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Writing for
the Spectre of Poverty
Exhuming Sarah Wilkinson’s
Bluebooks and Novels
Franz Potter
I
In 1803, a curious account was appended
to a short Gothic tale that appeared in the Tell-Tale
Magazine; it was published anonymously and
narrated the distressing and dismal 'Life of an Authoress
, Written by Herself'. It was published as a
warning [to] every indigent woman,
who is troubled with the itch of scribbling, to beware
of my unhappy fate [.] and beg her to take this advice;
that, whatever share of learning or wit she may have,
if she has nothing better to recommend her to public
favour, she must be content to hunger and thirst all
her days in a garret, as I have done. [ 1]
The unfortunate 'authoress', after
a series of distressing circumstances, had found herself
alone in London and determined to subsist as a writer
of novels. Reduced to her last five guineas, by 'scribbling
night and day' she finished a four-volume novel. She
approached a bookseller, but the naïve 'authoress'
was greatly shocked at his terse response:
A novel! Nothing of this kind is
now read, I assure you. Novels are a drug;
a mere drug: they are as dead a weight upon our hands
as sermons. Surely, Madam, you must know that
this kind of writing is perfectly exploded! No such
things are read now-a-days (p. 32).
Distressed to the find the novel
out of fashion and further reduced to poverty, the
authoress is compelled to
undertake the most slavish of all
employments, that of translating [.] for the booksellers.
The life of a galley-slave is even preferable to my
state of slavery: I am a beggar, without enjoying
air and liberty: I have the confinement of a servant,
with the regular diet and wages which a servant receives,
and am condemned to perform a severe task, by a certain
period of time, which, when with the utmost difficulty
it is performed, I am often obliged to transcribe
the whole work again [.] To add to my distresses,
I have written myself almost blind, with continually
poring on the old authors I have been so long engaged
with; and have, besides, from the constant posture
of writing, contracted a disorder in my lungs, which,
I imagine, will soon put an end to a life of pain
and misery (pp. 33-34).
The 'authoress', concluding her own
tale, admonishes other women to 'apply themselves
sooner to the spinning-wheel, than the pen,
that they may not be pining, with hunger and cold,
in a wretched garret' (p. 34). The 'authoress' in
this case was Sarah Wilkinson and her life and texts
illustrate the unique diversification of Gothic fiction
that occurred during the first three decades of the
nineteenth century. Her vast output of varied fiction-some
twenty-nine volumes and above a hundred smaller publications-illustrates
the demanding conditions 'trade' authors, who produced
fiction as part of a profitable industry rather than
an art form, endured living by the pen. [2]
Born
on 14 December 1779 to William and Hannah Wilkinson,
Sarah Carr Wilkinson, like many of her contemporaries
including Eliza Parsons , Charlotte Smith and Frances
Burney, 'lived by the pen'; but unlike these authors,
she never had the comfort of literary or economic
success. Her life was unmistakably difficult and fraught
with hardship and illness. Little is known about Wilkinson's
early life or education, apart from that she was 'selected
by Mrs. [Frances] Fielding as one of the young persons
who read to her mother Lady C[harlotte] Finch when
deprived of sight'. [3]
Charlotte Finch (1725-1813), daughter of Thomas Fermor,
Earl of Pomfret, was the Governess of the children
of King George III between 1762 and 1792. The relationship
between Wilkinson and the Pomfrets would indeed last
throughout her long life; many of her works are dedicated
to members of that family. However, the publication
of three textbooks for schools strongly suggests that
she was well educated and was perhaps a governess
or educator. [4]
Sarah
Wilkinson's literary career began in 1803 with several
short works appearing in Ann Lemoine 's Tell-Tale
Magazine, a periodical specialising in
short stories that were simultaneously sold as bluebooks:
typical examples include The Subterraneous Passage
; or the Gothic Cell and Lord Gowen; or,
the Forester's Daughter. Robert Mayo, in The
English Novel in the Magazines 1740-1815, speculates
that the amount of 'short stories' published by Wilkinson
in the Tell-Tale suggests that she was actually
the 'editor' of the magazine, though there is little
evidence beyond an extraordinary production of sixteen
'tales' to substantiate this claim. [5]
Between 1803 and 1806 she published at least sixteen
bluebooks with Lemoine including Horatio and Camilla:
Or, the Nuns of St Mary
(1804) and The Water Spectre; or, An Bratach
(1805); most of these bluebooks, but not all, appeared
in the Tell-Tale Magazine. However, Wilkinson's
literary relationship with Lemoine was not exclusive,
and she simultaneously published at least nine bluebooks
with five other publishers: for example, The Ghost
of Golini; or, the Malignant Relative. A Domestic
Tale (1820) was published by Simon Fisher; Zittaw
the Cruel: Or, the Woodman's Daughter [n.d.] with
Mace; Monkcliffe Abbey (1805) with Kaygill;
The Spectre; or, the Ruins of Belfont Priory
(1806) with J. Ker; and John Bull; or the Englishman's
Fire-side (1803) with Thomas Hughes.
