canten by.
His character how difficult to know!
A compound of psalm-tunes and tallyho;
A forward rider, half inclined to preach,
Though less disposed to practise than to teach;
An amorous lover with a saintly twist,
And now a jockey, now an organist.
The rare "wood violet" could relate to either Iady Violet Greville or Violet Fane
(pseudonym of poet Mary Montgomerie Singleton [1843-1905]), both contributors to theWorld.
However, initials F.L. don't fit either of them.
15. The "Young lady" was "Her Serene Highness the hincess Marie Louise de l,ooz-
Corswarem, youngest daughter of the Prince Godoy of Bassano, and grand-daughter of H.S.H.
the Field-Marshall the hince de la Paz, Duke de Alcadia, Grandee of Spain, etc." The lucky
man win Major F. Ignacio Ricarde-Seaver, FRS Fdiin(Times 2L January 1878:1 .1).
16. Manuel de Godoy, Duke of Alcudia(1767-t851), Spanish statesman; he became Charles 4's
favourite and was made prime minister in 1792. However his handling of home economics and
foreign policy led Spain into a series of disasters culminating in Napoleon's invasion in 1808,
?to
when Charles was forced to abdicate in favour of his brother, and Godoy dismissed. Napoleon
deposed the new king, Ferdinand 7, and proposed his brother Joseph in his stead, thus sparking
off the Peninsular War, which contributed to the French emperor's defeat in Europe at Waterloo
by British troops under the Duke of Wellington.
1.7. George "infamous" Jeffreys, (1648-1689), first Baron Jeffreys of Wem, English judge (his
family name has been spelled in nine different ways). A self interested lawyer, from puritan
background, who intrigued his way into James 7 court to become chief justice of King's Bench in
1683, and two years later Inrd Chancellor and a peer of the realm. He supported James in his
determination to overthrow the constitution and to reinstall tho Catholic faith in England. He
presided over the "bloody assizes," where hundreds of protestant champion Monmouth's
supporters were whipped, hanged and deported, after being defeated in battle against the king.
He died in the Tower of London when he failed in his attempt to follow James's flight from
England in the wake of the political uprising that installed protestant William of Orange as king
in L688 (DNB).
18. A Mexican friend, mentioned in Under the Sun as a travelling companion in Havana during
GAS's visit to South America on his first American trip in 1863/4 (36).
11381
[Pasted on left side of notepaper is a newspaper cutting which reads:]
.'"#!,1,"i5i"n,.",.
Saturday, November 17.1
[after2I January before 20 February L878]
The celebration of His Majesty's birth-day yesterday, was carried out with
spirit. Salutes were fired at sunrise, noon and sunset; the Regatta was a success,
witnessed by thousands; the Ball at the Hawaiian Hotel, (which shone in its
refittings) was attended by the elite of. Honolulu. Their Majesties the King2 and
Queen, the HeirApparent, and H.R.H. the Princess Likelike.
[Beside the above GAS writes:]
Honolulu. November 1717il
This should suggest a par.3 I'll send you a very nutty one tomorrow, about an aristocratic
amateur pantomime given by the [?"Pic Nics"] in 1802.
I received this paper from my brother Albert,4 formerly a Pirate - now a Missionary, and
doing very nicely, under the patronage of the Inrd Bishop of Honolulu, with an indigenous
young lady (his third or fourth wife) named (in the Hawaian tongue) "House-on-fire."
One would like to know what the Princess Likelike is like.
Ask Lord Pembroke.5
Did you see that Messrs Beyfus were :rmong the recent subscribers to the Turkish
C.ompassionate Fund?6
What lg the secret of the Jew conspiracy to [?befriend] the Turk?7 They tell me even that
Cowen of Newcastle who so eloquently ratted t'other day to the To4es is a Jew. Joseph Cowen -
Joe Cohen - it looks very like it.8 By the way, are you a Tory yet?9 Most of my friends seem to
have gone or to be going that way; and I am nearly the last consistent Radical left on the press.
There'll !g such Aiglly Liberal reaction some {q[ these days]. I can remember the Conservative
z[l

Reaction (Peel's) in 184! as though it were yesterday, and what did it end in? The repeal of the
C.orn I-aws in'43 1sic1,10 and the smash up of real true blue Toryism for ever. The present article
is only a milk and [?mercy] imitation.
1.. This MS has no addressee and is not signed. [t is also on blue paper of unusually large size
compared to rest of letters, so is probably an enclosure. Date could be around middle of February
L878 as Yates followed up GAS's remarks about Joseph C;owen (Cohen) in WTWS par on 20
February (n7); or it could be earlier, in January, when Messrs Beyfus'(n6) contribution to the
Turkish Benevolent Fund appeared in DI This would fit in with November dating of the
newspapq cutting since its passage from Hawaii would presumably have taken some months.
2. King David I aamea Kalakaua. GAS was to visit him later, in 1885 on his way to Australia
and New TnaLand for a lecture tour. His friend Baroness Burdett-Coutts*, who had entertained
the king in England, provided him with a letter of introduction. "I found his Majesty a stalwart
and well-built gentleman, with an intelligent expression of countenance, and speaking excellent
English" (Life 712).
3. Neither of these pars can be found.
4. Albert certainly got around. Iast time we heard of him (letter 64) as "my brother the
buccaneer," a sugar planter in Demerara, Guiana, West lndies.
5. George Herbert 13th Earl of Pembroke (1850-?). After leaving Eton he spent four years
travelling among the South Sea islands including New Zealand and Hawaii. He wrote a book in
collaboration with G.H. Kingsley (doctor brother of Charles), about his adventures called South
Sea Bubbles by the Earl and the Doctor (1873) He was featured in 'Portraits in Oil" series
World 7 April 1875:4-5.
6. Messrs Beyfus recorded as having contributed to the Turkish Compassionate Fund in the DT
21 January 1878. The Fund was organized by lady Burdett-Coutts, the philanthropic heir to the
enormous fortune of banker Thomas Coutts, to distribute relief to refugees from the Eastern war.
Its growing list of subscribers was regularly posted in the Telegraph. [t was the Messrs Beyfus
and Boss who had unsuccessfully taken theWorld to court in 1874 for defamation (127n4), over
a "City" column that classed them, "with other West-end usurers," of lending money at
"extortionate and ruinous rates" (World 10 February 1875:3.2).
7. ^I\e Jews were associated with the championing of the Turks in the hostilities between Russia
and Turkey begun in L876 (125n1). T\e DT, with its Jewish proprietors, had become vociferous
in its support of Disraeli's policies in favour of intervening on Turkey's behalf. At the beginning
of L878 Turkey, failing under Russia's force of arms, requested English mediation in peace
negotiations, and the British fleet was ordered to C-onstantinople. Cynics conectly interpreted
this as a pragmatic ploy to establish a British presence in the Meditenanean, and so protect its
eastern shipping lanes from Russian encroachment (144n5). Gladstone, who always favoured
domestic policy over Disraeli's imperialistic ambitions, opposed the move on the glounds that it
could develop into a full-scale conflict with Russia which would threaten the resolution of
pressing matters at home, and also because he thought it wrong that Britain should supPort a
heathen (i.e., Muslim) against a Christian Power.
In the public mind the whole affair, fuelled by the press, became a political duel, with
Gladstone and Disraeli, the prime minister, the main protagonists. An overview of. World
editorial policy towards the DT shows some confusion as the Telegraph, a long-time supPorter
of the liberal Gladstone, changed sides in midstream. Comment from the World tumed full circle
as its initial praise of the Dls refusal to paint the Turks as "bogeys" (October 1,876, see l27nl)
2r2
changed to condemnation of its growing jingoistic approach. Articles such as "The Genesis of
Jingo" (World 31 July 1878) also reflect GAS's cynical attitude to such pragmatic patriotism, as
shown in the next few letters. It describes the "new Imperialism" that thrives on ambition, vested
interest, social convention and ignorance; a pragmatic patriotism "the best substitute for genuine
and disinterested patriotism of which these evil times admit." Although \\e World saw through
Disraeli's jingoistic motives it never really supported Gladstone, becoming, in fact, increasingly
imperialistic and anti-Gladstone (chiefly over his kish home rule policy). A par in WTWS 11
December 1878: 10, sums up the ambivalence of the DIs political hue as it puzzles over which
camp proprietor Edward Levy-lawson will support in his stand for parliamentary canditature: "a
warm suPporter of Lord Beaconsfield's most autocratic measures . . . a professed Liberal, he has
used the powerful resources at his command for the furtherance of extreme Tory views, and for
the annihilation of the ex-Liberal leader [Gladstone], by whom the political status of the Daily
Telegraph was virtually created."
8. Joseph Cowen was M.P. for Newcastle, known as a "leading radical" and "republican"
("Celebrities at Home," World 1 October L879:4). He was immensely rich owing brickworks
and large collieries, and lived like a lord on a thousand acres of land at "stella Hall," an historic
mansion on the river Tyne. He was also the proprietor of the Newcastle Chronicle (World ll
October 1875: 13). Yates used GAS's remarks about Cowen almost verbatim in WTWS 20
February 1878: L2):
A friend of mine, who, like all wise men, is a monomaniac on certain subjects,
occupies himself in hacing out a Hebraic origin for all philo-Turks. "That was
a pretty speech the other night by the member for Newcastle," he said to me. "A
Jew, sir - a Jew! Joe Cowen, indeed! Joseph Cohen, really! A Jew, sir - a
Jew!"
The fact that Cowen had "ratted" (gone over to) the Tories was significant in the politics
of the "Eastern Question." As an electorate Newcastle represented the heart of English
industrialism and the pmgmatic liberalism that sustained it. However, in the growing 'Jingoistic"
climate, Gladstone's refusal to sanction hostilities against Russia began to be seen, even by many
liberals, as misplaced humanitarianism and lack of patriotism. ln his speech (11 February 1878)
Cowen urged a non partisan approach: "when national interests are at stake we ought to forget
whether we are Whigs, Radicals or Conservatives,and remember only that we werc Englishmen.
(Cheen.)" He concluded by intimating that the Liberals, by refusing to back the Turks against
the encroaching Russians were being "antagonistic to liberty, opposed to peace, and certainly,
hostile to progress. (Inud applause and prolonged cheers.)" (DT L2 February lgTs)
9. Not until late 1880s. From mid 1870s imperialism became the great political divide, and
Yates was hostile to the Gladstoniary'liberal anti-imperialism, siding with Joseph Chamberlain,
Charles Dilke, and other such Liberal Imperialists or Liberal Unionists (as they later came to be
called). GAS stood on an anti-Gladstone ticket when he decided to stand as a candidate in the
L880 elections (162n2).
10. It was actually 1846.
213

t1391
Jewish Blood in the British aristocracy - Rosebery - Rothschild.l
Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk, Duke of St Albans
married July 9 1788
a Miss McgS:
issue, a daughtffi manied Inrd Deerhu$t
unyt-hiog known about Mis's Moses?
Sh! If one only had a set of the "Rambler's Magazine"2l
P.S. (The Mosaic Duchess died; and A.d V.B manied en secondes
Dysart family.
I say: what a wonderful Thackerayian Essay: -
"&llswl,fu!Eiyes'4
""*d
a swell woman of the
1. This communication has no address, addressee, date or signature. It is on a single sheet of
notepaper that has probably been torn away from the other half that formed GAS's usual doubled
sheets. Its date is probably just before 13 March 1878 as the World of that date adds this
information to a par in WTWS about English aristocrats who had married Jewish women. [,ord
Rosebery was to marry American heiress Hannah de Rothschild on Wednesday 20 March. The
World issue of that day featured him in its 'Celebrities at Home" article (4).
2. Perhaps The Rambler, a twice-weekly periodical in 208 numbers issued by Samuel Johnson
from 20 March 1,750 to 14 March 1752; but the "high moral" tone that Johnson insisted upon
doesn't quite fit in with GAS's flippancy here. Answer could lie in one of the pirated or imitated
versions of the magazine that were produced to cash in on its popularity (ocEL).
3. By a second marriage
4. Thackeray wrote series for Fraser's Magazine called "Men's Wives" (March-November,
1843).
t140I
Saturday 22 March [1878] 1
Mecklenburgh Square
(a lying Square: it has but three sides)2
My dearEdmund,
I have simultaneously advertised the "world" and Keith Johnson's [sic] 3 "Africa" in an
Echo this week.4 I hope K.J. will send me a copy of liE Atlas. You must havJ been thinking of
that memorable endorsement to council's brief in the lndian crim c-on: cuseS, -
"The Lady prefen'd Captain Tucker
To Mr Commissioner Grant,
Because C-aptain Tucker can ---- her,
And ![ Commissioner gab[.'
Did you read in Bunch a soapy slavering par: about Hain Friswell6 and his connection
with the "Family Herald"?'/ Do you know the gist and purport of that par? tf you do'nt I will tell
you. The Family Herald, these many years past, has been printed by the Bradbury and Evans,
Agnew firm.d If you use this take care to look at the imprint of the last no of the F.H. to make
!ure. It is just possible that B. & A. may have lost the printing of the Herald and are soaping
Stevensy to get it back again.
r
1'
\
{
I
The weather begins to look promising. I have had a most honible winter: but I never tell
people how ill I am. I was ebligtgg! to apologise to my t.L.N. constituency (mainly parsons and
old maids) as, the week of non appearance of the Echoes, there came about 150 letters to know
what was the matter.lO
always yours
G.A.S.
P.S. I've just sent out for the last no of the 'Family Herald". tt jg printed by Bradbury & Agnew.
Artful Tumtaler.ll
Brougtraml2 was not the inventor of the term "Fourth Estate" as applied to our lovely
profession. It was Hazlitt who, in the "Spirit of the Age" says of William Cnbbett "He is a kind
of fourth Estate in the politics of the country'.l3
1.. Year justified by publication date of Johnson's book, and par regarding Captain Tucker in
I{orld, see below ns.3, 4.
2. True. Coram's Fields occupy the fourth side.
3. (Alexander) Keith Johnston (1844-1879), geographer and traveller. He was appointed leader
of a Royal Geographical Society expedition to East Africa in L879, and died there on 28 June,
three months after this letter. HiS Atlas referred to as opposed to Yates's Atlas, nom-de-plume
for "What the World Says." Johnston's work was part of the Stanford's Compendium of
Geography and Travel. . . based on Hellewald's Die Erde und ihre Vdlker. Translated (and with
ethnological appendix) by A.H. Keane. (Africa, Edited and extended by Keith Johnston. Central
America, the West Indies, and South America. Edited and extended by H.W. Bates. Australasia.
Edited and extended by A.R. Wallace, etc.)
4. ILN 23 March L878: 267. This par also points out a mistake "by my stalwart friend 'Atlas' in
theWorld, who mentions this week (WT\ilS 20 March: L1,) that Mr Stanley* is not the first white
man who has explored the Congo; but that an Englishman - Captain Tucker - did so years ago.
No, my'Atlas' . . . the name of the Englishman . . . was C-aptain Tuckey." (GAS is quite right; the
Encyclopedia Britannica [9th edition: 268] names J.K. Tuckey, R.N., as commander of an 1816
British expedition to examine the course of the Congo).
5. Crim Con: Case = Criminal conversation - necessary prelude to a divorce case to prove
adultery under old divorce law. GAS can't resist the opportunity to air a ditty which was
probably a commonplace of bawdy male conversation. Henry Silver's diary records Shirley
Brooks quoting it at the Punch table on 26 January 1859. Captain Tucker, whose name rhymes
so conveniently here, must refer to Henry St George Tucker (1771-1851), an anglo-Indian
financier and director of the East India C-ompany (1826). Tucker's early career in India included
a stint as captain of a cavalry srps, and six month's imprisonment for rape in C-alcutta in 1806
(DNB). BM Cat lists Tfte Trial of H. St G. Tuckcr Esq., for the assault with intent to commit rape
on the person of Mrs D. Simpson: held in the Supreme Court of Judicaure at Ford Wlliam, in
Bengal. Iondon, 1810.
6. Punch 23 March 1878: 1.31., which pointed out that Friswell deserved to be acknowledged as
the anonymous conductor ot the Family Herald's "Answers to Correspondents" column: "It is
easy to laugh such a function to scom, but those who know to what hosts of humble homes that
Herald sends its messages, and how much good, or bad influence hangs on the spirit in which
those messages arc spoken, will understand that Hain Friswell's work was not of the kind that it
is seemly or sensible to p:lss by slightingly." Friswell had died on 1.2 March of a ruptured blood
vessel. GAS had pointed the bone - or rather the knife - at him in letter 89. His own brief
2t4 2t5

,,Echoes,, obituary par of 16 March mentions Friswell without rancour. As already noted (89n6)
wittiam Tinsrey, and presumabry many otii"o, that the. ribel action against Friswell
"onridered
was ill-considered, if not downrigtt cruJ rn fact it could be said that Friswell was ruined in
order to pay off some of GAS's debts'
7 . FamiIY Herald, 1842-1900+'
8 Pubtishing firm originally known as Bradbury and Evansf ' started in 1830 by william
Bradbury (1?99-1869), and Frederi* guans' h iAOS they became associated with art dealers
the House of Agnew and were incorportea into Bradbury, Evans & co' In 1872 FrederiCk
Evans,s son F.M. nvans left the firm, which then became know as Bradbury' Agnew and
C";;;y (I'ondon Publisher s 23, Bjce 37 0)'
g.Williamstevens(1807-1887),ProPrietorandpublisheroftheFamilyHeraldfroml'858until
his death (Boase).
10',,Fchoes,,ILN1'6March1878:243:.,TWoancientandintimateenemiesofmine,named
bronchitis and asthma, grasped me awhile ui ttt" throat; and while I was struggling and gasPlng
ii nWrrot"d LondonNer'r's went to press'"
].1'.Tumtaler=TomTaylor*,editorofPunch(1874-1879).
12. Henry Peter Brougham, Balon Brorlgham d tTi.gl:::l-1t% *];ffi};:
A1"TH ijll6r_Eiffij *;;^;iL*";
(1802).
13. GAS quite right, see 4n6'
one or thi rounders or the Edinbursh
t14U Tuesday night 16 APril I
46 Makebelieve
MY dear Edmund'I,
i, course u clocher not a cbsg aux cloches!' You must have
"
go.ring]oiiil" par" musi have been sent you bv an oirishman'
SaDS,u guf
"t"i""i! go,pg dlt Su*iofZ Th"t" more eleven thousand roomg
"t:10
the vatican, than thffi Ete'en Trouill-virgins at cologne. But that will give mc
"*no"'uo,n
those jokes in Bunc# are obviously prigged from Hood'ss lrish schoolmaster
trung ouside his sheebeen pt"t-a with "ebjl&gg.q3,t1 !o-*]-.,- huns ousloenrT::tT;:
" .^ the
^r
world o
ffi;;'; ir.,:r.ry:il-tr'" p"ffi*utt no of the world of
Grande Dame in Belgrave Square,- -9 ,*
the woodcrowned Height".
fuOi"r apptau{i1q when the news arrived of I
Derby's resignation?"fl;;; u"i t-iv that r entert5tl*t:i"$ "-t:"3t::t'"*Hiffi?:ti
ii1ffifJ',ffiTi','t-"'"ning in 6""ttio", iwas dining in.B'Sq - sav at the estimable
windermere,r., rn" i*t pi"J"t *ur sto;ing.. It *":li"9i1YT^TI:]1?"T*T:
I*::ffiTf; d;?;'#;;iid r'"' r'-?' was the countess of speakapiece sle
spoutington. so"i"tiii"-'-," JJ"io*i1,.*"r'in9 :l^t3jl:T*:T,":"':I""3IJ:Tri
ifJil?ilil;-i;;'i" process or time trrey may iet io "casa wappv", or "Now stood
216
* | *
[I-arge scction, about half a page, has been cut away]
Does AlexanderBaltazziS mean to run a horse called Graculus Bramalis?
yours bronchiticaily
'tlttus
the wild oat
G'A'S'
Did not the recent Miss Henradel0 marry a Greek?
I lgp" you are going to a dinner to which I am asked and mean to go 1astTla"ffi
obstantg)rr next Monday. It is really a wonderhrl house in the way of d6cors; andlhe4 "'
uafitelZis good.
Why are thJ little men all such tremendous "Jingoes"?l3
Little Alfred Austinl4
Little Tommy Bowles
Little Edward l:wson
ls it because the little men have high and
Little Edwin Arnold
valorous stomachs. Much more Bark will cotn
Little Freddy Greenwood
me out of the tiniest Maltesel5 than out of.tbe
Little Mr Layard
biggest Newfoundland.
Little Sir H. Elliot
Little Lord Dunraven
I do'nt know the stature of Lieutenant Armpit R.A.16
stccple-chase (OFD). WTWS par is about the racing prowess of the 7th Hussar regltil,- N.n.
Baldoyle racecourse Dublin. It begins: uWve les chasses aux cloches! Vive la cavalrio.., iuu"
Date of this letter is Tuesday 16 April, theWorld came out on Wednesdays, so GAS rntr"'
got early delivery.
2. GAS throwing his own version of blasphemous cu$es around - Blood of Brumanti! (Italian
Rcnaissance architect), Body of Sanzio! (Italian painter Raphael).
.1. This is what provoked his curses of mock honor. Relates to another WTWS par in *4:j1?::
nri nl, which mentions that Pope I-eo 13 plans to organize an exhibition around the tapest}'-nrc
"hanging on the walls of many of the eleven thousand rooms of the Vatican."
4, Bunchwas a satiric name forPuncft used by the laorL. Nickname BUN-CHproUuUf /,!jljtf
rrrigin in that other very successful attack on Punch in November L847 by Alfred Egnn \"^;;-Ji
At this time of this letter Yates, in WTWS, was regularly featuring examples of Punch'9.1?". ,"
rrriginality under thc editorship of Tom Taylor (Tumtaler), by juxtaposing old and "new" )ZZ-,"|i.
rhow their similarity. kish jokes mentioned here are a case in point (llorld 17 April I?,iZ "r",
l), Note that these ggg "Irish" jokes, so be prepared for a lot of confusion, which also splrr". '
lntrr GAS's letter. Following definitions may help you to "get" the point both in Hood's PZn tn"
ln quotes from the World below. Shebeen = sly gFog shop. Bate = soak or steep, i.t.,5ii o
Ftrposc of fomenting. Bait = to feed a horse on a journey. Very important: take Irish u"?")'-*^"
tccrlunt, humour turns on confusion between bait/bate/beat all being pronounced in tF" -wry'
It will not do, Tumtaler - it will not do. It is not quite the same thing,
it is uncommonly like it. We do not mind your baits, but your
rebates are past a joke.
2t7