Sarah
Wilkinson, however, did not confine herself entirely
to bluebooks. In 1806 she published The Thatched
Cottage; or, Sorrows of Eugenia , a Novel
by subscription with Thomas Hughes. The novel is dedicated
to Mrs Frances Fielding (1748-1815) and the subscribers
include the Princesses Sophia (1777-1848) and Amelia
(1783-1810), the Duchess of Gloucester, the Margravine
of Anspach, Lady Mary Coke (to whom Horace Walpole
inscribed the sonnet which fronts The Castle of
Otranto (1764)), Lady Crespigny, the Right Honourable
Earl of Pomfret, and perhaps, most intriguingly, a
Mr Scadgell.
The
financial success of the her first novel enabled Wilkinson
to commence in the library business in Westminster
at No. 2 Smith-Street; and the following year she
gave birth to a daughter Amelia Scadgell, though it
is unclear whether or not she married Mr Scadgell.
It was about this time when the name on many of her
publications began to appear as Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson.
There is no proof that the misspelling of her name,
however, was an attempt to use a pseudonym. Many of
her works which appear with Scudgell are published
by Dean & Munday; other publishers did not adopt
the middle name. [6]
Achieving relative success with her library, Wilkinson
continued to publish novels including The Fugitive
Countess; or, the Convent of St Ursula
, a Romance (1807), The Child of Mystery
, a Novel (1808), and the Convent of the
Grey Penitents; or, the Apostate Nun , a Romance
(1810). The modest success of her novels, however,
was offset by the failure of the library sometime
after 1811; to survive, Wilkinson was compelled to
take lodgers into her home, an arrangement which lasted
some years 'till overwhelmed with losses by lodgers
due to sickness and domestic troubles', she returned
to teaching and living by the pen (RLF, 10 February
1824).
Wilkinson
began teaching at the White Chapel Free School on
Gower Walk, sometime after 1812; and writing for periodical
publications ('Torbolton Abbey ' in New Gleaner
in 1810), and only occasionally publishing Gothic
bluebooks such as Priory of St Clair; or, Spectre
of the Murdered Nun (1811) and Edward and
Agnes (1812), both with Arliss. After 1812, however,
she began to exclusively focus on writing children's
books; these included
a vast number of books, of which
she can pretend no merit but their moral tendency
amongst the later ones, are local geography, William's
Tour, or, a peep into numbers, Jack and his Grandmother,
or, Pounds, Shillings, and Pence, Moral Emblems, Aunt
Anne's Gift, Mary and her Doll, or, the new A, B,
C, and the whole forming a set for the nursery and
may be purchased at Mr. Bailey's 116 Chancy Lane [.]
(RLF, 15 November 1820)
In 1819, Wilkinson returned to the
Gothic, publishing the novel The Bandit of Florence
(re-titled New Tales (1819) by the publisher
Matthew Iley). That same year, on the recommendation
of a Mrs Lovell, the Headmistress of the White Chapel
Free School, she was engaged to be the 'Mistress of
the [Free] School at Bray in Berkshire, at a very
good salary, coach and a house to live in and my child
to be with me and expect to be sent for with every
prospect of being comfortable for life' (RLF, 1819).
But her health, which had been steadily declining
since 1816, forced her to resign just nine months
later; cancer had developed under her right arm.
Wilkinson
returned to Westminster in May of 1820, but deprived
of a constant income, she again turned to the pen,
publishing at least seven bluebooks, four Valentine
Readers [7]
, serving 'several persons regularly with periodical
publications and some small shops with small books
wholesale which is at present until I can get some
employment to occupy my time and only means of subsistence'
(RLF, 15 November 1820) and also publishing Lanmere
Abbey, in two volumes, re-titled The Spectre
of Lanmere Abbey; or, the Mystery of the Blue and
Silver Bag, a Romance
(1820) with William Mason. Later that year she opened
a parlour which sold small books and pictures for
children (RLF, 15 November 1820), but found it increasingly
difficult to procure books and almanacs. The small
profits from sales were barely enough to support herself
and Amelia.
In
March 1821, however, Wilkinson's desperate situation
was somewhat alleviated; she was engaged by the publishers
Dean & Munday to 'conduct' a part of the Lady's
Monthly Museum. Her small parlour, though, continued
to fail, and in a letter to the Royal Literary Fund
she bitterly lamented that she was not 'able to earn
enough by a business I follow independent of my pen
to procure the most common necessaries of life' (RLF,
March 1821). In June she lost both her business and
her home and was again forced to support herself with
regular periodical publications, bluebooks and Valentine
Readers. For the next decade, she had no permanent
home, but was forced to occupy boarding houses.
Unfortunately,
Wilkinson's difficulties only continued to increase,
an accident of a shutter blowing in high wind, which
broke two segments of glass, causing an unexpected
debt of one pound nine. Unable to pay, she was summoned
to court, and advised to 'expect nothing else but
confinement and to be taken from [her] home and Daughter'
(RLF, 12 December 1821). In desperation she again
petitioned the Royal Literary Fund for assistance,
but they twice rejected her plea. Increasingly frantic,
she sought out a former patron, Lord Pomfret, who
interceded on her behalf with two letters, but only
upon receipt of a letter from her daughter Amelia
Scadgell did the Royal Literary Fund vote her two
pounds.
But
as Wilkinson's ill health continued, more for the
want of necessities (proper food, clothes and medical
attention), than from illness, she persisted in writing
bluebooks, short pieces for periodicals, children
books and 'moral' novels. Unable, however, to support
herself, she complained:
I have not the least income for
me and my child and my only certain dependence half
a guinea a month derived from the Ladys Monthly magazine,
called the Museum, repeated confinement from illness
during the last twelvemonths has not only rendered
my poverty more severe, but compelled me to part with
my wearing apparel, also expecting every hour my few
remaining goods to be seized for arrears of rent [.]
(RLF, 11 December 1822)
Her distress, however, was further
increased as she was diagnosed with breast cancer
in 1824 and forced to write, once again, to the Royal
Literary Fund for assistance, this time for an operation
at the Westminster Hospital. Augmenting her misfortune,
her new manuscript entitled The Baronet Widow
, in three volumes, had not yet been published-
a novel but of strict moral tendency
dedicated by permission to Lord Pomfret, and having
several copies of his Lordship and other noble families
I have fair prospect from the produce should God think
it proper to spare my life to be enabled once more
to commence in the Book trade-the failure of a Bookseller
with whom I had made arrangements has caused a fatal
delay to me, of at least two or three months but it
is now placed at a most respectable house (RLF, 14
January 1824).
These unfortunate circumstances combined
to compel Wilkinson to solicit actively the support
of her publishers in obtaining assistance from the
Royal Literary Fund . Most of her applications after
1824 were endorsed by individual publishers and two
separate letters were subsequently included in her
petitions:
The Publishers & c. c. whose
names are Undersigned begs permission to recommend
to the consideration of the Honourable Society that
confers the Literary Fund, Mrs. Sarah Scudgell [sic]
Wilkinson as a deserving Unfortunate individual, deprest
by a long and increasing illness, and the poverty
attending thereon. Also esteeming her worth their
notice, from her Abilities and general deportment
while in their occasional employ as a writer of Original
works, Abridgements, c. c.
Dean and Munday , G. Martin, Hughes,
Dimanche (RLF, 1824).
The obliging publishers included
a Mr E. Langley (whom she had known for eighteen years),
Thomas Hughes, George Martin, Dimanche, and Dean &
Munday-all of whom continually supported Wilkinson's
application, specifically underlining her illness
and poverty. Another intervention, this time by Dr.
Holland and Sir James Mackintosh, assisted in placing
her daughter Amelia with a Lady residing in Henley
on Thames (RLF, 14 January 1824). [8]
During
1825 Wilkinson's cancer worsened, and frustration
mounted at continued delay in the publishing of her
novel. The same publishers sent another letter of
support to the Royal Literary Fund , not only underlining
her illness, but emphasising the decline in the bluebook
industry.
Gentleman, The undersigned Publishers
beg to recommend to your consideration Sarah Scudgell
Wilkinson as a respectable industrious person of considerable
abilities who has been occasionally employed by us
during a long series of past years but latterly owing
to the introduction of a small period works in which
no original matter is required the line of literature
in which she principally engaged has been completely
stagnated which as materially tended to increase her
distress.
Signed: Mr. Langley, Hughes (35
Ludgate) and Dean and Munday.
Wilkinson's applications increasingly
point to the significant decline in the general book
trade and the distress this induces: 'I need not point
out to you that the depression in the Book trade and
consequently scantiness of employ in Juvenile works
has been great [.] Forsake me and
I perish' (RLF, 12 December 1825). Her application
was again endorsed by Dean & Munday and George
Martin. Once more, she attempted to find work outside
of the book trade, taking embroidery lessons, in the
hope that it would eventually enable her to procure
a more substantial subsistence.