February 27,L875
Refreshment for Man and Beast
April13,1878
Not Quite the Same Thing
Traveller in lreland, who has been into a Merciful Traveller. Your little horse has
shebeen. But are you not going to bait been going very well. When do you bait
the horse? him?
Pat. [s it bate him? Sure and didn't I Ah, sure it's been a purty livel road, sor;
bate him enough coming along? but we'll have to bate him going up
Sloggin Derry Hill, sor. 'i
5. Thomas Hood (L799-1845), poet and humorist ; noted for his puns. Quote GAS mentionsi
comes from the third stanza of Hood's poem "The Irish Schoolmaster". Apropos of comic
papers, in 1865 Hood's son Tom became eaitor of Fun, a humorous and satiricllluitrated penny,
paper (Escott Masters 271).
6. Edward Henry Smith Stanley, L5th Earl of Derby (1826-1893), Disraeli's foreign minister at
the time. He resigned office on 28 March, in protest after the government decided to call out the
reserves and occupy Cyprus, and was suceeded by the more militant Lord Salisbury. The story
of the Grande Dame in Belgrave Square appeared in WTWS (World 10 April 1878: 11). GAS's
little fantasy here (emanating from aptly titled "Makebelieve Square," note address at head)
conflates this par with "Poets and Patriotism," another feature in the same issue (7). The first par
focusses on the only person in Belgrave Square, who did not join in the general glee at Lord
Derby's resignation , a solitary poet (the grande dame and her guests were typical of the Tory
"jingoes" elaborated below ), who takes pride in being in the minority, "and whenever I am in the
minority, I generally find myself in the right," thus intimating that Yates, since he accepted
responsibility for WTWS, agrces with his stance against the growing pro-war nationalistic
fervour. The second, continuing in the same vein, uses the idea of the poet as social conscience
to ask why only one poet has had the courage and good judgement to resist the impulse towards
jingoism - laureate-to-be (1896) Alfred Austin*. Austin's sonnet "To England" [with some
apologies to Keats's ode 'To Autumn', surely?) is printed in same issue p10.
Men deemed thee fallen, did they? fallen like Rome,
Coiled into self to foil a Vandal throng:
Not wholly shom of strength, but vainly strong;
Weaned from thy fame by a too happy home,
Scanning the ridges of thy teeming loam,
Counting the flocks, humming thy harvest song,
Callous, because thyself secure, 'gainst wrong,
Behind the impassable fences of the foam!
The dupes! . . Thou dost but stand erect, and lo!
The nations cluster round; and while the horde
Of wolfish backs slouch homeward to their snow,
Thou, mid thy sheaves in peaceful sqnons stored,
Towerest supreme, victor without a blow,
Smilingly leaning on thy undrawn sword.
Although GAS doesn't directly mention this poem the tone of his letter suggests that he
didn't think much of Austin's "anti-war effort." He was probably thinking of this less than
successful piece of patriotic art as he had his bit of fun re Browning and Pindar, and the strange
'J
assortment of poetic "beauties" he offers up as an example of public "cultural" tastes. We could
have perhaps become further enlightened if someone (presumably Yates) hadn't excized the
crucial bit! What was cut out here? Perhaps a bawdy version of one of these poems. Along the
maryin beside this par is written "masonically incommunicable" suggesting that it is for Yates's
eyes only.
7. Lady Windermere can't be the character from Wilde's play as it was not produced until 1892.
It is possible that GAS based her on lVtrs Charles Skirrow (144n9), whom Frank Burnand
describes as "a most estimable hostess" of "a certain semi-literary society". He remembers
"occasions when, with Browning, Edmund Yates, George Sala . . . I dined at the house of the
hospitable Skirrows" Q:za! However, even if the Lady was fictional two of her guests are
identifiable; Robert Browning (1812-1889), named (with rather ineffectual overtones) in "Poets
and Patriotism" (World 10 April 1878: 7) as having done nothing more than to have
"condescended to acknowledge the existence of great European problems" by signing a protest
against the Russian restriction of navigation in and out of the Meditenanean; and Pindar (c.522-
443B;C), Greek lyric poet; most famous for his elevated and formal odes, which became popular
in lfth-century England with the revival of an interest in ancient Greek culture. Pindar's
favoured subject was the celebration of great victories; thus GAS likens the news of moderate
Lord Derby's Cabinet demize to a jingoistic victory worthy of Pindar's talents.
"C.asa Wappy" is maudlin poem about the death of a child by David McBeth Moir
(1798-1851), Scottish MD, poet and humorist, who contributed to Blaclcwood's Magazine under
the pseudonym of Delta. The poem can be found in A New Library of Poetry and Song (1877)
edited by William Cullen Bryant, where we are told that the words Casa Wappy represent "the
child's pet name, chosen by himself." "The boy stood on the buming deck" is the first line of
"C-asabianca," a popular poem of the period by Felicia Dorothea Hemans (1793-1835), again
consult Bryant's anthology. "Now stood Maria on the Woodcrowned Height" remains a mystery;
presumably like the other two it is a sentimental Victorian tearjerker.
8. Alexander Baltez.zi, must have been well-known in racing circles. WTWS mentions him as
having built "natty little Kisber I-odge" as part of the gentrification of Newmarket, where "almost
everybody now keeps house" (World 24 July 1878: 14. 2). If. Baltazzi was a Greek, the name
proposed for his horse sounds as though it could be really meant for him, since to the Romans
Graculus can be read as the disparaging "little Greek": thus "wintery little Greek."
9. C-an be translated as oats - this rarely used meaning fits in here. The Wild Oat probably refers
to a horse since the Dls racing column "Sporting Intelligence" mentions "the unbeaten son of
Wild Oats" (Wednesday 17 April 1878). Easter Friday was on L9 April, so Ascot and the Derby
were coming up. In the Spring an Englishman's fancy turns to . . . horse racing!
L0. The "recent Miss Henrade" can't be identified.
LL. Non obstante = notruithstanding.
12. Lafite, a type of French wine, usually spelt lafitte.
L3. Jingoes, like Jingoists, meaning supporte$ of a bellicose policy or blustering patriots; coined
in 1878, and originally applied to a supporter of Disraeli's "eastern" policy (OED). According to
GAS it was first coined by the Daily News in its heading "The Jingoes in Hyde Park," prefixed to
a letter from J.G. Holyoake complaining about the growing use of public parks as "political
bear-gardens" by vociferous "patriots." "A Jingo is a patriot who is continually fanning the
flame of his patriotism by repeating to himself the famous doggerel, 'We don't want to fight, but
2r8 2r9

y jingo if we do etc etc" ("Echoes" ILN 16 March 1878: 243). This was a verse from the
resounding "War Song of the Guards' Bands," a popular music hall song of the time:
We don't want to fight,
And by jingo, if we do
'We've got the men, we've got the ships
We've got the money too.
1.4. GAS believed that all these men were in favour of British involvement in the Russo-Turkish
War.
Alfred Austin; apart from writing blatantly patriotic verse, was a leader writer at this time
for the Evening Standard. [t is said that he was awarded the laureateship for his political
journalism rather than for his unexceptional poetry (Sutherland 34). Helen Gardner did not see
fit to include him in her edition of The New Oxford Book of English Verse (L972).
Thomas Gibson Bowles (I842-L922), conservative MP and joumal proprietor; he started
Vanity Fcdr (November 1868).
Edward Iawson; proprietor and editor-in-chief of the DT, certainly jingoistic at this
time.
Edwin Arnold'; editor of DT, with strong Eastem affiliations; it was largely due to his
influence that the paper transferred its political allegiance from Gladstone to Disraeli (DNB).
Frederick Greenwood; editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, dubbed by journalist and
biographer kslie Stephen, in 1,880, "the most thorough-going of Jingo newspapers" (qtd DnfB
under Greenwood).
"Mr" Henry I-ayardt became "Sir" two months later for his advocacy of Disraeli's
imperialistic views in Eastern Europe. In March 1877 he had been transferred to Constantinople
from his post as British Minister in Madrid, and it was his negotiations which secured Turkey's
agreement to British occupation of Cypnrs (Layard became its governor) with the signing of the
Cyprus Convention, 4 June 1878. His diplomatic dealings with Turkey raised controversy at
home, and he was accused of encouraging Turkey to prolong the war in the belief that England
would support her.
Sir Henry Elliot (1817-1907); British ambassador in C-onstantinople since 1867; like
Layard, who replaced him, he was accused of encouraging the Turks to resist peace demands in
the hope of English aid against Russia.
Wyndham Thomas Wyndham-Quin, 4th Earl of Dunraven (184-1926), lrish peer; as
I-ord Adare (name of his family home, Adare Manor) he had acted as DI conespondent in
Abyssinia and the Franco-Pnrssian War.
15. The tiny, but aggressive Maltese terrier does make much more noise when aroused than the
huge but ponderous Newfoundland.
16. GAS having fun with name of Mr Armit, chairman of the National Party. Report in DT
"England and the War/ Great demonstration in Hyde Park" (Monday 25 February 1878:3.2-5)
describes a Nationalist mob's stoning of Gladstone's house, after an assembly of the party in
Hyde Park (n13) under the chairmanship of "Lieutenant Armit.' Point is probably something to
do with phrase like'he didn't come up to my armpit," meaning he was small. Although adjective
"small" attributed to all these men could be about their minds, as well as their size. GAS had
recently made it clear in the "Echoesu that he was not in favour of the coercive politics of
jingoism: "[ have the misfortune not to be a "Jingo"; and just now, unless you a a Jingo, and a
very determined one into the bargain, you run the risk of having stones, mud, brickbats,
gingerbeer-bottles, and dead cats flung at you when you take your walks abroad, and of being
reviled by your friends and acquaintances in private life as a "Russian agent", a "sentimental
fanatic" (ILN L6 March: 21,3)
lr42l
[Saturday 20 April 1878]1
I wrote the Bargraves2 eleven years ago. If you have not read it Chap t wili make you
laugh. I wrote it for a Swindler who promised me €40 a week, but paid [?nort]. I-et me have it
back when you have glanced at it. Is Temple Goring3 devoted to the wonhip oi the Bull Apis?4
Envelope: On front, Iondon W /3 / April 20 / 78. Address: Prepaid. / Edmund Yates, Esq./
The Temple Goring / (By Reading ?) / Oxfordshire. / G.A. Sala.
On back, [? Reading] Ap 20 78. Outside flap is a black ink drawing of a Grecian temple,
the sort of thing that was fashionable in the gardens of country e_states at the time, with a bull
charging in front of it, and the motto Go Wheie Waits the Goring.S Flap was damaged by being
torn oPen.
# T-tdffP
-\
"',i{
I
i
i'
;.
t-l-
'. f.
ll
,.8
't
1. Dated from envelope. No letter accompanied it in collection; GAS's note above was written
under closure flap.
2. The Bargraves; ct Romance of Many Countries, serialized in Banter 1867-68. See 74n4,
where GAS is recorded as its conductor. Its editorial office, as stated by the paper itself, was at
183 Fleet Street. However the London P.O. Directory of the day shows that it actually was 182,
which was also (and more permanently) the address of a bookbinder called William Greening.
Perhaps he wx the swindler, though we can't be sure. Straus hints that a quanel with a firm of
paper-manufacturers caused GAS's withdrawal before the novel was completed (187).
3. Yates was holidaying at Temple Goriog summer L878. He kept going there until at least
1880, possibly 1883 (P.O. Directories). Goring is on the Thames above Pangbourne (and
Reading). "The Ternple" was the uame of the house that Yates rented there.
4. Pun on "Temple Goring" and accounts for illustration: Apis is an Egypian god, worshipped as
the incarnation of the sun-god Ptah in the shape of a bull.
5. Go, where glory waits thee;
But, while the flame elates thee,
O, still rememberme!
Thomas Moore, "Go Where Glory Waits Thee".
221

t143I
Saturday [29 June 1878]1
46 Makebelieve Square
My dearE,
Much better to pop it into the "Echoes". Advertisement for "Atlas" and the "World", and
a development of the controversy among my own correspondents.2 (Some of whom will not fail
to give me the lie direct.)
Much better not to put it in the "&Ild".3 The "Times" with sublime impudence has for
years carried out the principle of never acknowledging itself !g be !g error. It stated once in a
leading article that there were g million of convicts in England. I wrote privately to the Editor
that the average no of inmates of our convict prisons was 30.000, but the blunder was never
conected, and (of course) my letter was not even acknowledged. However I took it out of
Printing House Square subsequently first by telling the story to Robinson4 at lunch at the Reform
in the presenc€ of the Times-man whom I believe to have written the blundering leader (he
blushed of a deeper hue than that of my nose as I spoke) and next by beginning a leader in the
D.T. with "an absuld misstatement recently made by a contemporary".
Are you going to ask me to spend a day at the Temple Goring some Sunday (I often filch
a Sunday now) between this and going-to-Brighton time?
Did you spot me in the D.T. on the Hanover Funeral?) It was the merriest burying (bar
an Irish wake I ever saw). Tlvo or three spicy paragraphs of personal observations of the day will
be addressed to you at the uworld' office by Ii$! pas! gg Monday morning. will they be in
time?o I suppose you have someone in authority to open letters not marked "private". On the
other hand I authorise Mrs Sala to open all my letters that are marked "private". It saves me no
end of trouble; as the majority are sure to be shoved into "that [?best] of secretaries" the file,
without my having seen them, at all.
Joe Parkinson and the Iady Alicia (since Ironora d'Este, Vittoria Colonna and Madame
DacierT the most accomplished dame I have known) are going to lunch with us at the Midland
today. I tried hard to get an Earl for them; but he was engaged to Mrs Crabbe.
SO,
G.A.S.
1. Saturday after body of George 5 of Hanover, buried at Windsor (n5).
2. He did pop it into the "Echoes" (ILN 29 June 1879: 603). "It" refers to a rather pedantic
discussion of whether Atlas (Yates) could validly justify his spelling of premidres amours as
premiers amours, i.e., when the amours are those of a man. M.E. Braddon's letter to Yates,
published in the World,3 July 1878:10, resolved the problem by pointing out that "amours" (in
the plural) is always feminine. There was no doubt about it, Yates was wrong.
3. I.e., let the World be like the Times and not acknowledge its own mistakes. T\e World was
hardly in need of this advice since it often ignored its own mistakes while making a habit of
recording those of other papes, and their refusal to correct them, especially targeting the Times.
This criticism usually limited to WTWS, but also in longer features like "The Thunderer's
Blunders" (8 October 1879:7).
4. Editor of Daily News (72nll).
5. Report appeared in DT 25 June: 5. 6. GAS went down to Windsor for the burial service of
George 5 (1819-1878) last king of Hanover (first cousin of Queen Victoria), 24 June 1878.
George had lost his throne when he had backed the wrong side, Austria, during the Seven Weeks'
Jt',
War (1866), in which Prussia had been victorious; he died an exile in Paris, where his death was
marked by a grandiose funeral procession down the Champs Elysdes. Permission to bury him in
Hanover being denied, his body was finally laid to rest in the Royal vault of St George's Chapel,
Windsor, almost two weeks after his death on t2 June. GAS's "Echoes" (29 June 1878: 602)
report: "A special train at 9.40 a.m. whirled the mourners from Paddington to Windsor in fiveand-thirty
minutes; the mortuary rites barely occupied forty minutes more; by noon I was
comfortably lunching at the White Hart; and at 1.30 p.m. the train landed us safely at Paddington
terminus again. A rapid age."
6. These appeared in WTWS 3 July 1878: 11. There were five of them in sequence. The first
beginning: "The burial of King George 5 of Hanover in St George's chapel was, barring an kish
wake, about the drollest funeralfunctionlhave everwitnessed." Yates pretended he had been a
witness to the affair. Much of the material for his column was supplied by othen.
7. Can't find identity of kdy Alicia, but whoever she was she should have been very flattered to
have been compared to these three:
Eleonora D'Este (1537-1581); a famous beauty, descended Aom the noble Italian Este
family and French royalty; beloved of ltalian poet Tasso, who was incarcerated in the
Hospital of St. Anna because his daring to kiss her proved he was insane. She died of
melancholia soon after (Hale 307).
Vittoria Colonna (L490-1547), Italian poet, loved and admired by Michelangelo and
Ariosto; she was beautiful, talented and virtuous (93).
Anne Dacier (1651-1720); an extraordinarily learned French woman, who had been
educated in Greek and Iatin by her father, a professor. She became famous for her
translations and critiques of Greek and Roman classics, including Homer's lliad and Odyssey,
and the comedies of Aristophanes, Plautus and Tcrence (279).
ltul
Saturday [13 Juty 1878]1
46 Mecklenburgh Square
43. Portait de Miss Richards. H. H.'C-'|'UTY.
Appartient i T. Richards.
'*.:
>,4-_
O Henry Blackburn! Henry Blackburn!2 Why expose poor Miss
deficiencies?
My dear Edmund,
Saturdal' August Third. What train, whence about 4 or 5 p.m?3
223
a
Richards's intellectual

You are fortunate in being able to skedaddle to the Sabine Farm. The season has died
hard, and in its convulsive throes knocked over a good many people. The garden parties (I havg
been to three this week) have disseminated a goodly amount of bronchitis; and the dinners (I
have been to five) have propagated the gospel of Gout and Gilbey very nicely.4
I hear you go to church - in the Squire's pew. One of your enemies (we have all enemies)
asked apropos of this " Ehere does h9 pg! re lai!?') It is spiteful but not unwitty.
Mem: "Othello"o is full of much good matter for chaff about Cyprus and its Governor.
Note the "drowning" of the Turkish Fleet. "You are welcome Sir to Cyprus. Goats and
Monkeys!"/
ut*"tt'o.o.r.
P.S. I do'nt fancy the Club bullies, swindlers and "fancy men" liked that opening par in "what the
world says" much.8 But Mrs skinow9 (who is up to most things) wilt Iefu you g pgli!
comit6,ru something about the amatory commercial carryings on of young ladies in uppercrust
society that will astonish even yS.
1.. Saturday after WTWS par mentioned in post script above (World 10 July 1878: 10. 1).
2. Hewy Blackburn (1830-1897), a travel writer and art critic, who specialized in editions of
Academy notes and illustrated catalogues. Cf par in WTWK l4/orld 26 lune L8Z8: 140:
"lndefatigable Mr. Henry Blackburn has extended his domain to the other side of the Seine, and
has produced an admirable catalogue, illustrated by seventy engravings, of the English pictures
as rePresented in the Section des Beaux Arts of the Paris Exhibition." The accompanying
illustration is probably from that catalogue; assumption is that GAS has "doctored" it by cutting
it out in such a way that the caption from the picture above (that of the painting of the real Miss
Richards) looks as though it belongs to the picture of the donkey. The painting by Horace Henry
C-auty was exhibited at the Royal Academy inL877, its subject was "Nellie, daughter of R.p.
Richards" (Graves 1).
3. Sounds as though GAS may have scored an invitation to the "Sabine Farm" at Temple Goring,
see previous letter. Sabine here used to denote "rustic" charm away from the jaded sophistication
of the city.
4. Remarks here are a parody of a story in current Worl{ "Following the Gander" (7 August
1878: 9), which deals with the "last scenes of the Inndon season" and the ennui they engendei in
the "social set." This fits in with Sabine allusion.
5. Yates as the devil! He was probably at the height of his unpopularity, due to Eastern Question
editorial policies; neither side of politics would have found him appeating. He rubbished both
Disraeli and Gladstone, and their respective parties.
6. No production of. Othello can be found at this time. Perhaps GAS just referring to the play
generally, since it was set in Cyprus under Turkish naval attack, and as he suggests was fuil of
topical allusions that could be useful for some facetious pars in WTWS. Shakespeare's character
Montano, Govemor of Cyprus, being equated with present governor Austin Henry Layard.* The
theme of intrigue that suffuses it also makes the play an apt allusion for "Cyprus and its
govemor's" role in the secretive British diplomacy sunounding the "Eastern Question". (A notso-flattering
word portrait of Iayard was presented in the World's "Celebrities at Home" on 31
July). The island was occupied by British forces in July 1878, its strategic position making it
invaluable as a base from which Britain could protect her interests in the East. These interists
demanded that the ailing Turkish Empire must be propped up at all costs. The fall of Turkey
224
would mean that the gateway to the East was up for grabs, other (i.e., other than Britain)
imperialistic nations such as Russia had to be kept out, even if it meant siding with the "barbaric"
Turks. Although Lord Salisbury, Lord Derby's su@essor as foreign minister, politically
formalized the secret treaty by which Cyprus was acquired, history shows that Disraeli and
I-ayard had been searching for "some tenitorial station conducive to British interests" (qtd
Tuchman 262) for some time, and Cyprus was the answer to their prayers; cf.. World 17 July
1878: L0: "It is said that the occupation of Cyprus is the plan of Sir A.H. Iayard. A suggestion
of the step was thrown out by Sir Charles Dilke in his Greater Britain" (1868).
7. Othello 5.1.265.
8. World 10 July 1878: 10. 1. In this par Yates gets his own back on clubland aristocrats who
threaten to form a Vigilante Committee to defend themselves from the slander of the "so-called
society papers" flike the World).
9. Mn Skinow was the wife of Charles Skinow, Master in Chancery. She was a favourite
correspondent of Sala's and his "fervid admirer" (Straus 229). She was also instrumental in
having him considered as a Liberal candidate for Brighton in the next general elections (162n2).
L0. Amongst friends, i.e., something only for the ears of intimates.
lr4sl
17 September [1878]1
Paris
Dear Edmund,
When you are hard up for puzzles you might ask for English equivalents to the following
French locutions2: --
Travailler pour le Roi de Prusse. (To labour without wages)
Une malice cousue de fil blanc. (A transparent trick, an old
dodge - compare "un Secret de Polichinelle")3
Coiffer Sainte Catherine.
Il n'a pas invent6 la poudre. (He will never set the Thames on Fire)
Cr qui prouve que les vessies ne son pas des lantemes. Compare Sir Joseph Banks ([?teste
Peter Pindar]) "Fleas are not lobsters": d---n their souls"
Il y a des juges ir Berlin. (Fredrick. the Great and the Miller]
Pour encourager les autres (whence is it?) *(C-andide)
Chercher midi a [sic] quatorze heures. (Shutting the stable door etc is not the exact
equivalent)
Jeter son bonnet par dessus les moulins
Revenons d nos moutons (whence is it) *(UAvocat Patelin)
Vous €tes orfivre, Monsieur Josse. (Moliere [sic] Bs.Ge.)
Entre la poire et le fromage on ne met pas le nez
225