However,
the state of Wilkinson's health continued to decline
between 1826 and 1827; she underwent two more operations
at St George's Hospital. During these difficult times
she was 'chiefly employed in poetry for the composers
of music which I have derived small endowments' (RLF,
8 January 1828). That same year the consequences
of the 1826 book trade crisis cost Wilkinson her one
constant employment:
she long conducted a part of the
Ladies Museum a magazine published by Dean and Munday
, Threadneedle (for a series of years) and by its
discontinuation was denied of a Guinea a month which
added to the stagnation of trade and the introduction
of cheap periodicals where no original matters is
required has materially tended along with her personal
afflictions to a state of poverty she did not in the
least anticipate (RLF, 12 Februrary 1828)
In her last application to the Royal
Literary Fund in 1830, Wilkinson was overwhelmed
by illness and poverty, 'incapable of procuring the
merest trifling employment', but had recently finished
The Curator's Son 'a novel of moral and improving
tendency' (RLF, 12 April 1830). [9]
It was endorsed by Dean & Munday, E. Langley,
George Martin and Mrs Wellington (her landlady, to
whom she owed three months rent). Sometime after April
1830, destitute and ailing, Sarah Wilkinson became
a resident of St Margaret's Workhouse, Westminster.
She died 19 March 1831, aged fifty-two. In 'The Life
of an Authoress ',
written twenty-eight years earlier, Wilkinson had
once expressed the fond hope that a hospital for 'decayed'
authors would be established:
I remember to have read in a periodical
paper, some years ago, a proposal for building an
hospital for decayed authors, which gave me real satisfaction;
as I was in hopes some part of so charitable an institution
might perhaps be appropriated to the relief of decayed
authoresses likewise. If the aged, the sick, and the
blind, are universally esteemed objects of compassion,
how much more so are those who have so intensely used
their understanding for the benefit of others, that
they are thereby rendered unfit for every self pursuit!
How many sublime geniuses (as a celebrated writer
remarks) do we daily see, who have so long feasted
their minds with pierian delicacies, as to leave their
bodies to perish with hunger and nakedness (p. 28).
For Sarah Wilkinson, living by the
pen was not only financially fraught, but physically
burdensome. She continually sought to break away from
living by the pen, whether it was through teaching,
running a library, a parlour, or the needle: the pen
never brought the financial reward or personal success
she had so desired.
II
THE
BLUEBOOKS
Sarah Wilkinson is primarily remembered
as the author of well over one hundred 'short tales', chapbooks,
or bluebooks, at least fifty of those, Gothic. The majority
of these bluebooks were composed between 1803 and 1812;
and, after 1820, published with at least twenty-five publishers.
Wilkinson's most important attribute as a bluebooker was
the ability to construct clear and simple story lines free
from dense subplotting that often encumbered Gothic novels.
Her bluebooks are derived from a mixture of Lewisite horror
and Radcliffean terror with equal proficiency and familiarity
with both branches of Gothic fiction. What Wilkinson does
is to blend the pleasing aesthetics and the enticing suspension
of terror found in Radcliffe and the rapidity of horrifying
shocks distinctive of Lewis . Her heroes and heroines are
archetypal Radcliffe: not only are they noble, they are
sensitive; prone to appreciate the aesthetics of ruins,
quick to haughtily dismiss any suggestions of the supernatural;
nevertheless, they are predictably positioned in a Lewisite
landscape of spectres and blood. Her stories, though, never
divest themselves of the genteel trappings of the Gothic
in favour of gratuitous horror. In The Spectre; or, the
Ruin of Belfont Priory (1806), for instance, it is
the noble Theodore Montgomery and Matilda Maxwell, compelled
to reside in the haunted Belfont priory, who are confronted
by two horrific, albeit noble, spectres, yet the hapless
Harmina in The Castle of Montabino; or, the Orphan Sisters
(1809), the daughter of a jeweller, though confined to
a turret, never sees a ghost. In The Mysterious Novice;
or, Convent of the Grey Penitents (1809), [10]
for example, the narrative is clear and compelling, nevertheless,
it possesses an overwrought, abbreviated style and a simple
clichéd setting. However, this example does not justify
the common complaint that 'horror in all of the shilling
shockers is rapid, crude, and where Sarah Wilkinson's bloody
pen is involved,-an arrant act of Gothic plundering'. [11]
On the contrary,
Wilkinson's handling of horrific wandering spectres (murderers
and murdered), like those whose 'body [was] covered with
wounds, and one large gash in his forehead, from which the
blood still appeared to flow in copious streams', [12]
is measured and leisurely, never hurried or vulgar. While
Sarah Wilkinson is at her most Gothic in bluebooks, it is
in these works that she also comes the closest to parodying
the mode. For example, in The Eve of St Mark; or, the
Mysterious Spectre. A Romance (1820), published
by J. Bailey, the heroine, Margaret, daughter of the Steward
of the De Clifford Family, utilises well-known Gothic strategies
(for instance, the animated portrait) to deceive her parents
about her attachment to the Earl De Clifford. The character
of Margaret was readily identifiable to the readers of Gothic
fiction: 'Margaret was very romantic, and well skilled in
all legendary tenets, nor was there a tale of horror or
interest on the shelves of the circulating library in the
next town but what had passed through her fair hands.' [13]
As Jane Austen gently derided Catherine Morland's longing
for 'Gothic' adventures in her visit to the Tilneys' country
home in Northanger Abbey
(1818), Wilkinson's Margaret is similarly portrayed as
unable to discern fiction from reality, steeping herself
in local legend and tales of castles.