I confess that this proverb is as a mystery to me as the English "[f the old woman had not been in
the oven herself she would not have gone there to look for her daughter"; and yet I seem to
discern a dggblg entendre somewhere both in the French and the English. After all, it is possible
that the "poire et le fromage" saying may be the moral to one of la Fontaine's Fables of which
elderly peopte only remember, as a rule, the crack4 ones.
P.S. There is a Spanish "
El Sol Sale a Antequerab Antequeza
(of course it does, and everywhere else in Spain.)
L. This letter and the following are probably from his Paris trip in 1878, for rqrsons why see n1
of following of letter. Fact that "French Puzzle" feature has just commenced (LL September
1878) in World is also significant for it must be the "puzzles" GAS refers to here. "French
Puzzles" commenced as a feature in the back pages of the World 11 September 1878. It
comprized a set of five questions related mainly to French language and literature and was
offered as a "novelty in the way of puzzles, with the hope that it will conduce to both the
instruction and amusement of our readers, and tend to the special edification of F.O. [foreign
officel clerks" (L5).
2. In English these expressions would probably all fall under the category of proverbs, but the
French distinguish between "proverbes" and "expressions et locutions" as demonstrated by
Robert producing a separate dictionary for each. Here, as GAS so correctly says, we are dealing
with the latter. Where he has put the appropriate English equivalent I will not comment. But
will enter into the spirit of the thing by having a go at the others. See Robert's Dictionnaire des
Expressions et Locutions for more detail, particularly its introduction.
Coiffer Sainte Catherine (To dress St. Catherine's hair) or "to be 25 and still unmarried."
Ce qui prouve que les vessies ne sont pas des lanternes (Which shows that bladders aren't
lanterns). GAS has not used the standard form of the locution, which is: Prendre des vessies
pour des lanternes (Take bladden for lanterns) or "to believe that the moon is made out of
green cheese" i.e., to be entirely gullible.
Il y a des juges ir Berlin: "Too many cooks spoil the broth" (By a stretch of the
imagination this could fit in with clue Fredk.Gt. and the Miller, if only Fred was Alfred of the
Burning Cakes. There was a Frederick the Great (1712-1786) of Prussia, but how does he fit
in?
Pour encourager les autres (in order to encourage others): not listed as a locution. Clue
suggests it may come from Voltaire's Candide.
Chercher midi h quatorze heures (Inoking for noon at two o'clock, i.e., to complicate
matters unnecessarily). "Making a mountain out of a molehill" is nearest English equivalent.
Jeter son bonnet par dessus les moulins (To throw your hat over the windmills) or "to
throw caution to the winds."
Revenons i nous moutons; usual form is mais revenons b nos moutons, "but to return to
our subject." Clue suggests this is from LAvocat Pathelin (1706), adapted by Brueys and
Palaprat from the most famous of the French farces, La Farce de Maistre Pathelin (c.1470),
authorunknown (OCFL).
Vous 0tes orfEvre, Monsieur Josse: "You are in the trade, my dear Sir" or "you've got a
finger in the pie," i.e., you've got a vested interest. Clue from Molidre's play Le Bourgeois
Gentilhomme.
Entre la poire et le fromage on ne met pas le nez. Literal translation is: don't poke your
nose between the pear and the cheese, i.e., at dessert time when everybody is enjoying
226
themselves. No wonder GAS is confused about this one since it seems to be a combination
of two expressions. Or has he deliberately combined the two himself? "Entre la poire et le
fromage" means a relaxed conversational moment or a short period of relaxation during a
hectic schedule. Put together with "on ne met pas le nez" (don't poke your nose in) and the
clue "double entendre" suggests something else altogether. Pears and cheeses and noses
definitely do have sexual connotations.
3. Polichinelle is a character from C-ommedia dell'Arte: humped, ridiculous. "Un secret de
Polichinelle" is one which is, in fact, known to everyone.
4. Word "crack" can also mean to puzzle out, i.e., break open. Also has sexual over overtones.
5. I.e., stale news.
6. The sun rises at Antequera.
IL46]
Tuesday [1878]1
Hotel Beausejour [sic], Boulevard Poissonnidre, Paris
My dearEdmund,
You will get what you want I guess in the way of 8 day clocks ! sonnerie2 at the bloke's
whose card I enclose.J For the rest the quai Malaquais is close to that of Voltaire, and to the Rue
des Saint P€res, and St Andr6 des Arts, all headquarters of bric i brac. For chandeliers go to
Barbddienne - next door to this hotel, or to an enormous place in the Rue de la Paix, right hand
side, going down, close to Roberts's, the English chemists.
Rue Droust and Rue Iafitte both good for screens. We shall be here until Saturday lhe
Twentv ninth.
alwavs
Hn.
1,. "I found the Beaus6jour in July '78 as clean and bright, as cheerful and well kept . . ."(vii).
GAS eulogizes in his preface to Paris Herself Agair on the little Paris Hotel that was his home
from July to November 1.878. He explains that he only intended to stay a fortnight (for the third
Paris Exhibition), but ended up staying 5 months, sending back regular "parisiftei the peace"
dispatches for publication in the DT. [n his memoirs he writes: "[ was to stay a fortnight; but at
the expiration of that time Mr J M Lrvy suggested that as my letters had been received with
some aPProval by the British public, I might as well remain another week or so. The end of it
was that I did not return to Mecklenburgh Square until the eve of my birthday, the 24th
November." His Paris reports were republished in October 1879 as the 2-volum e piris Herself
Again, which was one of his best sellers; it appeared in up to 1,0 editions,6 by 1882. [t was
republished in 1948 and reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement Q4 Apnl1948), one of only
tlo of his works to be published in the 20th century. The other being Twice Rouncl the Clock in
L972.
Justification for placing letter here is that (a) it is addressed from the Beaus6jour and (b)
because of its association with the positively dated 145; both are written in the same black ink on
identical notepaper, different in texture and size from any other in the collection. paris preface
provides further proof that this letter is in sequence when it mentions GAS's distaste for the
Inndon "season" and its "seasonable" Irndoners (cf letter L44 re garden parties and dinners and
the "convulsive throes" of the season). He chose the down-market Beaus6jour simply because
he wanted to escape the influx of his countrymen to Paris: "I gave my compatriots ln paris the
widest of berths and sought for a domicile in a neighbourhood throroughly -French" (vii). This

accords nicely with his "Echoes from Abroad" (ZNAugust L0 1878:L31), which has him staying
at Hdtel Bien Secret, Boulevard C-ache-Cache (hidey-hidey), where he wishes to remain
incognito. "I shall put on a pair of green spectacles and a false note - a nose of a pale hue."
However, Saturday 29th mentioned in last par spoils this neat rationale, as in 1878 the 29th only
fell on a Saturday in June. GAS went to Paris again the following year (letter L53), but this was
for a few weeks in April, and again Saturday 29th does not fit in. Could there have been some
mistake in the date he mentions here? The editor would like to believe so. For instance, he
could have miscalculated the day and meant Friday, which did fall on the 29th in November
1.878, the month he returned to l-ondon. The difference from the exact date of his return, one he
was hardly likely to mistake (23 November, eve of his birthday) could be explained by a last
minute change of plans. Not too hard to believe when you're dealing with a man who lengthened
a stay of two weeks by five months!
2. 8-day chiming clock. Sounds as though Yates is interested in household fumishings and
ornaments; probably for 3 Portland Place, where the next letter of 3 December shows he has
recently moved. Notice prefacing "French Puzzles" in World L3 November 1878 mentions that
the French Editor (assumed to be Yates ) had just returned from a short trip to Paris.
3. Paste board card advertising: " J. Tabut Antiquaire, Quai Malaquais, No 1 Atelier. Rue de
Seine Nos 2 &9'.
TI47]
Tuesday night [3 December 1878]1
46 Mecklenburgh Square
My dearEdmund,
I do'nt know your number in Portland Place,z so I send this to Portland Place. I write
this, late at night, just after reading my World through, and I write in Honor and Amazement.
Sac i Papi943 What the Devil does your French Editor mean by saying that Pascal4 wrote
Pens6es at the "beginning", and that afterwards he wrote short Essays as St Evremond5 did?
Passing over his treatise on Conic Sections which he wrote at Sixteen the literary "beginning" of
Blaise Pascal was the "Irttres €crites i un Provincial par un de ses Amis" which he wrote at the
age of twenty five. In his last y6 when he was about eight and thirty he was engaged upon a
"Defence of Christianity" and the fragmentary materials which he had accumulated were
published after !!E death by the Fathers of_Port Royal with the title of "Irs Pens6es de Pascal".
Thus lhe direct contrary to what your F.E.6 has stated_was really the case. The "short essays" of
Inuis de Montalte (his pseudonym in the Provincials)7 came first and the Pensdes hgt.
Do you know that St Evremond translated the "Provoked Wife" into French?8
Please let us have an Early number of the Xmas No of the World.9
On the other side is a joke which I have attributed to Victor HugotO about the Comte de
Mun'sll last soeech.
'Voltairel2 wrote books at last". Why the beggar wrote books at all ages.
alwaYs
G.A.s.
1. Tuesday before World (4 December 1878:16) "French Ptzzle" answer re Pascal, St. Evremond
and Voltaire.
2. It was No.3 Portland Place. Yates moved there from22 B Cavendish Square in 1878.
3. Sac d Papier = Damn it! Exact text from "French Puzzles" that GAS complaining about is:
"French wits like M. Esprit, Ia Rochefoucauld, M6r6, and even Pascall wrote Pensdes at the
228
beginning, aftenrards they wrotc short cssays as Saint-Evrcmond did, Voltalrc wroto bookr rt
last. To such a progression the French Editor wishcd to point" (World 4 Docombor l77tr l6),
4. Blaise Pascal (L623-1662), French litcrary figurc, mathcmatlciun, thcolojlan arrd phytlcln,
5. Charles Saint-Evremond (1610-1703), Frcnch wrltcr and wil, Mort rcconl "Echoor" of 3(l
November included a par about him (ILN [July-Dcccmbcrl 1878: 510).
6. F.E. = French editor; he presided over the French Puzzlc pagc. Poenlbly Yatcr hlmrolf,
7. I.e., the pseudonym of Pascal. According to the Encyclopaedia Universalis "thcrc rrc
eighteen Provincials; the last is dated 24 March 1657; fragments of a ninetccnth has bccn fourrd,
None carries an author's name; but in the first edition of the 1657 collection is attributcd to lluis
de Montalte. In fact, it was a collaboration, Pascal held the pen, but Armand de Nicole prcparcd
the documentation".
8 Th,e Provok'd Wife by English playwright John Vanbrugh (1664-1726), first produced in L697.
Vanburgh was also an architect, he designed Castle Howard and Blenheim Palaces.
9. Wortd Christmas number came out on L2 December.
L0. Victor Hugo (L820-L885), prolific French poet and author. Admired because of his mastery
over words and his descriptive powem, he could perhaps be a role model for some of the
"investigative" journalism popular at the time particularly in works such as L'Histoire d'un Crime
(1877), which has been called "the apotheosis of the Special C.onespondent" (Chambers). Joke
attributed to Hugo not included with MSS; it probably was on second page of the letter which
seems to have been torn away. These letters are usually written on single sheet, folded to make
two.
11. Albert, Comte de Mun (1841-1914), French Christian Socialist leader; after the fall of
Napoleon III and the debacle of the Paris Commune he used his considerable powers of oratory
to advocate C-atholicism as a means to social reform; from 1871 he was instrumental in setting up
Catholic workers's clubs throughout France.
12. Voltaire, pseudonym of Frangois-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), French satirist, novelist,
historian, poet, polemicist, moralist, critic, philosopher, conespondent; seen as embodiment of
the Enlightenment. His most characteristic attitudes are embodied in Candide (1759), a satirical
tale about the "perfect" education. He was a prodigious thinker and writer.
t1481
Tuesday night 10 December 1878
46 Mecklenburgh Square
My dear Edmund,
Bad touch of fog-frost bronchitis since Wednesday last. Made it worse by going out on
Saturday night (in a four wheeled cab) to dinner with George Smith at the Windham.l I believe
there is bronchitis in the cushions and the window frames of four wheeled cabs.
Please not !g g4y anything about the &a Service. [t was really prettily done; and I have
hagla!E! more ptAtg given me by another "party"; but were publicity given to the fact it would do
me a real injury.z That thrice distilled duffer TinsleyJ goes to smash for €33.000, and (to help
him to pay his first instalment of Sixpence out of his composition of half a crown in the pound,
due next January) he robs up a bogus claim against me of t250 - most of it long forgotten bill
transactions, and incites his Trustee to sue me, savagely. "Bill" Tinsley, quotha! It should be
Accommodation Bill Tinsley.4 The fellow's impudence in getting jnto O"Ut for so many
229

thousands of pounds when his superiors do not owe as many hundreds surpasses belief. I am
trying to come_to an arrangement with the beggar's trustee; so, for the present, the less said about
my argenterie) the better.
I have been roaring all aftemoon over the enclosed. Where and when I got it I have not
the least idea.6 Is'nt it delicious ? Observe the stern parent with a big stick aud hig b! under his
gm. Observe the infinitely idiotic mug of Miss Clarissa Harlow Smooch. Observe the position
of her feet. Pass this masterpiece on to J.C.P. and bid him sent it me back when he has done with
it.
How he does work that dear old Sir George, to be sure!7
There is to be a subscription to pqy Whistlqr's costs. I shall join the Committee and
subscribe my mite. Abi tu g! fag similiter.u Ruskinv is a great, - a very great man; but he is a
capricious, intolerant and abusive tyrant and bully. It is ali very well to slang Salvator Rosa,10
who is dead; but you have no right to cqq [ving painters impudent and ill educated cockneys. ln
Ruskin's "Seven f:mps of Architecturel'L ------ stop! a Goak.l2
The Eighth I-amp of Architecture: - Mr Whistlet's Farthing C-andle Damages.
Your "French Editor'rJ is good this week: only "old Gourmandisers" (in English) do'nt
"shout", they grumble. Nor do grapes and cheese come (with us) together as dessert. Nor does
any English cheese (except Stilton) "ripen". It grows "old". fn all this I discern a faint savour of
the [? pinkJ ship of the Armenian Captain.
The "Mue de lnngchamps"l4 is a very fair French puzzle. I should say that not one of
your readers in a thousand will find it out. Only t am afraid that the modish "moulting" of
Passion week has become as obsolete as the "Poup6e de la Rue St Honor6". The Sieur Worth
now sets the fashions, on the first of the month on the Rue de la Paix; and, since the installation
of the Bois de Bologne there has been a Promenade de Longchamps every afternoon in the
Season.
Who is T. Douglas Murray, 34 Portland Place?15 Met him out. Great admirer of yours.
always,
G.A.S.
Sotheranl6 36 Piccadilly has got all the Gadshill HogarthslT - a splendid lot for sale. f60 - dirt
cheap, but he ca'nt deliver them till next March as they are to be lent to an Exhibition in
Edinburgh.
If you want any,gaqllgg painted for dining room ornamentation let me know. I know a
Miss Bessie Folkhardru (Academy student) who paints Rembrandt heads in a bold scumbled
monochrome simolv solendidlv for a couole of suineas a oiece.
1.. There is a Windham road at Richmond, perhaps there was a hotel there called the Windham.
Clue is that he would have been in the cab there from London long enough to wanant him
blaming it for the dreaded bronchitis to which he was so prone.
2. One of these refers to a service of "massive silver platg" presented to him by the DI on the
occasion of his 50th birthday,24 November 1.878 (Straus 234). hesumably GAS is waming
Yates not to say anything about this in WTWS. He obviously didn't want any of his creditors
(like Tinsley) to find out he had recently acquired some valuable assets. Who "the other party" is
cannot be discovered; not his spinster aunt (124n1.0) as her legacy of f1,000 wasn't forthcoming
until around 1887 (Straus 259).
3. William Tinsley*. [t was his publishing business, Tinsley Brothers, that went into liquidation.
Notice appeared intheTines29 August L878:L2:2: "The liabilities were about €33,000, and the
230
assets comprized various copyrights and also 'Tinsley's Magazine' and 'Mirth."' Tinsley's
weathered the storm as the judge ordered that "steps should be taken" to continue it.
4. Accommodation in this sense is a loan of money.
5. Argenterie = silverware
6. Not retained with MSS. Clarissa Harlow is the heroine of Samuel Richardson's novel
Clarissa (L748-L749). J.C.P. refers to Joe Parkinson.
7. Can't identify - not George Lewis,* he wasn't knighted until 1892 (DNB).
8. Go thou and do likewise.
9. John Ruskin (1819-1900), one of the greatest art critics and prose writers of the L9th century.
At the height of his powers he could make or break an artist professionally, and his opinions
influenced the sale rooms. His championship of Joseph Turner's (1775-I85L) later paintings
against Blackwood's criticism in 1836 was the genesis of his seminal work, Modern Painters (5
vols. completed 1.860), which developed into a treatize on aesthetics and truth in art. ln 1878 his
contemptuous remarks about American James McNeill Whistler's (1834-1903) Nocturnes, at the
opening of the Grafton Gallery, resulted in a libel action. Whistler won the case and was
awarded one farthing damages. (Like Whistler's costs, Ruskin's were also paid by public
subscription) (DNB).
1.0. Salvator Rosa (1615-1673), ltalian painter, best known for his wild and savage landscapes;
the antithesis of Turner's soft subtleties.
lI. The Seven Lamps of Architecure, first published in 1849 by George Smith, was an attempt
to apply to architecture some of the principles Ruskin had propounded about art in his defence of
Turner. The "Seven lamps" wcre sacrifice, truth, power, beauty,life, memory and obedience.
12. Cf letter L4L par 1: "you must have been goaking." Word "goak" was used for joke by
American humorist Artemus Ward, pseudonym of Charles Fanar Browne (1834-1867). He
wrote a series of letters by an imaginary backwoods traveller that were characterized by
grotesque spelling. GAS included these in his collection Yankee Drolleries: The Most
Celebrated Works of the Best American Hunorists (1866).
L3. No. 5 of "French Puzzles" (Set XtV) World 1.1 December 1878: 16. Translation: "The old
gourmandiser shouted, 'The cheese and the grapes were not ripe'."
1,4. No. 4 of same French puzzle as n13. "Translate and explain this sentence (not the French
Editor's own): 'Oiseaux privil6gi6s de cette splendide volidre (le Th66tre ltalien), des femmes,
laides et belles, 6taient, chacune i perchoir accoutum6 [sic], les mille vari6tds du plumage ]r la
mode, menacd de la mue de l,ongchamps."' lrts see if we can be the one in a thousand who can
'find it out'. First to translate: "The privileged birds of this splendid aviary (The ltalian Theatre),
women, ugly and beautiful, were each on her accustomed perch in a thousand varieties of
fashionable plumage, threatened by the Innchamps moult". [f we take our clues from GAS the
"modish moulting of Passion Week" must be the spring fashions paraded at the "the once famous
'homenade de Inngchamps', or cavalcade of carriages from the Place de la Concorde to the Bois
de Boulogne, which used to take place on Holy Thursday, and at which the ladies (counselled by
astute milliners and dressmakers) were supposed to sel the fashions for the coming season"
("Echoes" ILN 19 April 1879: 378). The "Mue de Lnngchamps" literally means the moult of
Longchamps, when winter clothes were discarded. Thus the plumage of the "birds" in Ir
Th6dtre ltalien (presumably their winter feathers) faces the threat of being outmoded by the onset
23L

of Spring, as their owners exchange their indoor perches for the outdoor vehicular parade.
However, according to the Echoes par, the promenade "has become a thing of the past," and is no
longer the arbiter of fashion. Monsieur Charles Worth, senior (1825-1895), seems to have
assumed that mantle in his fashion house on the Rue de la Paix. Worth's "English" inspired
"look" became the rage and his "Housc" became the crntre of fashion; remained so well into the
20th century. Worth, born in Lincolnshire, England, went to Paris in 1846, where he gained such
success as a designer that he gained the patronage of Empress Eug6nie, wife of Napoleon tII.
She is probably the "poupde de la Rue St Honor6" since poup6e can mean a "doll" in the sense of
a highly decorative woman or "clothes horse," and the Palace was in the Rue St Honor6.
Napoleon 3 had been deposed in L870.
15. One of Yates's neighboun in Portland Place, his new street.
16. Sotheram (H""ty) & Co., big book dealers; still going strong. Address verified as 36
Piccadilly (London Publishers and Printers L82).
L7. Yates bought this collection to decorate the entrance hall of his new house. It had previously
hung in the billiard room at Gadshill ("Journalism in England" New York Daily Tribune 2
October 1882: 2). In his preface to Oliver lwisr Dickens acknowledged the influence that
Hogarth's work thad on his depictions of low-life Iondon.
18. Probably Miss Julia B. Folkard, recorded as exhibiting twenty-eight paintings in the Royal
Academy of between 1872 and L902 (Graves 133).
tl4el
Snowy Sunday 2?December 187g.
46 Mecklenburgh Square
My dear Edmund,
I am right glad that you intend to start a Miscellany.l Journalism may bring in plenty of
money, but still an author of repute does not like wholly to sever his connection with the
Republic of htters; and vgry little real literature can be so [?called] in the World.
I will give 11t" tr*2 a right down genial puff preliminary in the "Echoes".3 Shall t do it at
once, or wait till you have fixed on a title? Irt me know before next Wednesday.3 Your own
good sense will tell you that I cannot write in your Mag: (although I mean to let you have many
things for the World). But I am too old and I have got !@ big a name to enlist under anybody's
banner, or to be a member of anybody's staff. I am not even a member of the staff of the D.T. I
simply sell them a certain quantity of merchandise for a certain sum, telegraphing to them the
nature of the wares I have on hand; and we can close our accounts and dismiss one another at
half an hour notice. In a few months, when I have scraped together a few hundreds of pounds !
intend to start 4 Miscellany wholly ang! entirely gu ry own - twopence, weekly illustrated; a
combination of "H.W.u and the "Welcome Guest"!! "Oh! he's not a man of business!" I hear
folks cry. Not "a man of business", quotha. I was bankrupt in 1867 for €3000 odd. t superseded
my bankruptcy paid off everybody, more at the rate of 401- than?O/- in the pound; owe no man
aught (save Tinsley's disputed dc, handed over to the [?tormentors] and Irwis und **ir4; and
by end the year L870 with fully f200 worth of fire insured furniture, books, plate and china,
without one "[?flukeJ", without one bonus, without the sale of one valuable copyright, but all off
my own bat as a journalist paid by the day like a common soldier. And here is that eminent man
of business tvlr Bill Tinsley - to say nothing of the eminent Virtues - who goes to smash for
€33.000!
By the way you sent me-a cheque for I2O one morning6 when I had gone down to
Jericho, and fallen among thieves/ (lady thieves). If you have booked the pars which I have sent
you from time to time for the World let me know what the balance is against me, and I will soon
work it out on the W.
I do'nt think much of any one of the enclosed fillers; but it is barely possible that one or
another of them may suggest something better
faithfully yours always
G.A.S.
"Sir Roger de Coverley'8 is my tip. Thoroughly old English gentleman, philanthropist, likes
scholarship (a great man Dr Busby, Sir) clubman, fond of country sports; not averse to a little
flirtation. Get Dumaurierru or Fildesrr to draw Sir Roger leading the perverse widow in a
country dance for frontspiece.
Sir Roger would have no special reference to anything you do: but the name is dear to the
poputar heart, and would at onceiink into the popular mind: - as "Ecky Homo"l2 did. Some
betting man wanted to name a racehorse "Eckyllomo". Go for Sir Roger de Coverley.
232 233
IheS&!d
The Drawins Room
The Irvee
The Conclave
The C-abinet Cnuncil
Sword and Pen
Captain Pen
The Clarion The Forum
The Light-House The Quarterdeck
The Semaphore
The Signal
The Bivouac The Wigwam
The Watchfire
Ite Iron@
The Epoch
The Period
Men and Books
The Time that Flies
The Chimes
Friends and Foes
Pen and lnk
The Black Sea
"lnk is the Black Sea of Thought"
The Iatter Day
Tbg Drum
The Familiar
"Ubique"
e@EsstiS13
Sir Roeer de C-overlev
The Knapsack
Pen in Hand
The Caravanserai

1. This was to be called Time, c.26 March l879-September 1881. Yates was its proprietor, and
probably edited the first five volumes (Edwards Item 133).
2. GAS has drawn in three stars to denote the magazine hasn't been named yet.
3. Putr appeared ILN 4 January 1.879: 1,0: "We are promised yet another new magazine, or rather
a new shilling monthly miscellany, combining the best features of the Nineteenth Century of thc
existing epoch and the Household Words of eight-and-twenty years ago. An admirable
amalgam. The new venture is to have for a title the very comprehensive one of 'Time'; and it will
be conducted by Mr. Edmund Yates. Alexander sighed for more worlds to conquer; and the
modern'Atlas' is, it would seem, not averce from adding another globe to his burder. . . I have not
the slightest intention of seeking to contribute to the pages of 'Time'; - my 'time' for magazine
writing is fast drawing to a close."
4. He refers to his dire financial straits in 1867 when the negotiating skilts of George kwis's
legal firm had saved him from being declared bankrupt (69n1).
5. James Virtue (1829-L892)l publisher, specializing in art books and journals, reportedly went
bankrupt in late 1870's.
6. See letter I32 from Midland Hotel c. November L877.
7. Yates seen in guise of Good Samaritan: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho,
and he fell among robbers . . . ." (Ilke 10 v.29). Note parenthesis "lady thieves." Could this
refer to the brothel, or one like it, in St. John's Wood, that Edmund Gosse refers to in his note
about Swinburne, where pleasure didn't come cheaply (60na).
8. Sir Roger de Coverley, a character in Steele and Addison's magazine,the Spectaror (first issue
L March 17LI). Longmans published the book, Sir Roger de Coverley by the Spectator, in 1850.
It was reviewed by the Literary Gazette 16 November 1,850:849-50. Sir Roger was a member of
that select club of representative Englishmen who were fancifully purported to conduct the
Spectator. As the representative of the country gentry he was presented as "a gentleman of
Worcestershire, of ancient descent, a baronet. His great-grandfather was inventor of that famous
country-dance which is called after him. He is a gentleman that is very singular in his
behaviour, but his singularities proceed from his good sense . . . It is said he keeps himself a
batchelor, by reason he was crossed love by a pgryggg beautiful widow of the next county to
him" (qtd ocEL under coverley). No sign of "Roger de coverley" in the ruorld.
9. hesumably Richard Busby (1606-1695), headmaster of Westminster School (clue, "likes
scholarship"); model LTth-century schoolmaster because of his learning, devotion to duty and
use of the cane, which didn't lose him the affection and respect of his students (Chambers).
1.0. George Du Maurier (1834-1896), artist and illustrator, author; much of his work appeared in
Cornhill, Once a Week and particularly Punch, whose staff he joined. He is best remembered for
his gentle satirizating of English society, as in English Society at Home (1880), and his novel
Trilby (1894), which reflects the Bohemian art world of Paris.
IL. 93n7.
12. A character called "Ecky Homo" cannot be found. However, the name is a play on John
19.5: "Ecce Homo" (Behold the man), meaning Christ. GAS could be comparing the public
impact of Sir Roger de Coverley with that of Christ in order to push the potential popularity of
his story, but this seems too much even for him (particularly the reference to the horse). Perhaps
there is a fictional "Ecky Homo" somewhere, or perhaps he is referring to the controversy that
234
was generated around 1865 by John Sceley's anonymously publishcd Bruad-church
reinterpretation of Christianity, Ecce Homo (originally attributcd to Gcorgc Ellot), Ourtcvo
Dor6's picture of "colossal" dimensions, entitled Ecce Homct cxhibitcd rl lhc Drtrd Oallory ln
New Bond Street also created great interest. "Ecky Homo" bccamc quitc ln voluc for lxxth tltler
as far atield as America as a par in the Publisher's Circular 15 April showt: u 'Hcca Honto'
continues to attest the genius of its author by the imitations it bcgcts. Thc lust of thoro lr 'Eecc
Coelum, or Parish Astronomy, by a C-onnecticut Pastor'." A publishcr'e lict ln tha ramo lmuo
even advertizes, Ecce Femina: An Attempt to Solve the Woman Question.
13. Underlined 3 times.
tlsOI
Thursday night 30 January 1879
46 Mecklenburgh Squarc
tvty dear Edmund,
I shall be delighted to dine with you whenever you ask me, and you must come and dine
with us, here; but I will not meet Mr Bret Harter at your house nor at anybody else's house. No,
Siree! Some years ago in an opusculum called "Sensation Novels" he made a most offensive and
calumnious attack on me, in which he charged me with having written an introduction to a book
by a scandalous adventuress called Belle Boydz - of having pawned a diamond ring which she
gave me for my hire, - of having traduced a people by whom I had been hospitably received, and
of having by implication defended the assassination of President Lincoln. These "Sensation
Novels" were re-printed in l-ondon by Routledge and by the rotten and forgotten Hotten.3 I
immediately bought an action for libel against Hotten who after a vapouring show of resistance
completely caved in, paid costs and compromised the action. Routledge on being informed that
Mr Hart's statements about me were wholly false and libellous handsomely apologised and called
in all the copies of the work they had sent out. The pages relating to me were afterwards struck
out of the stereotyped plates.
This was six years ago. But Harte must have known very well about the mess into which
his Inndon publishers were so nearly getting; but he has never retracted his false statement the
publicity given to which in America exposed me to the foulest abuse in the most foul mouthed
press in the world.4 [ daresay he would be very willing, now, to let "bygones be bygones", and
to make the acquaintance of an eminent Engtish man of letters; but I do'nt see things in that light.
In the course of eigbt and twenty years active pursuit of my profession (I do not take earlier
skirmishing between 184[?3] and 1851 into account) I have never attacked a literary brother as
this American has attacked me. You know that I am not a vindictive man; and that I bear no
malice towards Harte will be shown in my "Echoes" next Saturdays; but t simply decline to meet
him now or hence fonvard. Oddly enough Mn Triibnef *as here this aftemoon to ask if we
would meet B.H. at dinner at her house where he is, I think staying.
faithfully yours always
G.A. Sala.
P.S. George lrwis has muzzled Tinsley, and saved me f140. The beggar takes f150 instead of
his bogus 9290.1
1. Francis Brett Harte (1836-1902), American writer, known professionally as Bret Harte
(DAB); best-remembered for his poems and short stories of early California life. In these he
mingled humour, sentiment, pathos and whimsical character studies in a style influenced by his
youthful reading of Dickens, successfully adapting an old method to capture the flavour of a new
milieu - the gold fields of C-alifornia. His reputation rests on his output between c. 1868-71 in
235

stories such as "The Luck of Roaring Camp" (1868), "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" (L869); and
poems like "Plain Ianguage from Truthful James," and "The Heathen Chinee" (1870). For a
short period he was lionized in the US, but his popularity declined as the quality of his work
faded. In June 1878 he sailed for Europe, where his fame was as yet untamished. He arrived in
London early L879. Harte contributed a poem, "Old and New Time," to the first issue of Time,
March 1879, soon after this letter. Despite GAS's protestations they did meet, with disastrous
results, at William Frith's house (letter 169).
2. Belle Boyd, American adventuress, who was arrested by the Union as a Southern spy during
the American Civil War, but later escaped to Europe with her captor, Federal lieutenant Sam
Hardinge, whom she married in I-ondon. Her story, purportedly autobiographical, was published
in both New York and I-ondon as BeIIe Boyd, in Camp and Prison (1865), and created a mild
sensation because of her notoriety. Both editions were prefaced by a lengthy introduction, whose
author was described in the English version as "a Friend of the South," and in the US edition as
"George Augusta [sic] Sala"; the BM Car lists it under GAS's entry as "With an introduction by
G.A. Sala". ^Ilte Library of Congress Catalogue lists it not under his name, but under Hardinge
(8.B.). In 1867 Bret Harte published Condensed Novels, a collection of travesties of popular
fiction, one of which is titled "Mary Mc Gillup. / A Southern Novel. I After Belle Boyd. / With
an lntroduction by G.A.S---la" (200-202); the "libellous document" GAS mentions. The
edition sighted is a 1,969 American edition. The two British publications referred to in this letter
are Sensation Novels Condensed, published and with an introduction by John Camden Hotten,
L871, and Condensed Novels, published by Routledge (1873). See letters L68 and 169 for more
about GAS's animosity to Harte.
3. John Camden Hotten (1832-t873), publisher with an interest in rare and curious books; he
used this knowledge to produce a Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words (1859]
and the Handbook of Topography and Family History of England and Wales, being an account
of 20,000 boolcs (1863). He gained a reputation for the outr6 when he took over the publication
of Swinburne's Poems and Ballads (1866), after original publishers, Moxon, had been
intimidated by prudish criticism. He was the first to introduce the works of American humorists
like Artemus Ward to England (he had spent time in America between L848 and 1856); also
published Bret Harte's Lothaw and Sensation Novels (1871).
4. GAS remonstrates against the US press's reaction to the pro-Southern tone of his Civil War
reporting in "Under the Stars and Stripes," a chapter in his Zftings I Have Seen and People I Have
Known. They dubbed him a "Bloated Miscreant," a "Fat Cockney," a "Venal Hack" and a
"Secesh [from secession] Spy" (Things 1: 218).
5. There were two "Echoes" pars featuring Bret Harte on Saturday 1. February 1879: 102. The
first dealt with his "urbane" handling of a heckler at his Crystal Palace lecture, the second kindly
welcomed "the author of the 'Heathen Chinee' and the 'Luck of Roaring Camp' [who] has
delighted tens of thousands of English people by his racy idiomatic writings, full, as they are, of
genuine humour and exquisite pathos."
6. Mrs Trtibner, was presumably the wife of Nicholas Triibner (1817-1884), proprietor of
publishing firm Triibner (L851-19L2), which amongst other things specialized in American
agency work (Sutherland 641).
7. See letter 148.
[1su
46 Mccklenburg Squarc
Monday 10 March 1879
My dear Edmund,
Shall be delighted to dine with you on Wednesday the Ninctccnth lnstant at 7.45 p.m.
In the couse of this week - not later than Thursday, I shall sent you (pos) a papcr called
lnnsdalel beat up. Simply and deliciously Thackerayian. Say yes, by return.
In haste
G.A.S.
and decorative furnirure, at the rooms of Messrs Christie, Manson and Woods'. Among the sale
items was the "Portrait of George 1V" on the sofa, by Sir T. I-awrence, R.A., painted for the Earl
of Lonsdale, K.G., which sold for €78.15s. The "Echoes" of the following Saturday mentions
that 120,000 was realized by the sale (ZN 15 March L879:243).
Its2l
Mecklingbourgh [sic] Squan [sicJ
Thursday [13 March 1879]l
3. What should be specially noticed, from a literary point of view, in the following sentence
written by a most excellent writer, Charles Nodier? ---'IJ pauvre b0cheron fut grandement
attird par^ le m6lodieux glouglou des eaux courantes et par le frais et riant froufrou de la
feuill6e.'z
My dearEdmund,
Of course I have no intention of competing for your French puzzle prizes3; but for mere
curiosity's sake I should like to know whether I am right in surmising that from "a literary point
of view" the passage from Charles Nodiet' is speciatly noteable for the two expressions, culled
from what Max Miillef would call the 'Bow-wow" language "Glouglou" and "frou-frou"!
"Glouglou" occurs in MoliEre.6 ("lp M€decin malE6 Ili" Act f .Sc vi [sic])
Sganarelle sings
qu'ils sont doux,
Bouteille jolie,
Qu'ils sont doux,
Vos Etlilg glou-glouxlZ
"Glou-glou" is therefore classical. As for "frou-frou" it turns up in Balzac8 "Lr frou-frou de sa
robe de-soi""9; but Charles Nodier I apprehend wrote his "Contes" before H. de B. wrote the
"frou-frou" passage.10
I wonder whether your French Editor could tell me the title of the poem by De la
Monnoyell from which Goldsmith impudently plagiarised his verses about "Madame Blaise".
And I wish that you (through your F.E.) would set us all right apropos of my nut to crack
about Talleyrand's thirteen oaths.rz I am certain that I must be wrong about one or wo (see
"Echoes" of Saturday next); but the nut must be a tough.one, for tr* out of a hundred and forty
"Echo" correspondents (my usual hebdomadal pabulum)rJ only one tried to crack the Talleyrand
237

nut. Find out the gg state of the case. Solve the question, with lofty courtesy (somewhat
patronising) in "What the World Says"; and then ['ll acknowledge it in the "Echoes" and we'll
puff each other's shows mutuallY.
Sic a day as I shall hae tomorrow! You'll get your Seventy Five Guineas on Saturdayl4
always
G.A.S.
L. Day after "Nodier" par n2.
2. Item 3 from the "French Puzzles" section of the World 12 March 18791 17, has been cut out
and pasted down here: underlining added by GAS. Translation: "The poor woodcutter was
attraited by the melodious gurgling of their streams and the coolness and laughing rustle of the
foliage".
3. A first prize of 5 guineas and a second of 3 guineas was offered (World LL September
1878:15).
4. Charles Nodier (1780-1884), French writer influenced by early Romantics, famous for his
short stories and fairy tales.
5. Friedrich Max Mtiller (1823-1900), German born philologist who became naturalized British
subject; from 1.854 to 1868 professor of Modem I:nguages at Oxford; at this time professor of
Comparative Philology there. His lectures on "The Science of language" at the Royal
Institution, 1,86L-4, had made him the most respected authority on the subject.
6. Molidre, stage name of French playwright Jean Baptiste Poquelin (1622-t673); prolific
comic writer of great genius; Le Midecin malgrd lui was written in 1666 along with Le
'Misanthrope, Mdlicerte, and Le Sicilien. The word classical is aptly used here as MoliEre is
considered, of alt French writers, to have the geatest reputation of mastery over his own
language in its purest form.
7. How sweet, pretty bottle, how sweet, are your little gurglings! Or perhaps "glug-glug" is
more onomatapoeic (n10). The passage is from scene 5, not 6.
8. Honor6 de Balzac (1799-1850), aspired to present a complete picture of "modem" civilization
inhis Comidie Humaine, comprising a vast scheme of stories about "la vie Parisienne"; possible
role model for GAS (19n9).
9. The swishing of her silk dress. Again, perhaps "swish-swish" is a better translation for the
purpose.
j.0. As the French have precise formal/historical definitions of the "classical" in regards to style
and period, GAS is perhaps making a point here about the shifting usages of onamatopoeia in the
French language. bn a-simpler level what is noticeable from a literary point of view about
"glouglou"ind"froufrou" is that both words are onomatopoeic in both French and English.
11. Bernard de la Monnoye (1641-L727), French man of letters. The title of his poem
plagiaizedby Goldsmith* is "k Fameux [a Galisse" (Minagiana, (Paris, 1715) 3: 384-91); the
iutititt" of doldsmith's poem is An Etegy On that Glory of her Sex Mrs. Mary Blaize. It
appeared inTheBee4(2TOctober L759)(CollectedWorl

hand on the ravages of the Civil War. After arriving in New York he travelled through Virginia,
Georgia, South Carolina, visiting old haunts and was very well received. He also spent time in
Chicago, Cincinnati and Salt Iake City and San Francisco. After initial publication in the
Telegraph his reports home were collected inAmerica Revisited (1882). Although it had nothing
like the success of Paris Herself Again (l46nI), he used the same technique of capturing an
agreeably nostalgic mood by capitalising on his earlier impressions. In both these books we see
GAS reworking old material to give interest to the new. He is master of the pastiche and never
seems to let anything go to waste.
3. "Old" Jerrold must be Douglas Jenold*; his advice would have been given before GAS
went to Russia for HW in 1856 (letter 2).
4. All 17th-century men of letters, noteworthy literary stylists of their time: a rather pretentious
list of role models. If what GAS says is true (and it's doubtful) he wasted his time, as his own
style never overcarne a natural tendency towards verbosity. And his "Dickens" period, with its
enforced "pruning" (letter 4) is arguably his best. However, as Philip Collins points out,
Dickens's influence could also be blamed for a great deal of the extravagance in his style (Twice
preface L9).
Jeremy Taylor (I6I3-L667), clergyman, became chaplain to Charles 1,; wrote most of his
best works in retirement at Wales after defeat of royalists, most famous are The Rule and
Exercises of Holy Living (1650) and The Rule and Exercises of Hoty Aing (1.651), both
considered to be among the most enduring monuments of sacred eloquence in English.
Robert South (1,634-171,6) high church theologian and preacher renowned for his witty
and sarcastic attacks on Dissente rc, as inAnimadversions(1690).
Isaac Banow (1,630-1677), mathematician and divine; lucidity and reasoned argument of his
' sermons justified their renowned length.
John Tillotson (1"630-L694), became archbishop of Canterbury. He edited Barrow's
theological works in 4 volumes. His own sermons were considered models of lucidity and
good sense.
5. .IlN featured a column titled "The Magazines," which each week briefly reviewed the
contemporary magazines, usually the more successful ones such as Nineteenth Century,
Blackwood's, Fraser's and Fortnightly Review. On 5 April 1879:322, it dealt with Time: "the
new magazine appearing with the prestige of Mr. Edmund Yates's editorship bids fair to occupy a
large share of public attention." It goes on to discuss a number of. Time articles and concludes
that of the lighter contributions one of the "most remarkable [is] an essay on Mr. Sala as a man of
letters, with special reference to his unique and incommunicable gifts as a leader writer."
6. hobably "the illustrated wrapper by Ilke Fildes, A.R.A' advertized in World promotional
piece on Time,26 March L879:3.
7. Hircius and Spungius :ue mentioned in "The Triumph of Baby," an article GAS wrote for
Belgravia in 1871 Qa9-255): "My old enemy Hircius (Spungius' friend, who has been 'at' me
these many years) . . . You live in the Isle of Thanet, or in the Vale of Avoca, or at C.ape Coast
Castle, and I shall never see you, I never shall; but we have shaken hands, and exchanged nods
and winks, and sometimes wreathed smiles, of a spiritual kind, these twenty years" (2a9). This
seems to place Hircius in a "mythic" realm. No other references to Hircuis and Spungius have
been found. Perhaps they are fanciful n:rmes for some of GAS's early critics - twenty years ago
would make it 1859 when he had contributed "Hogarth" to Cornhill, and was just about to
embark onTB.
240
8. Inoney McTWolter is mentioned in Pendennrs as the "rollicking Hibernian story of Looney
Mc Tlvolter," published by Bungay (one half of Thackeray's perpetually rivalling publishers) in
retaliation for his rival Bacon's "comic lrish novel of. Barney Brallegan" (346). Research in
Blachpood's hasn't found Inoney; again perhaps the name is a pseudonym (borrowed from
Thackeray's character) for someone on Blackwood's who crjticizedTB.
lls4l
Thursday 3rd April L879
Mecklenburgh Square
My dear Edmund,
I ca'nt find your note. I[t] anived while I was o[pe]ning a batch of about a hundred and
fifty letten which those damned"Echoes" used to bring meLvery week about the "nuts"l, which,
in sheer weariness of wrestling^with bores, lunatics, and scoundrels who write abusive
anonymous letters I have given up.l I think. however, that you asked me if t would write a series
of Six Articles on French Art for "Time". I should be very glad to do so. During more than
twenty years my light as an art-critic has been hidden under the bushel of Daily Journalism. But
the articles should be thorough, and you must give me your maximum space. How much. I
should write on French Art, pist and present, asllustrated in th" Inuvre and the Luxembourg.3
G6ricault's "Radeau de la Meduse", the "Plague at Jaffa" etc would make a stunning
commencement.
Three articles on the Inuvre
Three on the l.uxembourg
altemating
thus Meissonnier would follow Boucher
or Gdrome Eugene Delacroix4
If I could spare fifty pounds I would at once go in for the complete set of the "Gazette des Beaux
Arts",) but I will do what I can with the authorities I possess-.
The first would appear in the June number, I guess.6 They ought to make as great a hit
as Hogarth.T
We leave for Paris (private, s'il vous plait) on Saturday night for two or three weeks. kt
me hear from you if your views and mine as to the articles are identical before we start.
Pray disabuse your mind of the impression that I am in any way influenced by the IrvysS
or that they are in any way entitled to object to anything that I may write, anywhere. I merely
sell them, on six days out of every seven a certain quantity of merchandise for which they pay
very handsomely, but I am in no sense their servant, their henchman or their tool.
alwaYs Yours
G.A.s.
L. L52nl2.
2. He plans to give up the puzzles, not the column itself. "Echoes" 29 March 1879 ended on this
wry note: "I offer no nuts to crack for next week; in fact, there will not be any more nuts - in this
column at least. To set the puzzles has been to me these last few weeks past a source of much
entertainment; and I may venture to hope that the problems have afforded some amusement, and
perhaps a little instruction, to a considerable section of my readers. On the other hand, I have
other readers to whom the nuts are distasteful -who prefer gossip to curious information, and
who have told me so in such a very plain manner that in policy and politeness I defer to their
objections. Next week I will tell how sleeves are worn; on what day I-ady Blarney gives her next
garden party; how much the last milliner's bill of the Hon Miss Caroline Wilhelmina Amelia
24L

Skeggs amounted to, and what my Lord Duke said to Mr. Jerningham when that gentleman's
gentleman brought his Grace his chocolate at 9.30 a.m. I don't know anything about these
matters; but that will be rather an advantage than otherwise."
GAS seems to have had a love/hate relationship with his "Echoes" audience, for despite
the cynicism here this very popular column continued to be published, albeit sometimes
sporadically, until a few months before his death in 1895. Begun as "Literature and Afi," 2 June
1860 (48n7), it was published in ILN (except when he was overseas on assignments for the DT,
including a long period from L865 to 1.874, when it was substituted by regular contributions from
Shirley Brooks, under the successive titles of "By the Way," and "Nothing in the Papers) until
April 1887, when it was transferred to the Entertainment Gazette, a new paper, which closed
before the end of the year. Finally the Sunday Times took it up from 2 March 1890 to May L895.
TWo books of selected "Echoes" were published, Living London (June 1883) and Echoes of 1883
(May 188a). The preface lo Living London carries a detailed history of "Echoes" publication up
to L883.
3. Both in Paris; the Ilxembourg and Louvre had been the palaces of French kings, and were
opulent and dramatic settings for painting and sculpture galleries.
4. 5 Frenchpainters:
Thdodore G6ricault (179I-1824); a young genius who died at 33 before his full potential
was realized. Although he was not the leader of a movement he strongly influenced the artists of
his generation, particularly Delacroix. His work combines the classical and romantic; grandeur
with the freshness and urgency of observed life, epitomized in The Raft of the Medusa (Louvre),
for which he made studies from corpses and hospital patients. A graphic scene of death and
' despair tempered with hope, it aroused grcat controversy when it was first exhibited in 1819, but
is now considered his masterpiece.
Jean I-ouis Emest Meissonier (1813-1891), genre painter specializing in military scenes
such as the Napoleonic campaigns; Campagne de France, 1814 (L864). and Napoleon III at
Solferino (1864), both in the Louvre.
Frangois Boucher (L703-I770); artist, decorator, illustrator and engraver, his work
epitomized the rococo style of ther Louis 15 period. He was officialliattached to the court under
the patronage of Madame de Pompadour, whom he painted many times. He was very prolific
and many of his works hang in the I-ouvre.
Jean l,6on G6rome (1824-1904); sculptor and painter; he specialized in painstakingly
researched neoclassical paintings of historical and contemporary subjects; The Meeting of the
Siamese Ambassador and Napoleon III at Fountainbleau is typical.
Ferdinand Victor EugEne Delacroix (1798-1863); profoundly influenced by The Raft of
the Medusa he produced works which depicted the honor of death even more forcefully, such as
The Massacre at Chios (L824), an event that took place during the Greek War of Liberation. His
most popular workliberty Guides the People (1831) hangs in the Louvre.
5. Gazette des BeauxArts, vols 1-15 (1859-63), vols 16-25 (1864-68).
6. These articles did not appear inTime.
7. His series in Cornhill, "William Hogarth: His Life and His Times" (2n3).
8. DZproprietors.
242
llss]
Wednesday [28 May 1879]1
46 Mecklenburgh Square
My dear Edmund,
lvlrs Sala sent a copy of her menu to Etzensberger2 who, you see approves. We had the
ices from him. Everything else was composed and cooked at home.
When Time appears I will give Henry lrnnox's3 paper a right good puff. He is not half
such a duffer as he looks and I remember, when he was First Commissioner of works his sending
for me to ask my opinion about some painted windows for the Westminster Chapter House when
I was really struck by the art knowledge which he displayed. I ca'nt say anything about Sir
Edward Watkin4 who is a very old friend of mine, because Latey at the I.L.N.) posits to me that
there is a long standing tiff betrveen William Ingrarn and Sir Edward Watkins and Parry (ex
member for Boston) [who] managed the ilustrated for Mrs Ingram during William's voyage.
I-had a grand su@€ss in speechif;ing at the Edinburgh university Club dinner on
Tuesdayo: H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh/ in the chair; and when I next see you I will fairly
make you scr€am with a story about H.R.H. and myself. When it comes to being punched in the
back by Royalty (I do'nt mean patted; I do'nt mean metaphorically but physically, and I do'nt
mean playfully but in earnest) you may guess of the strangeness of the incident. H.R.H. had
made up his mind that I should do a certain thing; and he had to punch, not my head, but my
back before I did it.
Always
G.A.S.
[[On reverse side:]
Companion Volume to
Jerome [?Patriot] irla Recherche d'une Position SocialeT
Bill Jerrold i la Recherche de la Croix de la llgion d'honneurS
That has been his Unholy Grail (good title for a novel, by the way) for ever so many years; and
that is the meaning of the visit of the International Congress people in I-ondon.
1.. Wednesday after Sunday 25 May 1.879; date of dinner referred to in first par.
2. Robert Etzenberger,r manager of Midland Hotel; copy of menu approved by him follows. It
is written on the back of a calling card or "pasteboard" bearing the name George Augustus Sala,
Conespondant Sp6cial du "Daily Telegmph," and:
The Zakouska or Service of Hors d'oeuvres preceded and did not terminate the repast, a
cource which met with the full approval of the Hen Hans von Breitmann, the Gospodin
Eugene Schuyler and the Barynia Genevieve Ward all expericnced Russian travellers. The
Zakouska consisted of Salade d'Anchois, C-aviar. mortadella di Bologna and sardines i
I'huile, and was accompanied by des p9!i!9E verres g!9 liqueur d'office, Kiimmel, kirschwasser
and cognac [?fini] champagne. Thus appetites whetted and thus stomachs fortified by
the "vorschmach" the guests fell to and devoured a tremendous dinner. Show this to Sir
Henry Thompson.
Hans Breitmann was the pseudonym of American author Charles kland (1824-1903), a
great friend and correspondent (Things 2:279). He was a barrister and journalist; very much the
cosmopolitan he studied at hinceton, Heidelberg, Munich and Paris and from 1869 lived mainly
in England and ltaly. He is most famous for the Hans Breitmann Ballads (1871 &1895);
between 1873 and L891 he published four scholarly volumes about the Gypsies.
243

Eugene Schuyler* (1840-1890), American diplomat and scholar (author of Peter the
Great); the Russian title "Gospodin," Lord or Excellency, could be applied to him as he had been
US consul in St. Petersburg when Yates had been there reporting on the Duke of Edinburgh's
wedding for the New York Herald, in 1875.
Gevevieve Ward GAS's actress friend, whom he met on his fint trip to Russia in 1856 for
HW, cnuLd lay claim to being a real Barynia (Baroness), since many years ago she had married a
Russian count (1.08n14).
Sir Henry Thompson (1820-1904), urologist and surgeon; performed first operations in
treatment of bladder stones; these innovative treatments were not always successful; one of his
patients had been Napoleon II[, who died soon after he operated. Thompson was also interested
in astronomy, presented some fine telescopes to Greenwich observatory; painting, exhibited at
the Royal Academy; writing, published Charlie Kingston's Aunt, 1885, (the life of a medical
student) under pseudonym Penn Oliver. Relevant here is fact that he was a famous host - known
for his "octaves," 8 courses for 8 people at 8 o'clock; a series of dinners commenced in L872
where company and food were carefully selected to ensure success. The Prince of Wales
attended the 300th octave (DnfB). GAS (perhaps facetiously) comparing his dinner and its
carefully selected Russian theme, both in food and guests, to Thompson's gmnd affairs, which
Yates must have been familiarwith since he was a close friend of Thompson's - to the extent that
he chose to have his body cremated, motivated no doubt by Thompson's crusadingzeal for this
form of funeral (Edwards 9).
3. Part one of two-part paper, "Public Parks and Pleasure Grounds," Time I (June 1879): ?75-
283. Part two appeared in July issue (1: 430-439). Its author, Sir Charles Henry Gordon-
Irnnox (1818-1903) was a conservative M.P, who in 1870 led his party in the House of lords.
He was the Chief Commissioner of Works during the restoration of the Westminster Chapter
House (60n7).
4. Sir Edward Watkin (1819-1901), railway promoter in England, Europe and Canada; at this
time chairman of both the South Eastern and the Metropolitan Railway C-ompanies. (In 1869 he
pressed for a channel tunnel (for trains) between Dover and C.alais; although excavations were
begun in 1,881, the project, always considered of an experimental nature, was abandoned in
1893.) Watkin also contributed to the June issue of Time with "Railways: Past, Present and
Future" (I:257-265). GAS's lack of punctuation makes it difficutt to work out where everyone
stood in this tiff. However, presumably it was William Ingram (with his brother Charles joint
managing director of theZ.lD at odds with Watkins and Parry. Thus GAS couldn't puff Watkin's
Time article in the "Echoes" for fear of offending his employer. William was the younger son of
Herbert [ngram*, founder of.ILN, who had been drowned with his eldest son Herbert in 1860
when the paddle steamer Lady Elgin had sunk as the result of a collision on I-ake Michigan.
Control of the Z.M passed to his widow Ann until the two younger boys were old enough to take
over. (tn 1893 Watkin became William's stepfather when he married Ann in her eighty first
year.) Like Parry both Herbert and William had held the seat of Boston.
5. John Latey (1842-1902), at this time assistant editor of the lllustrated London News, where
his father had been editor.
6. 27 May 1879, organized by Dr. Lyon Playfair, long-time friend of the Duke ("Echoes," lZN
31 May 1879: 510). He put the Duke in the chair as "Doctor Rear-Admiral His Royal highness
the Duke of Edinburgh, K.G."
244
7. Alfred Ernest Albert (1844-1900), sccond son of Quccn Victoria, crcatcd Duke of Edinburgh
in 1866, and succeeded as Duke of Saxc-Coburg-Gotha in 1893, Yatcr had rcporlod on hls
Russian wedding for the.Merry York Herald in 1874 (103n7).
7. Translates as "In search of social status."
8. Bill (Blanchard) Jcrrold (109n8), francophilc, admircr and blojraphor of Nrpoloon lll wu
awarded the "palmes acad6miqucs" from thc Frcnch govcrnmcnt, and tho kn[hthood of tho oder
of Christ from Portugal, for his cfforts as prcsidcnt of thc Englich branch (whlch ho foundod) ol
the Intemational Association for thc Assimilation of Copyright laws. Much of thc lnformatlon
Jenold used for his biography of Napolcon was offcrcd by thc Empcror's widow, Eug6nie and thc
work is largely an apology for thc Sccond Empirc (DNB), GAS, likc many othcrs, saw Jcnold's
endorsement of Louis Napoleon's regime as a repudiation of everything his fathcr Douglas, "the
People's Advocate" had stood for (23n5).
lrsq
Monday 4 p.m. [?16 June 1879]1
46 Mecklenburgh Square
Dear Edmund,
See beginning of Bernhardt2 article. She was Bland, Passionate & truly Amiable? I have
forgotten the precise hang of the epitaph; but, if you have forgotten it what I have written is near
enough.
In haste
G.A.S.
1. hobably Monday before Bemhardt article appeared nWorld (n2).
2. "Society and Sarah" (World 18 June 18792 L2): "She was Bland, Passionate, and truly
Amiable; she Painted beautifully in Water-C-olours; she was first Cousin to lady Jones; and of
Such is the Kingdom of Heaven." Yates must have "forgotten it" because GAS's story on actress
Sarah B€rnhardt (1.844-1923) starts with a not quite right version of the following epitaph, by an
unknown writer, on the tomb of I-ady O'lnoney, Pewsey Church-yard: "Bland Passionate, and
Deeply Religious; also she painted in Water Colours, and sent several Pictures to the Exhibition.
She was the first cousin to Lady Jones, and of such is the Kingdom of Heaven" (Home
Quotations 573). GAS dipping into his library again in order to make fun of Bernhardt's several
interests; according to WTWS she was "actress, author, aeronaut, painter and sculptor" (World 26
February 1879: 13). Bernhardt was appearing in London with the the Com€die Frangaise at the
Gaiety Theatre, under contract to John Hollingshead. It was her first appearance in England and
she provided plenty of copy for the press. She was a great publicist who attracted attention by
refusing to be bound by contemporary stereotypes of feminine beauty and behaviour. The
Com6die Frangaise's first performance had been on 2 June.
245

t1s7I
2L June [182e11
46 Mecklenburgh Square
My dear Edmund,
Was Sarah all rigntf2 By the way you might have said one word about the Artists'
dinner3 in the "World". Did not Your Highness approve of the proceedings? There is a very
nice little report of you speech in the 'Builder' of this week.4
Poor young Lobski!) Poor I-ouis Nap! The gushing leader in today's D.T. is not mine.
The headed article beginning, "Dead" is. The exordium is obviously a paraphrase of Bdranger's6
"[a Noble Dame en son Palais de Rome"
alwaYs
G.A.s.
1. Year of Eugdne Louis Napoleon's death (n5).
2. Presumably he means his World article about Bemhardt mentioned in previous letter. Or
perhaps Yates had just seen one of the Com6die Frangaise performances.
3. Dinner, previous Saturday 14 June 1879, to celebrate seventieth anniversary of the Artist's
Benevolent Fund. GAS was in the chair (lLNJanuary-June 1879:579:2).
4. lncluded inBuilder report of the Artists' Benevolent Fund Dinner, 2L June 1879 (37 :693-94).
5. Eugdne Louis Jean Joseph (1856-1879), only son of Napoleon III, killed on 1 June 1879
during South African "Zulu C-ampaign"; reportedly died from some 17 spear wounds while on
reconnaissance. The "gushing leader" and GAS's. equally gushing piece, which dramatically
'begins and ends with one word - "Dead!" appeared in the DT 21 June L879: 4 (same day as this
letter). The exordium (introduction) of GAS's extravaganza on the "fall of the House of
Bonaparte" recreates the tragic fate of l*tizia Ramolino ("Ia Noble Dame en son Palais de
Rome"), mother of Napoleon [, who lived to witness both the rise and fall of her son's ambitions.
6. Piene Jean de Bdranger (1780-1857), French "poet of the people," whose lyrics had gained
great popularity during the post-Napoleonic period, both at home and in Britain and the US.
Always outspoken about the excesses of power he was hostile to the restored Bourbon monarchy
under Napoleon III, only to be enshrined at his death as a national literary hero by the Third
Empire establishment. He was a particular favourite of GAS's, who probably was the author of
his obituary published in the DI 1.7 July 1857.
[1s8]
Thursday night [26 June 1879]1
46 Mecklenburgh Square
My dear Edmund,
After much diplomacy I am enabfed to book with certainty for Saturday the Twelfth of
July Trafalgar, Greenwich, at Seven p.m.z
faithtully always
G.A.S.
P.S. It is neither a scapula nor a scapular.3 It is scaoulary. lnok at your Webster-Worcester.4 [f
you have looked at it you may have been misled by finding scapular/scapulary bracketed
together. But these are adjectives:ex: his scapular or scapulary development. But scapulare (od)
is a noun.
1. Day after "scapula" par appeared inWorld (n4).
246
2. Must relate to Yates's dinner at Greenwich mentioned at end of next letter.
3. Refers to a par inWorld 25 June 1879: L4, which points out some mistakes in the DTreport of
EugBne Napoleon's death. One was the reference to "a chain containing a scapula," found
around his neck. T,trc OED givcs the correct term as either scapular or scapulary, a leather pouch
wom over the shoulders, containing religious tokens. Scapulary is a more archaic form.
4. The Webster-Worcester Dictionary (1859), was a combination of the efforts of two American
lexicographers Noah Webster (1758-1843) and Joseph Worcester (1784-1865); advertized as
Webster's Dictionary by Worcester, "A Universal, Critical, and Pronouncing Dictionary of the
English Ianguage, including scientific terms from the Materials of Noah Webster, L.L.D., by
Joseph E. Worcester." Routlege had brought out an edition, Worcester and Webster's Dictionary
of the English Language, in 1875.
llsel
Monday morning [7 July 1879]1
46 Mecklenburgh Square
My dearEdmund,
Enclosed2 only reached me on Saturday. I told lady Lindsay that t would beg you to
give us a brief word in the "World".J You know the gaffwell. I am going to spout B6ranger's
"Souvenirs du Peuple"4
It is the exquisitely pathetic lyric of the old peasant woman who tells her grandchidlren how
Napoleon I came to her cottage, during the invasion of France in 181.4, wet, cold and miserable,
and how she made supper for him, and she dried his clothes, and how he went to sleep before the
fire in her own armchair. And the grandchildren cry i! chorus:
"Il s'est assis li, Grand'Mtre! Il s'est assis li!")
It is possible that the poor boy's funeral to which I am going will take place on Saturday.6
I shall go down by road, and take Mrs Sala. But that wo'nt prevent my coming to your dinner at
Greenwich in the evening: only I may be in raven black. Perhaps your spread is a case of
warpaint. Say:7
faithtully always
G.A.S.
L. Monday before Yates's dinner on Saturday L2luly (see previous letter).
2. GAS's letter written on back of following from I-ady Lindsay (edged in mourning black,
perhaps out of respect for Eugtne Napoleon)
Dear Mr. Sala,
4 Cromwell Place, Saturday
These preliminary circulars are only out today; the programmes will be printed in two or
three days. Shall we on those state what you will recite, or are we simply to state you will kindly
recite. Yours very sincerely
Blanche Lindsay.
3. World 9 July 1.879: 9: "Sir Coutts Lindsay has given the use of his studio in Cromwell place
for a concert in aid of the funds of the People's Entertainment Society on Tuesday, July 1.5th, at 3
p.m. Some of our very best singers will appear, and an interesting feature will be the recitation
by Mr. George Augustus Sala of B6ranger's exquisite pathetic lyic, Les Souvenirs du Peuple."
247

July 1,879 1: 468. In 1882 GAS dedicated his book America Revisited to "Iady Lindsay of
Balcanes . . . with the feelings of the sincerest admiration and respect". See World article, "Iady
Bountifu 1," July-December 1,87 5 : 372.
4. One of Bdranger's most popular "songs" and typical of his style, which emphasized the role of
the common people. Perhaps a modern analogy could be found in the the poetry and plays of
Bertholt Brecht (1898-1956).
5. "He sat there Grandmother! He sat there!"
6. The prince's funeral actually took place on Monday, L4 July, at Chislehurst, so GAS would
not have had to attend Yates's dinner in mourning attire.
7. I.e., evening dress.
11601
Sunday [21 September 1879]1
46 Mecklenburgh Square
My dear Edmund,
Exit Lawson. Witling2 had the news telegraphed to him just after he had landed at the
Bedford.
You and I know pretty well what manner of man L.L. was. So far as I am concerned "De
mortuis"3 will be my motto; und I shall try to say the very kindest things that can with decency
be said about him in next week's "Echoes".4 The honible suddeness of the event has so upset
and hippeds me that I have not been able to do a stroke of work today; - and yet, perhaps, it was
the most merciful way of having one's light put out.
always
G.A.S.
1. Day after Saturday 20 September 1879, date of Lionel Iawson's* death.
2. James Willing*. Yates's par in WTWS (World 24 September 1879: 9) about "the sudden
death of Mr. Lionel Lawson" mentions Willing as one of "the little band which used to hold such
pleasant reunions in the small ground floor sitting-room at the Bedford Hotel, Brighton." The
following week WTWS followed this up with a resumd of lawson's life and personality, and his
wealth, of which he had plenty, (Boase records that he left 1900,000; a fortune for the day).
Conjecture about his beneficiaries prompted the World to publish his will for the enlightenment
of its readen (8 October:l3). Among the bequests was f1,00 a year for life to Reginald Turner
"of whom he was the guardian." In Martin Fido's Oscar Wilde (L973) Turner is named as
Lawson's illegitimate son (95).
In the light of this letter some of Yates's remarks about lawson in his WTWS par
mentioned by GAS in n4 take on a distinctly cutting edge; e.g., "Though constantly occupied in
making shrewd investment of his money, he was naturally an idle man" and "he never posed in
any way as a philanthropist or a public benefactor, and had a light airy manner somewhat
flavoured with cynicism" (1. October 1879:9). lawson was certainly an entrepreneur, apart from
having an equal share with his brother in the DT, "at various time he owned an ink factory in
Paris, an interest in the early diamond mines in South Africa, and was at one time owner of the
Gaiety Theatre" (Burnham 2).
3. "Never speak ill of the dead."
4. "Mr. Lionel Lawson dicd at his rcrldonco ln Brcok-ilnrl, HmovrFlQlllttr gt lsfdrl
morning last. The suddcnncss of hlr of hlr dorth m$l b ilr o.$. of lnflilf dffrt| h ll
nu-"reous and affectionatc kindrcd; whllo lt hu rhoctrd r ll0rt ol frUdt, A lO, Ylll bI
remarked in a gracctul paragnph ln ths worl4 Mr lJonrl Lrwrqr wlll br alnd-h ffry ft
various cirles in london, in Faric, and ln Brljhron. ln nlrupolltu mhly U *S S[ tsi t
distinct and moumtul void' (ILN 27 Scptcrnbor lt79: 2t6), Atolh$ il &il tffi ffi,
5. Hipped = depresscd; from "hip," abbrcviation ol hypochondrl) (OBD\,
Il6TI
Tlrurrdry nl$t [9 (Xtobrr 1t?9ll
46 Mrckhnbunh tgurn
My dcar Edmund,
By this time Viz2 should have sent you a copy of my ncw book "Podt Honolf A3tln",
He is an old bloke, and has spent some hundreds of pounds over thc illustrationr lomo ol whloh
are really very beautitu13; andan;Tl:ot,t." would do him alef ef Saadt.l
But Teddy you would never let
Your angry passions rise;
Your little fists were never meant
To black poor Labby's eyes.
Just Heavens! What an opportunity you havl lost for chaff by making it up with E.L.L.5
Meanwhile I console mysclf with writing politely about everybody in the "Echoes" if you ever
see that estimable column you will perceive that it is developing into a complete Academy of
Hypocrisy for the use of suiting personalities.
faithfully yours always
G.A.S.
P.S. Joe Parkinson took us i I'improviste6 hst Sunday, and stayed to dinner. What is the matter
with him? A man more desperately hipped I have rarely met with. He seems jaded, careworn,
anxious and miserable. Too much bath, too much money, too much wife.
P.T.O.
[On back] -
H; told me that your eldest sonT was suffering from dyspepsia. [t seems almost
ridiculous to ask the question but did you ever hear of a thing called "Mawson's Pepsine" In
1862-3 I had trvelve months frightful martyrdom from dyspepsia with abundant neuralgia,
deafness, hypochondriasis and incipient melancholia. Mawson's Pepsine did me an immensity of
good. Also dfy cupping over the region of the liver - simply the exhaustion of the air in a
galvanised india _rubber cup clapped over your liver which organ it routs up in a remarkable
manner. LiveseyE used to "joggulate" his liver after his bath every moming with !bit:
A is a shallow wooden box. B is nvo rows of ivory balls about the size of small
greengages revolving on two stout [?twin] wires. Reverse the box onto your liver, and
"frictionise" for five minutes. The worst of it is that if you pursue this ball-practice in a hotel the
man in the next room knocks at the wall, and implores you for God's sake to leave off.
alwavsf::.
Mawson's Pepsine is sold by the inventor - our druggist in fact, whose shop is in Soughampton
Row, Russcll Squarc.
1.. Thunday before puff for Paris Herself Again appeared in World 15 October 1879: 9
248 249

2. GAS trying to play on Yates's sympathies to get a notice for "old" Henry Vizetelly's sake. Viz
(1820-1894) was 8 years older than GAS, who outlived him by only one year.
3. According to Straus there were 400 illustrations by leading French artists in this first edition
(229), which had been reduced to 300 by the 10th edition. GAS, sending a copy to I-ady
Lindsay, apologized for the "rubbishy illustrations" with which the publisher had insisted on
"cramming" it (ibid.).
4. Edward Irvy-I-awson*. GAS commenting on a WTWS par of the previous day: "as a fracas
between Mr. Henry labouchere* and Mr. Edward lawson will probably form the subject of an
inquiry before a court of law, it is, I think, unadvisable to comment upon it here" (8 October
1879: 10).. GAS's ditty is reflected in this WTWS par 1,5 October commencing "Fisticuffs seem
to be the order of the day" (9). TWo further pars of same week report that a libel case of Iawson
versus I-abouchere "will be heard at the Guildhall on Friday," and that "the libet in question
arises out of a letter published by Mr. Iabouchere in last week's Truth, giving his version of the
fracas, and the steps that he took in his own vindication after the street-meeting." The fight took
place outside the Athenaeum Club. The case was virtually laughed out of court. I-awson was
granted one farthing damages.
5. Probably refers to "handshake" in letter 127 fint par.
6. Unexpectedly.
7. Frederick Henry Albert, born 1-4 October 1854. Information from Edmund Yates's will points
to fact that Frederick was a ne'er do well, who drank heavily.
8. Probably John Livesey.*
IL62l
Thursday [October 182S11
46 Mecklenburgh Square
My dearEdmund,
I will reply definitively to your letter tomonow, I ca'nt to-day: first because tomorrow I
am off to Boston and my head is full-of a flaming Anti-Jingo speech which I have to make at the
meeting of the Liberal Association2 and next because i u.ry droll medieval monastic story
which is incubating in my brain: -
frue Storv of the Praeon o
yet lacks one essential element - a Woman. Perhaps the petticoat will turn up in the train. The
story is head over heels fun in a picturesque medieval frame, and I think would suit you to a T.4
I'll send you the Meissonnier) par tomorrow.
faithfully always
G.A.S.
1. Before next two letters positively dated L8 and L9 October 1879. Link is with letter 164: "[
found the woman at Peterborough."
2. During this period GAS was politically active both for himself, and others. "In October he
addressed a political audience at Peterborough, and only a few days later he was in another part
of Lincolnshire (perhaps Boston, as here), speaking on behalf of William lngram" (Straus 228).
After some hesitation he was selected to stand for Brighton as a liberal candidate. His radical
non "Gladstonian" views appealed to the "advanced"' Brighton Liberals, who wanted to field
250
their own candidate against the sitting orthodox Liberal member Q27). World's reports show it
was an on again off again affair. "Mr Sala will not stand for Brighton, or ask the favours of any
constituency. He sails on Saturday for New York in the Scythia" (L2 November 1879:9). And
the following week: "Mr. Sala rs going to stand for Brighton at the next election. Who shall say
that literature and its representatives are without honour in England" (1,9 November: 9).
However, his American trip ruled out possible political triumphs, as the General Election took
place on 4 April 1,880, two days before GAS returned to England (Straus 23L).
3. Published in the Christmas number of.theWorld 24 December L879, pp10-L4, but titled "The
Dragon of Dragsbury."
4. [.e., for the World.
5. Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier,* French painter.
t163I
Saturday L8 October 1879
46 Mecklenburgh Square
My dear Edmund,
What do you think of a Great Iaw officer of the Crown - of Sir John Holkerl, her
Majesty's Afforney General, and who, ex-officio should be a guardian of the public morals,
degrading his position and standing by becoming the-hired advocate before the Middlesex
magistrates of such infamous pcrsons as Robert Bignellz of the Agyll and Barnes [?Amos] of
Evans's?3 What do you think of a strong article in the "World" entitled
Iritssilelhqlhisgta
gravely and solemnly asking whether it is quite consonant with forensic dignity that the Great
I-aw officer of the Crown should accept briefs for such clients and in such causes. You may trust
me, (after five thousand leaders), not to get you into any criminal information mess.
I am going to Peterborough at tnrlu" with the geat Northerns people on a "trial journey"
of a Refreshment Pullman6 car. I shall be back in London at four, and shall catch the first
express from London Bridge to Brighton. Will you meet me at the Brighton platform at six ten
and tell me whether I shall write the article; or, if you cannot come will you send me a note in the
course of the evening to Reichardt's Restaurant by Brill[']s Baths/ where t shall dine at sevell
P'm'
always
t:n.
1.. Sir John Holker (1,828-1882), Attomey-General, Queen's Counsel and MP for heston.
2. Robert Bignell (1811 or L8L2-L888) lessee of the Argyll rooms lt/z Great Windmill Street
Haymarket, I-ondon; famous casino which had lost its music and dancing license on 30
November 1"878 (Boase).
3. Evans's (19n10) Supper Rooms: originally an extremely shady haunt with a reputation for
ribald singing, it was revamped in the 1.860s and became a favourite press and literary venue,
frequented by the likes of Hannay, Jerrold, Lionel Iawson, Albert and Arthur Smith, Ponny
Mayhew, GAS et al. The introduction of musical halls heralded its downfall (Yates 109-111).
4. Article entitled "Was it Quite the Thing?" appeared inWorld 22 Octo&r L879: 7. It doesn't
mention Evans's, but decries the fact that Q.C. Sir John Holker (who, GAS puns, is a "big-wig")
has stooped as low as to appear on behalf of Bignell to have the Argyll, "a mart for prostitution,"
25r

elicensed; "that the Attorney-General should condescend to take a brief for such a place as the
Argyll seems to us a grave reproach to the dignity of the Bar."
5. Great Northern Railway, from King's Cross Station through Doncaster on the east coast route
towards Scotland.
6. Railway dining car designed by American inventor George Pullman (1831-1897), who had
designed the first sleeping car in 1.859.
7. Swimming baths at Brighton. Yates mentions "a lovely swim at Brill's baths" in his memoirs
(2L3), and F. C . Burnand claims in his that "very few things do I remember of any importance at
Brighton except Brill's Baths, where I learnt swimming" (1: 82).
[164]
Sunday [?1.9 October 187911
46 Mecklenburgh Square
My dear Edmund,
I found the woman at Peterborough,2 and will write the Dragon Story immediatel]' if the
notion suits you. I looked for you in vain at Brighton on Saturday. Write "yes" or "no"
always
c.A.s.
1. Could be day after previous letter where he asks Yates to meet him at Brighton Station,
although he would have been more likely to say "yesterday." Perhaps following Sunday 26th.
2. In letter l62he mentions "the lack of one essential ingredient - a woman."
t16sl
My dear Edmund,
Thursday. [end October or early November ll8lell
46 Mecklenburgh Square
Smalley. N.Y. Times?2
Vizetelly
John Livesey
Jenkins (Ginx)
Gporge lrwis
kt us know if the affaid is going on or is dropped.
I am hard at the Dragon4 at every leisure moment
always
GA.S.
Meet H.R.H. the Princess Louise to night at dinner in Cromwell Place.5 Oho! What do you say
now, Keneaty of the "spotted Dog"? Ahal6
1. Before departure for US on L5 November 1879.
2. hobably list of possible guests for farewell dinner to be ananged by Yates before GAS left
for New York (see next letter).
George Smalley (1833-1826), American barrister tumed news correspondent. He was
with the New York Tribune, not Nerz York Tines. Like GAS he was a "special correspondent,"
starting his career with a coverage of the US Civil War that gained him great praise, as did his
reports of the Austro-Hungarian War. Perhaps his greatest assignment was establishing a bureau
for the Tribune in Inndon to receive and co-ordinate all European news. thus paving the way for
a revolution in in the dissemination of news (DAB).
Henry Vizetelly,r old friend and publisher.
John Uvesey, an old friend. He was a Halifax business man whose interests included
coal mines in Nova Scotia. As a seasoned Atlantic "crosser" he had been a useful travelling
companion for GAS on his 1863 / 4 Civil War tour of Ame nea (Life 39\.
John Edward Jenkins (1838-1910), writer and MP; author of Gittx's Baby: His Birth and
Other Misfortunes, a sensationally popular novel, that went through 37 editions betrveen 1.870
and 1,877 (Sutherland 246). It was a satirical comment on religious and political social welfare
organizations.
George bwis,* friend and lawyer.
3. I.e., the dinner.
4. Story forlAorld Christmas issue (162n3).
5. hincess Louise of Wales, daughter of Queen Victoria; about this time she dined informally a
number of times at 5 Cromwell Place, the home of GAS's friends Sir Coutts Lindsay and his
wife, Blanche. Louise Jopling records one such occasion c. March 1880 (157).
6. See letter 128. An article in Edward Kenealy's magazine the Englishmanhad intimated GAS
was a boozer and a gambler by linking him with pub/betting house "The Spotted Dog". An
introduction to the Princess would have to prove that he was socially acceptable - in the highest
circles.
l16q
Saturday 4 p.m. [L5 November L879]1
On Board'Scythia" at Sea
My dear Edmund,
I linished last slip of copy of "Dragon of Dragsbury'2 half an hour before leaving; but
had no time to corect proof of what I had in type. This, however, I shall do before the "Scythia"
leaves Queenstown3,*d sh"ll post if from on board to Robson4. To the last part however you
must look. The writing of every slip was intemrpted by people calling to say good bye or by Mrs
Sala vehemently demanding fresh cheques. Thus you may find the composition towards the end
some what loose and flabby. Please for the nonce, to put yourself in my place - you will be
easily able to discern my meaning. Imagtne that you had written the story and brace and tighten
accordingly
faithfully always
G.A.Sala.
P.S. Weather as yet only "wobbly"; but general forecast equivocal. Quoth an ancient mariner
to me swabbing the deck, in return to my conventional "what cheer my hearty?" made answer
"Them as likesi good dinner'ad better heat one To Day'. This I thoughi was suspicious.s
P.S. 2. The dinner was a complete and glorious success.o
The Brevoort House, Fifth Avenue, New York will be my headquarters during tour.
1,. Day he sailed for America. His departure had been postponed more than once because it was
thought that he might be called on to supply evidence for lawson/Iabouchere libel suit (161na).
2. 162n3.
3. hish port of call, only tanding before New York. Transatlantic passengers could either board
ship at Liverpool, as GAS did, or travel overland, via Holyhead, across the lrish Channel to
252 253

Kingstown, Dublin, south to Cork and
Q4merica Revisited Z: L3).
4. Printer of.World.
5. In his memoirs GAS writes: "wc
Cunarder in a succession of storms -
tempestuous storms" (679).
6. lnvitation to this dinner included in collection:
T16T
Dear Mn Yates,
from there to Queenstown; often a race against time
[Harriett accompanied him] crossed the Atlantic in a
I never did cross that ocean save in winter and in
November 6,1879
Dear Sir,
Mr George Augustus Sala sails on the 15th. inst. for the Southem States of
America, where he will pass the winter. A few of his friends consider this a
favourable opportunity for entertaining him at dinner, and wishing him farewell
and God speed. They will be happy to include you among the number.
The Dinner will take place at willis's Rooms, on Thursday the 13th inst.,
at 7 o'clock. Tickets,30s.; the money to be paid at the door.
_^ _-
Kindly send your reply by return of post, addressed to F.D. Finlay, Esq.,
70 Gloucester-place, Portman-square, W.
Faithfully yours,
F.D. Finlay,
J.C. Parkinson,
Edmund Yates,
Hon. Secs.
Tuesday [?18 May 1880J1
46 Mecklenbutgh Square
It must have been Joseph C.P.z ---Giuseppe il Traditore the Catiline of Coal Mines the
Machiavelli of the Newport Docks, the Aughty, Hopresso, of the'orny'anded sons of evil who
made you acquainted with the substance of a remark I happened to drop, sitting near him at the
Literary Fund Dinner.3 P".fidious Joseph. I can readily una"ot*o him, at the first blush both
Edmund and yourself could not well make out to whom the letter was addressed; for I posted it
myself in New York4 in one-of Bradley and Rulofson'ss o*n San Francisco envelopes which
was, I remember, stamped all over with emblems of prize medals and other monsters and
chima'ras [sic] diei6 puiting their photographic busines, 1.or*"r.ially valuable no doubt but
confusing to the general eye|t. N'en EdgI$ plgg.8 If we felt momentarily hurt your kind
explanation has acted as a salve to ourwounded vanity
faithfully yours always
G.A. Sala.
Poor Mrs Shirley. You must have known her many yean; but do you know that I remember her
and her sister - Jesse Walkingshaw [sic], was it? - so far back as the year 1843 when I was the
pupil of the late C-arl Schiller the miniature painter in Carloth St, Fitzroy Square. He painted the
sisters'portraits as beauties, and exhibited the miniatures in the Academy with the title ,'Night
and Morning".9
254
1. Probably Tuesday after Friday 14 May 1880, day Mrs Shirley Brooksr, the former Emily
Walkinshaw died (see last par).
2. Joseph Charles Parkinson having the mickey taken out of him again (letter 72). GAS alludes
to him as Joe the traitor, son of a capitalist coal mine owner, prey to the reckless ambition and
manipulative machinations that the names of Catiline and Machiavelli evoke.
3. Literary Fund Dinner held L0 March 1880 (Irmes 1L March: 9. 6).
4. Straus records that GAS returned from US on 8 April 1880 (Straus231). How could this be if
he was at L.F. dinner in March? Or is it Mrs Yates sitting next to Joe Parkinson?
5. American firm; mentioned in America Revisited as publishers of a "photoglaphic album,
containing the portraits of famous celebrities who had passed through San Francisco" (430).
6. I.e., fanciful conceptions of the day.
7. Section in parenthesis is addendum added by GAS below body of letter.
8. I-et's not talk about it any more.
9. See78n5.
11681
Monday 27 lune [184t11
46 Mecklenburgh Square
My dearEdmund,
I think, on the whole, that I was well out of it on Saturday night. t think that, had I
prepared and carefully thought out a speech worth listening to, I should not have cared to deliver
it at "the heel of the hunt" after everybody else had spoken, except the waiters, and to have read
in the "Times" on Monday moming 'lvft G.A. Sala also responded to the toast". Lord
Sherbrooke's2 speech was, to my thinking, simply insulting to the pro&ssion of journalism.
I sent you on Saturday the copy of a letter which I sent to FrithJ on the unpleasant subject
of Bret Harte.4 t can only supplement it to you, by mentioning that in thrusting himself
offensively on me he mentioned that he had written his libellous "rot" on me "deliberately" and
that he "did not intend to apologise". I have the highest admiration for his genius, and have said
so, a hundred times in print; and why he should have behaved towards me as a "hoodlum" and a
"scallawag"5 I am at a ioss to conjecture.
faithtully always
G.A.S.
[Written at head of letter, above address]:
Do you remember in the early chapter of "Pickwick" the story of the soldier who, when the
barmaid refused to draw him any more liquor, draws his bayonet and stabs her in the arm? "And
yet "continues Dickens (I quote from memory) "the next morning this fine fellow was the first to
step down to the house, and tell the girl that he was willing to look over the occurrence".6 That
is precisely the position of Mr Bret Harte to myself. He writes a lying libel about me; and then,
without ever having retracted or explained his conduct, he holds out his hand to me, with a grin.
1. Monday following l"ord Mayor's Literary Dinner (Saturday 25 June 1881) mentioned by GAS
in first par. \\e DT reports that Viscount Sherbrooke responded to the toast for journalism,
followed by Yates and Archibald Forbes (2. 6). GAS's antagonism arose from the fact that
Sherbrooke's speech invoked laughter at the expense of the popular press; he suggested that
modern journalism had been invented by mankind in a time of growing intellectual overload to
255

undertake the "duty of making up people's minds for those who had not time to make them up for
themselves."
2. Formerly MP Robert I-owe; transferred to House of l,ords in 1880. As a contributor to the
Times (L27n5) he was at one time a perpetrator of "noble and illustrious" joumalism himself.
3. William Powell Frith (1819-1909), artist; old friend of both GAS and Yates. He specialized
in huge paintings of Victorian scenes, of which the best known are Ramsgate Sands (1854,
bought by Queen Victoria), Derby Day (1858), The Railway Station (1862). They are almost
panoramic in their treatment of large crowds, yet intricately particular in their treatment of
individuals or small groups as detailed vignettes, often featuring well-known people as models.
GAS appean in the right hand corner of. The Private View of the Royal Academy, /88/ (93n9),
along with Oscar Wilde, Gladstone, Browning, Huxley, Tenniel, du Maurier, lrving, Ellen Terry,
Lily langtry and Frith himself. ln fact the painting contains many of the characters mentioned in
these letters including Mary Braddon, John Bdght, Baroness Burdett-Coutts and others. See
Neville Wallis's L957 edition of Frith's memoirs I Wctorian Canvas (164-66), for a
reproduction of the section of the painting that shows GAS, and Frith's own explanation of who's
who in the whole thing. The original edition of Frith's memoirs comprizes two volumes, My
Autobiogr aphy and Reminisc enc es (1 887), Further Reminiscences (1 888).
4. 150n1.
5. Alternative spelling of "scallywag" (OED).
6. GAS's memory not quite correct, Dickens's actual words are: "And yet this fine fellow was the
very first to go down to the house next moming, and express his readiness to overlook the matter,
4nd forget what had occurred!" (Pickwickl4).
tl6el
Tuesday 28 June [tAAf11
46 Mecklenburgh Square
My dear Edmund,
I should have desired nothing better than to have eaten Frith's dinner and ignored B.H.'s
presence; bg! lhg beggar stuck !g lgg, and molested me in an affected grinning buffoon like
manner which at length became intolerable. And, by the diabolical irony of Fate Miss Frith had
innocently told off B.H. to take my wife down to dinner; so there was no option for me but to
go. You know as well as I do that I am a peaceable old bloke and that I do not bear malice to a
single soul alive. But justice is justice, and I could not shake hands with a man who has had ten
whole years before him to explain an outrage upon one who never offended him and who scores
of times, has expressed his sincere admiration for his geniusz. (Personal pronouns getting "a
little mixed"; but you know what I mean.)
Davisr has (this moming) cashed gg the second Hundred Pounds; so that I only lose
actually Six Hundred by the transaction, and the potential sum which I could have got for the
republication.4 Neuer mind. The worst of it is that, believing in "Pan", (he had given me an
undertaking to carry it on for six months longer) I had declined to write a guide book for the
Iondon Brighton & South Coast Railway which would have bought me a pq! Af money present
and to come. I must write my two cookery books.S
alwaYs
G.A.s.
256
1.. Day following previous lettcr. It is difficult to date Frith's dinner. Straus refers to the incident
as happening soon aftcr Harte arrived in England (178), the DNB records that he sailed from the
US to Europe for good in June 1.878, which means he must have arrived in l,ondon quite some
time before this letter. Braddon's biography mentions "the dinner party from which Sala stormed
out rather than sit at table with Bret Harte" (Wolff 1.86), but gives no date. I-etter 168 is
positively dated for day, month and year (1881), and L69, positively dated for day and month, is
obviously the following day. The perpetual calendar shows that June 27 and 28 fell on a
Monday and Tuesday in L881, three years after Harte anived in England. Either the dinner took
place later than Straus suggests or GAS is writing in retrospect, giving Yates a first hand account,
or the "full story," of something that happened a while ago. If this is so the letter to Frith he
mentions in 167 is not likely to be an apology after the events of the dinner, but rather some
belated explanation about his antagonism to Harte.
Strius's version of the confrontation varies from GAS's: "Shortly after his arrival in
England there was a scene in the house of W.P. Frith the painter. There was a dinner-party at
which Bret Harte was to be the guest of honour, and the Salas had been invited. The American
was announced. Frith was about to introduce the two men when Bret Harte shocked the
company by announcing his refusal to shake hands with 'that scoundrel"' (178). Where did
Straus get hig information, if ours is straight from the horses' mouth? He gives no
documentation. Or is this another dinner? Hardly likely they tried to match the two up again.
Alternatively, perhaps GAS resisted meeting Harte, as made clear in letter 1.50, for quite a long
time, even three years, and this was in fact their one notorious meeting.
2. E.g.,lZflpan mentioned 150n5.
3. Bill-collectorstillhauntinghim? Seeletter3 par2. Or isDavissomethingtodowithPan?
4. Republication mentioned here is probably A Party in the City. a novel that GAS had been
writing in serial form since April for Pan, a magazine recently started by Alfred Thompson
(1.83L-1895), previously. editor of Mask, February to December 1868. He had ananged
republication and offered GAS €1300 for serial and book tights. However, after only three
instalments had been printed, financial problems causedPcn's sudden demise (Straus 239-4I).
5. He seems to have only written one (and much later), The Thorough Good Cook (1895).
t170I
Hotel d'Angleterre Rome
Tuesday 8 January 1889
My dear Edmund,
Your kindty New Year's Greetings were duly forwarded to me from Victoria Street.l The
same to you and many of them and to Mrs Yates. I was in Brighton just before Xmas (Pullman
Drawing Room trial trip train)z and left my pasteboards at Eastern Terrace, and learned that Mrs
Yates was better, but that you were ill in bed. I hope that by this time you are both convalescent.
Yes; it is a long time - a very long time since we first foregathered. I well remember the
evening when I c.m" io see you in Doughty St.3 I do'nt like Ooughty St myself. Like Virgil's
Mantua it is to [sic] close to Verona,4 and Doughty St is in unpleasant close propinquity to
Mecklenburgh Square where I have a d-----d house which for twelve months I have been
vainly trying to let. I thought recently that I had eught an East End rector as a tenant; but the
beggar (parson like) bolted at the last moment.
Sir C. Dilkd was here this morning, looking very fit after a ride in the Campagna; and
later on Sorafino the waiter in a flutter of excitement, announced 'UAmbasciatore d'Inghilterra",
257

and in walked H.E. the Marquess (why Marquessand not Marquis) of Dufferin and Ava.6 He
bears his new honours very gently and stayed for nearly an hour telling ghost stories.
Lord Sherbrooke iJ at the QuirinaleT and the Grandiloquent Old Mamamouchi8 is
expected from Naples. The Anglo-Roman colony are terribly exercized about him. Will he see
the Pope?g Wilt he (in bad ltalian) convert that astute Italian ecclesiastical to Home Rule views?
ln any case ,it is certain that the banks of the Tiber Will resound ere long to the Eternal Jaw of the
Grani old,IO .ttJy rtlnT 2 -
I have only a three wecks'holdiday from the D.T. but am enjoying it hugely. Very cold,
but an unclouded sky and floods ofsunshine.
always my dear Edmund, affcy yours
G.A.Sala.
P.S.
It will take a great deal not withstanding the hullabaloo in the papers to convince me that Ellen
Terryrr is within 1000 miles of making a good Iady Macbeth. From her l@kg I do'nt dissent.
The Marchioness de Brinvilliersl2 was the image of Anna Thillonl3, and Mother Brownriggl4
was slim and comely to look upon.
1. 125 Victoria Street, Westminster. GAS moved here c. late 1.888. For a glimpse of its
cluttered interior, the epitome of Victorian d6cor, see Strand magazine 'Illustrated lnteryiews"
feature a $892):58-69.
2. Probably a promotional trip by the London, Brighton and South Coast line. In 1881 he had
been asked to write a book about it (letter 169). GAS's long-time friend, Jonas Irvy,* was
chairman. The English railway system was planned, built and operated by private investors, and
pubticity was an essential part of their operation.
3. Yates's second family home,43 Doughty Street. GAS had never been able to settle back into
46 Mecklenburgh Square after Harriett's death; it had too many memories and with three-stories
was much too large. Note for all those who like the illusion of a happy ending - staying with
GAS at the Hotel d'Angletene on this trip to Rome was Mrs. Bessie Caralampi, his secretary,
whom he was to marry on ?5 January the following year (Straus 260, 265). Straus suggests
Bessie was a social climber whose ambition worked her husband to death (136n7).
4. Virgil (70-19BC) was born at Andes, a small town near Mantua.
5. Charles Wentworth Dilke (1843-191,L), ndical politician and author of Greater Britain
(1868), European Politics (1887), Problems of Greater Britain (1890). The British Empire
(1890). He could have been Gladstone's successor but for his involvement in L886 with Mrs
Crawford, which led to a divorce scand"l and an enforced temporary retirement from politics.
6. Frederick Temple Hamilton Temple Blackwood, lst Marquis of Dufferin and Ava (1826t902);
under-secretary for tndia (1864-66); chancellor of the Duchy of lancaster (1868-72);
govemor-general of Canada (1872-78); ambassador at St. Petersburg (L879-1881; viceroy of
India 1884; created a marquis in 1888 while ambassador to Rome. An old friend he had gone out
of his way to be helpful when GAS had made a hurried trip to St. Petersburg, after the
assassination of Alexander tr by Nihilists in 1,881 (Life 690-91). He had provided respite in his
viceregal country residence at Barrackpore, near C:lcutta, when GAS was sadly rerurning home
via lndia in 1886 QzO), after Haniett's death in Australia. On 7 January (day before this letter)
the Marquis had presented his crcdentials as British ambassador to the Italian court (nrnes 8
January 1889:5.3).
Z. Quirinale = the Italian royal palacc and scat of govcmmcnt, oct on thc Qulrlnal hlll ln Romo,
After the union of ltaly it was uscd to dcsignatc thc ltalian monarch, or iovornmonl, tl rllrllncl
from the Vatican. King at this timc was Umbcrto I (1844-19(n), ron of Vlctor Emmmucl
(1820-1878) the first king of unitcd ltaly. Lord Shcrbrookor, Olrdrlono ol rl woro lhors for
L889 opening of the Italian parliamcnt on 28 January,
8. Grand Otd Mamahmouchi = G.O.M. = Grand Old Man. Willlam Oladrlonc (1809-lllgtt); ha
was 80 and still going strong. Undcr thc guidancc sf DNB cntry wG rcc thal GAS ncatly
encapsulates Gladitone herc. Hc was a glcat orslor and could be exlrcmcly uinglc-nrindcd,
partilutarly at this time on thc subjcct of lrish Homc Rulc: "thcrc wss no audicncc hc ctluld nol
thu.m, none to which he did not instinctivcly adapt himsclf' (cvcn thc Popcl).
9. Iro 13th (1810-1903), crcated Pope in 1878.
10. The Eternal Jaw of the Grand old Prattler.
1i.. Ellen Terry (1848-1928); she established herself as a leading Shakespearian actress in
London, and between 1878-L902, in partnership with Henry lrving, dominated the English and
American stage. lrving's production of.Macbeth opened at the Lyceum Saturday 5 January L889
and was widely reviewed. GAS is commenting here on the World's coverage of its premiEre 2
January 1889. Yates himself contributed a signed article "Moi-M€me \ The "Macbeth" Premidre
- Comparisons and Reminiscences" in which he compares the new production at the Lyceum
with previous ones there (17). This was followed by a review from William Archer (one of the
most respected theatre critics of the time), who deemed Ellen Terry's Iady Macbeth "an artistic,
if not a dramatic triumph" (18).
L2. Marie Madeleine, Marquise de Brinvillien (c. 1630-76), French murderess, poisoned her
family with aid of her lover, Sainte Croix. She was anested and executed for her crimes
(Chambers).
13. Sophie Anne Thillon (L819-1903); opera singer remarkable for her beauty. Her first
performances were made in France, where on 6 March 1841 she played the first Caterina in
Auber's opera les Diamants de La Couronne (The Crown Diamonds). Her performance in the
same role created a sensation in London (ZMay 1844), and in San Francisco at Niblo's Garden,
when the Era citic enthused about her beauty. She was, he reported, "delicious" (19 October
1851: 13).
14. Elizabeth Brownrigg; midwife hanged at Tyburn in 1767 for barbarous murder of work
house apprentice Mary Clifford (Chambers).
258 259

Adrian, ArthurA. i/cl*
Allibone's
Dctloit,
Altick, Richsrd.
1966. ,',1
---. nc cblq;
Ashb€c,l{It, fr
Avcr, Mhfld, fi
toddy, l9?!,
F ;ri '"nryqffi
Brkor, H, Dtfun, Hlt *l il h * Srf rlc lfl fttilt to,til llff-lll
Routlodlo, l9(X,
Bcvington, Mcrlc. The futurday Revlew 1855-1868: Repreuntatlvc Educatr,d Clplnlal- ln
Victorian England. New York: AMS, 1966,
Boase,Frederic. ModernEnglishBiography.3sandsupplcmcnts. 1892. london: Cant, t964.
Bourne, H.R. Fox. English Newspapers: Chapters in the History of Journalism. 2 vols.
Inndon: Chatto, 1887.
Bridgeman, H and Elizabeth Drury, eds. The Encyclopedia of Wctoriana. London, Country
Live, L975.
Brodie, Fawn. The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton l-ondon: Eyre, 1967.
Brown, Philip. London Publishers and Printers c. 1800-1870. Landon: British Library, 1982.
Burnand, Sir Francis C. Records and Reminscences: Personal and General. 2 vols. London:
Mcthuen, 1904.
Burnham, Lotd. Peterborough Court: The Story of the Daily Telegraph. London: Cassell,
1955.
C-an, J, Comynr. Emlnent Wctorians: Personal Recollections in the World of Art and Letters.
london: Duckworth, 1908.
Clwmbcrs Blographlcol Dlctionary. Eds. J.O. Thorne and T.V. Collocott. Edinburgh:
Chambon, l9tl4,
Colllnr, Phlllp, llvlca Round lhe Clock. l.ciccstcr UP, 19?L.
Coopor, Drvld, D, lit kwonoltha Scafiold. Athcns, Ohio: Ohio lJP, 1974.
Clolr, Nlpl, Illt Calnon Wflrcn Cambrld3c: Cambridgc UP, 1985.
Donvlr, Dcmud. fht lzltc Vctorlaru: Art, Deslgn and ktclety 1852-1919. London: I-ongman,
19t6,
Dollor, ltrllc, rd, lfu bmru aleherla Dlclant, Vol 3, Bloomcbury: Nonesuch, 1938.
Dlctlonry s{fintlm; rle4neiy WDl, Ed Allcn lohnron. 20 vole, Ncw York: Scribner,
lgll,
ilctlrrirl 4 lffil rytery l0ilrl, Edr, brlls Stcphorr and Sldncy kc, 22 vols.
lnt5rr ln$]lltl, lmr#.
Dobh, fln fia idt, *ilrle Aaml krrflr As Allpn Vlerrlan. lrxrdon: MucDonald,
Douftt'Qrrf,f 'gn, lf[in_ffi L€r*nt llullrt, lels'
DntbL,l$F+ l'_lI qH ryHr E Wn* &ileraturc, oxfrrrtl: oxrrrrd UP,
ll
r Blllofi,JleHtr Clil kbl l9tl,

Edwards, P.D. Edntund Yates: A Bibliography. Victorian Fiction Research Guides 3. St Lucia:
Dept of English, University of Queensland, L980.
Escott, T.H.S. Club Makers and Club Members. London: Unwin, 191,4.
Masters of British Journalism. London: Unwin, 1,91,L.
---, The Story of British Diplomacy. I-ondon: Unwin, 1.908.
Friswell, James Hain. Modern Men of Letters Honestly Criticised. London: Hodder &
Stoughton, 1870.
Fields, J.T. Unpublished letter to George Sala. The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Fotheringham, Richard. "Dion Boucicault." The Companion to Australian Theatre and Dance.
Ed. P. Parsons. Sydney: Currency, [forthcoming].
Gernsheim, Helmut. The History of Photography. New York: McGraw, 1.969.
Gosse, Edmund. Confidential Papers on Swinburne. Ashley ts. 5753. British Library, I-ondon
Graves, Algemon. The Royal Academy ofArts. Vol 2. London: SR, 1905.
Hale, Sarah Josepha. Woman's Record: Slcctches of Distinguished Women (pre 1854). New
York: Harper, 1855.
Halliday, Andrew, ed. The Savage Club Papers. L,ondon: Tinsley, 1968.
Handlist of English and Welsh Newspapers 1602-1920. London: Times, 1920.
Harben, Henry A. A Dictionary of London. London: Herbert Jenkins, 1,918.
Hazlitt, William. The Spirit of the Age, or, Contemporary Portraits. 1825. New York: Chelsea
House, 1983.
Hergenhan, I-aurie, ed. A Colonial City: High and Low Life: Selected Journalism of Marcus
Clarke St llcia: U of Queensland P, 1972.
Hodder, George . Memories of My Time. l-andon: Tinsley, 1870.
The Home Book of Quotations : Classical and Modern Ed. Buxton Stevenson. New York:
' Dodd, L958.
Johnson, Edgar. Charles Dickens; His Tragedy and Triumph. New York: Penguin, 1980.
Jopling, Louise. Twenty Years of My Life, 1867-1887. London: John Lane, 1925.
Kent, ChristoperA. "Victorian Periodicals and the Constructing of Victorian Reality". Victorian
Periodicals: A Guide to Research. Eds. J. Donn Vann and Rosemary T. VanArsdel. New
York: MI.A,, 1989.2-12.
Iang, Crcil Y., ed. The Swinburne Letters. 6 vols. New Haven: Yale UP, L959.
Ire, Alan J. The Origins of the Popular Press 1855-1914. London: Croom, L976.
Irhmann, R.8., ed. Charles Dickens as Editor: Being Letters llritten by Him to Wlliam Henry
Wlls his Sub-Editor. 1"9L2. New York: Kraus Reprint, 1972.
Lohrli, Anne, comp. Household Words: A WeeHy Journal 1850-1859; Conducted by Charles
Dickens. Toronto: Toronto UP, L973.
Marcus, Steven. Aher Victorians: A Sudy of Sexuality and Pornography in Mid-Nineteenth
Cenury England. London: Weidenfeld, 1966.
Mitchell, Sally, ed. lr'ictorian Britain: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland, 1988.
Morley, Henry. The Journal of a London Playgoer. 1,866. The Victorian Library. Iricester UP,
r974.
Nevill, Ralph. London Clubs. 191,1,. Iondon: Chatto, L969.
Oppenlander, Ella Awr. Dickns'AlI theYear Round. Troy, NY: Whitson, 1,984.
Oxford Companion to English Literature. Ed. Margaret Drabble. Oxford: Oxford UP, L985.
Pascoe, Charles Eyre ed. A Record of the Principal Performances of Living Actors and Actresses
of the British Stage. [-ondon: Hardwicke, 1,879.
Robertson Scott, John. The Story of the Pall Mall Gazette. London: Oxford UP, 1950.
Sala, George Augustus. The Baddington Peerage. London: Skeet, l-860.
262
---. Echoes oftheYear 18E3,
---. AJourney Due Noril1
---. The Life and Adwnilfi0l
1896.
---. Living London
---. My Diary ln
---. Things I How
---. Ttvicc Ra.nafr
---, Tllllca&rd*
Saxon, A,H. I
tf,
Ani
P, 1965,
Straus, Ralph. Sala: Thc Pctrtrak of an Emlnent Vilceoilan llndonl €onrlrble, 1943,
Sullivan, Alvin, cd. British Literary Magazines: The Vlcnrlan arul Ewerdlan ,49e, 1637: 1913,
Vol 3 of. Historical Guides to the World's Perlodlcals and Newspopers. Wcrtptrl:
Greenwood, 1983.
Surtees, Viryinia. The Paintings and Drawings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-18820): ,4
Catalogue Raisonni. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1971..
Sutherland, John, ed. The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction. Harlow, Essex: longman,
1988.
Thomas, Donald. The Poet in His World. I-ondon: Weidenfeld, 1979.
Thomas, Frederick Moy. Fifty Years of Fleet Street: Being the Life and Advenrures of Sir John
R Robinson London: Macmillan, 1904.
Thomas, Sue, ed. lndexes to Fiction inTinsley's Magazine,later The Novel Review (L867-1892).
Victorian Fiction Research Guides 7. St Lucia: Dept of English. University of
Queensland, 1.981.
Tinsley, William. Random Recollections of an OId Publisher. 2 vols. London: Simpkin, 1900'
Tuchman, Barbara. Bible and Sword. 1.956. Inndon: Papermac, 1982.
Turner, Michael. Index and Guide to the Lists of Publications of Richard Bentley and Son,
1829-1898. Bishops Stortford: Chadwyck, L975.
Vizetelly, Henry. Glances Back Through Seventy Years. 2 vols. Inndon: Kegan Paul, 1.893.
Wallis, Nevile, ed. Ahctorian Canvas: The Memoirs of W.P. Frith, RA. Iondon: Bles, 1957.
Waterloo Directory of hctorian Periodicals 1824-1900. Ed. Michael Wolff. Waterloo: U of
Waterloo P, 1976.
tAellesley Indet to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900. Ed. Walter Houghton. 5 vols. Toronto:
Toronto UP, 1987
Wolff, Robcrt l*c. SensationalVictorian. NewYork: Garland, 1979.
Yatcs, Edmund. Fifty Years of London Life. Memoirs of a Man of the World. New York:
Harpcr, 1885.
263

llKutr,ltt2
flit tllllrn, Sl
llmr, W l) ll,, 7(l
Ahrandcr 2.2.ltt
Aloxnndnrvna, Grand Duccgo Mrdl, 160
Alford, Lady Mariannc, 79
Alphonso L2,L58
Amadeus, duke of Aoot!, lJt
Anson, John William, 10t
Ansted, David Thonu, 16?, l6t
Archcr, William,259
Ariosto,223
Aristophanca,22S
Armit, Mr,22O
Arnc, Thomx,92
Arnold, Edwin, 17 S, L7 8, 182, 2L7, 220
Arnold, Matthew, 2, 77, L78, 1.98, 199
Arundel Club,47, 187
Ashbee, Henry Spencer, 137
Ashley, Miss Sarah Edmonstone, 186, L88
Astley, Philip,7L
Austin, Alfred, 98, 2L8, 220
Austin, Charles,95
Austin, Hwin,Zl7
Austin, Mrs Wiltshire, 5
Austin, Wiltshire, 5, 4'1,93,95,I04, L67,
168
A
I'Beckctt, Gilbcrt, 78, 17l, 172
B
lrgduwe, Pr, lt,l
ldb Mbhnl' lt;
tNDEt
r6t**Tr*tt*|ts
$r
E#=
frilr--E
h,SE-lrH
![P.ffiruhH,
Irrj$ fular {r
lll, ltl, rlr,
irrrlr, ffi tlrd, lri
hr6€hm' Mrr, I lo
Edhw' lohn, l4ll, lal, 144, llll, 1.t4,
Itt, 170, l7.l
lfellow, Mn John, l4(1, 143
llenedlct, Juliun, I 4t{
Ilcnnclt, Charlcs, lzli, 130, 171,772
Bcnnctt, Jamcs Gordon, 12, 14t1,1"51, L60,
182, 190, 191
Bentley, George, 161
Bentley, Richard, 36, 77, 98
Bernard, Bayle, 108
Bernhardt, Sarah, L43, 245, 246
Beyfus and Boss, 212
Bickers and Son, 182
Bignell, Robert,25l
Bismarck,138
Black, William, 183, 184
Blackburn, Henry, 223, 224
Blackmore, R.D., 165
Blessington, Countess of., 167, t69
Bloomfield, Lord John, L51
Bloxam, Mr, 198
Bo3uc, Dsvid,34
Bouchor, Frangolr,24l
Eottolorult, Dlon, l{{, 16.t, 166,3(l.t
lilcl$ult, Dlon Jnr, t4
hlrr.ffimn,217,2211
lotr,l,F,r llrl
latd, Erlh,l35,lJO
Fndbury rnd Evrnr, 7t, 14,1, 21,1, 216
&r&n, M,E,, 13, l(1, hll, 7(1, 74, 8t{,96,
l0{1, lll, 1.16, l17, l.tH, l(r0, 222,256
Brrdy, ('heyrrc,.f7, 6J
Bneht, ]hrtholt,24l{
Brellmann, I lanr, 24.1
Brldgonrarr, John Valcntinc, 50

Bright, John, 1.3, 122, I24, 1,68, 256
Brooks, Mrs Shirley, I25, l7'1,, 254
Brooks, Shirley, 83, E4, 88, 1,25, 142,I43,
144,162, L63,191, L99
Brough, Lionel,84
Brough, Robert, LI, 23, 25, 27, 29, 30, 33,
39, 40, 43, 45, 49, 55, "12,73,76,79,93,
84,90, 176,L77
Brough, William, 43,45
Brougham, Henry Peter, Baron Brougham
and Vaux,216
Browne, Charles Thomas, L67,168
Browning, Robert, 13, 101, 2L6,2LB,256
Brownri gg, Elizabeth, 259
Buchanan, Robert, 97, L09
Buckingham, Iricester Silk, 56, 58
Buckland, Frank, I22, I24
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward, 1 19
Bunn, Alfred, I29,2I7
Burdett-Coutts, Barone ss, L3, 2I2
Bumand, Frank,78
Burnham, Lord, 15
Burns, Robbie,59
Burton,Isabel, 143
Bgrton, Richard, 136, I43, 182
Busby, Richard,234
Bute, Marquis of, 13, 127
C
Callcott, Albert, 146
C-amden, William, 51, L33
Canning, George,58
Capel, Monsignor, L48
Carlton Club,L22
Carlyle, Thomas, 34, 43, 207
C-astelar, Emilio, 158
Cauty, Horace Henry, 224
Cave, Edward, 166
Chamberlain, Joseph, 213
Chapman and Hall,77
Chapman, Frederick, 61,, 62, 80
Chappell, Arthur, 166
Charles Reade,37
Chatterton, Frederick, 184, 185, 205
Chesterfield, [.ord, 40
Clarke, Marcus, L55
Cobbett, William,2g
Cobden, Richard,165
Cockburn, Alexander, 196
266
Collins, Wilkie,24
Colonna, Vittoria, 222, 223
C-onolly, John,93, 171
Courvoisier, Frangoise, 44, 46
C-owen, Joseph,213
Crabbe, Miss, 198
Cruikshank, George, I73, L7 4, Lg9
Cunningham, Peter, tL,49, S0, 59, gZ, g6,
181
D
d'Este, Eleonara, 222, 223
D'Onay, C-ount Alfred, 167,169,L82
Dacier, Anne, 222,223
Dance, G,L92
Darwin, Charles, g5
de Balzac, Honor6,238
de Bdranger,Piene,246
de Brinvilliers, Marie, 259
de Coverley, Sir Roger, 233
de Godoy, Manuel,210
de Guerbel, C.ount Constantine, 166
de la Monnoye, Bernard,238
de Mun, Albert, Compte,228
de Piombo, Sebastian, 209
de Rothschild, Hannah, 214
de Sade, Marquis, 137
de Vere Beauclerk, Aubrey,214
del Piombi, Sebastian, 208
Delacroix, Eugdne,241
Delane, John, L07
Dent, Edward IoIn,I27
des Voisins, C-ounte Gilbert, 170
Desant, George, 107
Desart, [nrd, L59, 160
Dickens, Charles,4
Dickens, Alfred, 117
Dickens, C-atherine, 6 1
Dickens, Charles, 6, LL, 23, 24, 26, Zg, 30,
3"1, 33, 35, 44, 45, 46, 49, 52, 6r, 77, 79,
8L, 104, 107,1r7,119, L31, 145,147,164,
t74,239,255
Dickens, Charles Jnr, 83, 114
Dickens, Frederick, LI6,II7, Ll8
Dicks, IoIn,2O4,207
Dilke, Charles, 2I3, 225, 257, ZSg
Disraeli, Benjamin, 158, 190, Ig1., ZIZ,
218,224
Dor6, Gustave, L67, 168, 235
t
nfrrl;ltt,Il
Duidn sd Avr, Mrqulr d, iln
Dunm Ahtrndru, 16l
Dunruvon, Irlrd, 2 I 7, 22ll
Dync, John Oodfrcy,S2
E
Edinburgh, Duke of, 243,244
Edwards, Henry Sutherland, 11,40, L61
Eliot, George,235
Elliot, Sir Henry, 217,220
Escott, T.H.S., 2, 27, L99
Etzenberger, Robert, 2O3, 243
Euclid, 193
Eug6nie, Empress,232
Evans's Suppcr Rooms, 47,51
Evans, Frcdcrick, 142, 143
F
Falstaff, 4,12,133
Fanc, Vlolct,210
Famcn, Nclllo, l2l
Fcchtcr, Charlor, l3l
Ficld, Cyrus, 151
Fielding Club,9
Fildes, Luke, 146, 147,233,240
Finlay, F.D'254
Fisk, James, L45
Fiske, Stephen Ryder, L22,123,I64
Fithian, J.A., 151
Fitzgcrald, Percy,92
Folkhard, Bcssie,230
Forbor, Archibald, 152, lS3, 154, 186,
1tt, 193, 194, 199,205,255
Firnorlslll, Charlor &,lnrC, 128
Fil$r lrnm,67
;t
1ft7
17,11,16,'llll, 199
6lullrr, frfeiphlle, 103, lOa
Oroqc l, Klnl of Hlnovot, 222,223
(ldrlcault,'lhcodorc, 241
German Rccd, Thomas,42
Gdromc, Jean,24l
Gladstone, William, 13, 67, 146, L94, I9'1,
198, 199, 205, 208, 212, 224, 256, 259
Glasse, Hannah, 64,I79
Glennie, Stuart, L93, L94
Glover, Rudolf Gustavus, 93, 94, 1.00, l. 15,
116,135,t37
Glynne, Sir Stephen, 199
Godoy, Don Manucl,209
Gocthc, 195
Gogol, Nicholsr,3E
Ooldrmllh, Ollvor, 10,40, ltr,ltt
Oould,lry, l4l
tlowlnl llCrud, l0{, lal
oon lro
" 1r " f*l
O*ilfSitlu"','14rli'r'rlt'l ffi
oii,ftirfil,ln , Lr. I
da6rni' lnf-aa;1f ' *':.'J B'* '*t}{g;
onrnwcb;-ttrirt*, ll tt, llt S {r' **il
omnwnrd, llnfi, tt, I16, lt, 1l0, ln''-*u'
otovlltc,LldyVloirt,ilO'- -- -'- -' ril
!
Gulccloll, Tslora, 122
H
Hall, Byng, 152, 153
Hannay, David, 187, 189
Hannay, James, LL, 40, 44, 45,75, ltl7,
t89,25r
Harte, Bret, 235, 255, 256, 257
Hatch, Edwin,49
Hatton, Joseph, 163,164,165, L66
Hayday, James, 205,208
Hazlitt, William, 29, zLs
Helps, Arthur, l40,l4l
Heraud, John, 173
Hcrbert, George 13th Ead of Pembroke,
2ll,2l2
llcrbcrt, louisa, 184, 1.85, L98,200

Hicks, Montagu,152
Hitchman, Francis, 142, L43
Hodder and Stoughton, 10L, L40
Hodder, George, 4, t3, 47 ,67 , L27 , t32
Hogarth, Georgina,4
Hogarth, William, 24, 25, 69,'I 6, 17 6
Holinshed, Raphael,51
Holker, John, 196,25L
Holland, Henry Scott, 169
Holland, Henry Wilkinson, 169
Hollingshead, John, 43, 50, 76, 126
Home, Daniel, 110
Homer,223
Hood, Charles, L67,L68
Hood, Thomas,2l6,2LB
Hook, Theodore, LA, L7 4, 17 5
Hope, A.J. Beresford, 9L, IO2
Hope, Iady Mildred, 1,01.
Hopkins, John Baker, L64, L65
Horace,182
Horton, hiscilla,42
Hotten, John Camden, L37, 235, 236
Howell, Charles, 134
Hudson, George,82
Hugo, Yidor,229
Hunt, Lrigh, 10,91
Huxley, Thomas Henry, t3,95,256
I
Ingram and Cooke, 169
lngram, Herbert, 24,29, 34, 5L, 130,244
lngram, Mrs Herbert, 243
Ingram, William, 243, U4
Irving, Henry, 13, IOl, 256
Isabella, Queen, 158
J
Jackson and Graham, 205, ?ng
Jeffreys, George, 2W, zLL
Jenkins, John,252
Jerrold, Douglas, 45,57,78, L29, L7L,172,
uo
Jenold, William Blanchard, 43, 45, lO2,
104, 105, 167, L68, L69, U3, 25r
Jewell, Marshall, 16L
Johnson, C-ncil,ll2
Johnson, Reverdy, I23, 124
Johnson, Samuel, 10, 40, 57, 89, 166, 214
Johnston, Keith, 214, 215
Johnstone, Henry James, 165, 168
268
Jopling, Joseph, I98, 201,
Jopling, l,ouise, 200
Joyce, Samuel, 1.86, 187
Juvenal,1.39
K
Kenealy, Edward, 195, L96, 252, 253
Kenney, James,5l
King, Rose, L76
Kingsley, G.H.,2I2
Knight, Charles,8l
Kyd, Thomas,40
L
I-aamea lGlakaua, David, King of
Honolulu,212
Iabouchere, Henry, 10L, 184, 1.87, 189,
u9,254
Iang, John,46
I-angtry, Lily,13,256
latey, Iotn,243,244
Iawley, Francis, 1.68, 170, L77, L78
Iawrence, Sir T, 237
Iawson, Lionel, 43, L26, L56,248,249,
251.
Iayard, Henry, L58, 2\7, 220, 224
kdger, Frederick,204
Irdger, Frederick b, zOs
Irech, John, 70, 90, l00., 172
Irech, William, 139
Irland, Charles, 135, 243
L€mon, Mark, 12, 47,49, 51, 78, I28, I29,
r71.,t72
Irnnox, Henry,743,244
Irvy, Jonas, LOl, 173, 186, 187
Irvy, Joseph Moses, 42, 66,7L, 179, I83,
1.85,193
lrvy-Iawson, Edward, 43, 66, 69,72,79,
109, 135, 146,156,175, r79,182, 183,
L93,217,2?r,249,25O
Irwis, George, 14, I92, 193, L98, 234,
252
Irwis, John, 152
Likelike, Princess of Honolulu, 211
Lincoln, Abraham,235
Lindsay, I-ady Blanche, 247, 253
Lindsay, Sir Coutts, 247,253
Linton, Eliza Lynn, 191
Litton, Marie, 126
Livesey, Jotn,250,252
Livingstono,
tnftrs, Lodt
Ionsdalq
Iouiso,
Invcff,
Iowq,
iirrfih,*rl
llrthi' flllhn, l0' It
t{r[oay, Frurir, t6,67
Mrnnhil, fuehblrhoP HonrY, t46' 147
Manlon, Hcnry, 173
Martlus, Madamc,159
Masson, David, 162
Mathews, Charles,4T
Mathews, Frank,20O
Matthew Arnold, 37
Maxwell, John, 8, 34, 45,50, 69, 73,76,
77, 78, 79, 9L, 92, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 1,00,
101, 1-09, 110, LL8,139
Mayhew, Augustus, 1.1, 40, 42, 43, 45, 46,
57,LLg
Mayhew, Henry, 47, 5t, 85, LI3, t29
Mayhew, Hotace, 55, 78, 169, 251
Mayhew, Mrs Horace, L67
Mc Henry, James, 188
McCullagh Torrens, Margaret Henrietta,
174
McCullagh Torrens, William, 174
Meissonnier, Jean I"ouis, 24t,250
Melville, Henry, 1.52
Mcnckcn, Adah, 1.43
Mcrcalor, Gcrhardus, 175
Morsdlth, Ooorgc,70
Mlchru, Aujurtur, 42, 49
Mlobru, Mrdmle,12
Ml€lr.lrnirlos l9ilr m, N1 229
lrloll}rr 16lr l6Et 1?6
frril€r l}t, lal
li
,,
Ndmrrnr r,6,, llq,
Nl;htln3rlo, Flotonco, 7t, 1 4
Nodlor, Charler,237
o
O'Conncll, Daniel, 142, 143
O'Connell, MarY, 143
O'Connell, Morgan, 143
O'Connor, John, 1.46, 147,149
Ormsby, John,66
fton, Arthur, 143, 144, 201'
Oxenford, John,200
P
Paganini, Nicolo, 49, 5l
Palmerston, l-ord, 192, 19 4
Parkinson, Joseph Charles, 114, Il5, LL6,
L42, l5O, 195, 196, 222, 23r, 249, 254
Pascal, Blaise,228
Paxton, Joseph, 157
Peabody, George, L44
Pestalozzi, Johann,82
Phillips, watts, 11,40,41,, 1.84, 1.85
Pindar,2L6,2I8
Pinel, Philippe,lTl
Pinto, Fernandez Mendez, IO4, 105
Pitt, Horace (I-ord Rivers),z0l
Plautus,223
Playfair, Lyon,244
Popc, Alcxander,139
Powcr, Harold, 162
Powor, Margucritc, 167, 769
Porzo dl Borgo, Carlo Andrca, 82
Prrl, Don Jurn, lE7
hln I hrlr, Don Juen, 187, 190
FEssr Addddr Annc,46, a9
h$n' ECtud' l0?

Pullman, Geotge,2SZ
o
Queen Victoria, 13, 222, 256
R
Rabelais, Frangois, T3
Ramolino, L.etizia, 246
Raphael,209
Reach, Angus, IL, 28, L43, 169, 180, lEl
Reade, Charles, 190
Reddie, James Campbell, 137
Reform Club, 4, L2, 35, I05, 222
Reunion Club,26, 109
Reuter's, 1-53
Reuter, Paul Julius, 153
Reynolds, Joshua, 146
Ricarde-Seaver, Major F. Ignacio, 210
Richards, Alfred Bates, 173, L74
Richardson, Benjamin, 173
Riddell, Charlotte, 128
Rivers,Iord, 199
Robbins, Percival, t52, I53
Roberts, Tommy, L98
Robertson, Agnes, 164
Robinson, John Richard, 116, ll7, LS3,
.,,,.,
Robson, Charles,253
Rochford, Mr,201
Rosa, Salvator,23I
Rosebery, Lord,I5,2l4
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, lO9, LU, 134,
136,2W,209
Rousby, Clara, 128, L58
Rousby, Wybert, 13, L28, L58
Routledge, 76, 79,80, 82, 83, 86, 131
Routledge, Warne and Routledge,TT
Ruskin, Iohn,230,23l
Russell, William Howard, 138,?n3
s
Sade, Marquis de,9
Saint Evremond, Charle s, 228
Sala, Albert, 5, 26, 92, lO5, zLt
Sala, Augusta,3l,
Sala, Augustus John James, 79
Sala, Bessie,205
Sala, Charles, 26, 3I, 32, 1O7
Sala, Frederick,26,79
270
Sala, Harriett, 5, 12, 65, 7 5, LLz,'/-.L5, M,
L33, 1,40, L54, 167, r73, L77, r7g, rg4,
186, 1gg, 205, 222, 247, 259
Sala, Henrietta,T9
Salisbury, Lord,218
Sampson, Marmaduke Blake, 97
Sarony, Napoleon, 143
Sarony, Oliver, t42, 143
Savage Club, 26, 47, LO6,123, I87
Savage, Richard, 10, 27, 40, 166
Schiller, e-ilL, L25, 254
Schliemann, Heinrich, 2O4, 207
Schuyler, Eugene, L55, ?A4
Scott, Clem ent, 4, 142, 187, 2O5
Scott, Walter,75
Scudamore, Frank [ves, 148
Seeley, John,235
Seymour, Cnnway, 151., L53
Shakespeare, William, IO0, L7 L, 224
Sherbrooke, Lord, 255, 258
Sheridan Club,5, 105
Siddons, Sarah, 138
Silver, Henry, 11,55
Skeet, Charles Joseph, 41
Skirrow, Charles,225
Skirrow, Mrs Charles, 224
Smalley, George,252
Smalpage, John Henry, I48, 149
Smethurst, Thomas, 68
Smith and Elder, 25,68,98
Smith, Albert, 21,28,52,54,55, 85, 86,
88, gg, 109, 136, '/.,69, L76, L77, !79, LgL,
25L
Smith, Arthur, 44, 46, ZSl.
Smith, George, 68, 69, '10,72,75,78,9L,
89,97,99,229,231,
Smollet, Tobias George, 195
Sotheram, Henry,232
Sothern, Edward Askew, lOE
South, Robert,240
Speke, John, 182
Spottiswoode, Andrew, 140
Spurgeon, Charles, 124
St John, Horace, L67,l6B
Stanley, Edward, 15th Earl of Derby,218
Stanley, Henry Morton, 180, lB2, 189,
I9r,2r5
t
Stlfrr lonrthon, I l, 187
twlnbumo, Algcrnon, 9, 49, L02, 109,
134,136, L40,236
T
Taglioni, Maria, 168, 170
Talleyrand,23S
Tattersall, Richard, 178
Taylor, Jeremy,Z40
Taylor, Tom,71., 108, 1.71, 172,215,2L7
Tenniel, John, L3, L92,194,256
Tennyson, Alfred, L22, zOs
Terencn,223
Terry, Ellen, t3, 256, 258, 259
Thackeray, William, 3, 4, 10,24,25,26,
28,38, 44, 46, 47, 5L,59, 61., 62, 67, 69,
70,75,78, 81, 88, 89, 90, gg, t0z, 143,
145, 146,147, L56,174, I77, L78,214
Thomas, Frederick Moy, 153
Thompson, Alfred,257
Thompson, Henry, 243, 244
Thompson, Lydia, 47,48
Thomson, John, 101, LL5
Thorndyke, Sybil, 164
Tlchbornc Casc, 143, 144, t63, 198, 20L
Tlllotron, John,240
flndoy Btothon, T0
llnhy, ldwud, 70, 96
llnlly, Wllllrm, 1,6!1,70,93, 106, ll5,
tlq ltt, tll llt, llt, l?e, 22e,230,
N
nClr$a ll
lr
lr1
gs,1r,166
Y
Vrnbrujh, John,229
Vortdr, Madrmc,4ll
Vlckcn, Stanlcy, 130
Vinc, J.R.S.,l9l,192
Yirgil,257
Virtue, JamesrZ34
Vizetelly, Henry, 4,'I..4,29,3L,34, 35, 40,
42, 44, 45, 46,50, 5L, 52, 53, 55, 5'1, 61,
73,78,14O,249,252
Vizetelly, James, 139
Voltaire, 228,229
Von Moltke, Count, 137
Von Podbielski, General, 137
Von Werdy, C-olonel, L37
w
Wallis, Ellen, 1,65, 166
Ward, Artemus, 231,236
Ward, Genevieve, 165, 166, 168
Ward, Sam, 170
Watkins, Edward, 243, 244
Watkins, Herbert, T6
Watts,Isaac, 154
Webster, Benjamin, 45, 108
Webster, Noah,247
Weiss, Willoughby Hunter, 32
Whistler, James McNeill, LOl, 230, 23'J-
Whitehurst, Felix, 182
Whitman, Whit, 153
Wickoff, Henry, L45
Wigan, Alfred, 148,200
Wildc, Oscar, 13, 101, 143,256
Willing, Jamcs, 12, 127, 135, 205, 248
Wlllr, Wllllam Hcnry, 26,28,33, 44, 59,
69,79, 104, l30, l3l
Wlllon, Errl of, 200, 210
tVlndrhu,6oor|o, 17t
Wmbwrll, Orcp, l{9
Ulilrll, Yifltnh, 116

Woodin, William,42
Worcester, !oseph,247
Wornum, Ralph,208,209
Worth, Chatles,?32
Y
Yates, Frederick, 62, 250
Yates, Louisa, 3,12,I25, L33, L45, L46,
159, 165, t7L, r73, 186, 257
272