Margaret frequently dressed her head so
as to resemble the picture, and, in fact, almost fancied herself
a Lady Bertha. She sighed for the young Hubert of the Glen
Cottage, a lover as romantic as herself, but, of course, wished
for a happier denouement of their love, and that Hubert of
the nineteenth century might not prove like his name-sake
of old, and stab the resemblance of Bertha to the heart should
her truant fancy prefer another. (p. 6)
A working knowledge of Gothic motifs, however,
allows Wilkinson (and Margaret) to exploit and exaggerate
the familiar experience of the animated portrait:
Accordingly, at the appointed hour, the earl assembled
his family in the room so long known as Lady Bertha's; some
were very loath indeed to come, and their footsteps moved
very tardily, but my lord would be obeyed, and no one was
excused except Mr. Cavendish, from this domestic assemblage.
Earl De Clifford heard some of them whispering that there
ought to be a clergyman present. 'You are mistaken, my good
friends,' said he, 'I am not going to exorcise the spirits
in a common way; such a charming creature must not be treated
like a common ghost. No, I will woo her for a bride-descend,
my gentle Bertha, and fill these adoring arms.'
Obedient to his call the
lovely figure stept out of the frame upon a table that stood
close to it, from thence on a chair, and thence, by the
aid of a foot-stool, to the ground.
Her ladyship descended with
cautious slowness, when most of the domestics took to flight,
precipitating one another down the back stairs, without
ceremony, as if they thought the old saying held good, of
woe be to the hindmost-as for those that remained, their
good sense led them to perceive a happy termination to the
romance of real life.
Lady Bertha glided to the
outstretched arms of the earl, while the canvass shewed
that the painted figure had been cut out and a niche behind
the frame had opportunely served to place in its room a
breathing resemblance of the angelic form.
'I will not banish this fair
spirit from the castle,' said the earl, 'I cannot think
of enriching the red sea with her; no, she shall reign in
this mansion its adored, its benevolent mistress. Look not
so anxious, my good friends,' continued he, addressing Mr.
and Mrs. Oakley; 'Margaret is my legal wife.' (pp. 23-24)
This is a rather coarse version of the
'explained supernatural'-in which the Earl sets his wife
up as a spectre to thrill his neighbours. Wilkinson here
seems to be offering a more pragmatic approach to the Gothic,
relying on readers to discriminate between reality and romance.
Significantly,
Wilkinson wrote at least seventeen adaptations and translations:
one implied 'translation' from German, Albert of Werdendorff
; or, the Midnight Embrace. A Romance from the German,
and one from the Spanish Love and Perfidy; or, the Isolated
Tower from the Spanish (1812). Both of these
bluebooks were published by Angus & Son and not translated
at all, only marketed as such. On the other hand, Therese;
or, the Orphan of Geneva ; an Interesting Romance
(1821) was translated from Henri Joseph Brahain Ducange's
1821 original and The White Pilgrim; or, Castle of Olival
(1820) from the French novel, Le Pélerin Blanc ;
both were published by Dean & Munday.
As well as
novels, plays, operas, and melodrama were deftly adapted
into bluebooks by Wilkinson: in fact, she redacted at least
seven such productions. Among these is The Wife of Two
Husbands Translated from the French Drama and Formed
into an Interesting Story (1804) published by Lemoine
, which claimed to be a translation from the French drama
of the 'La Femme à Deux Maris' by René-Charles Guilbert
, though upon textual comparison I found that it is actually
a redaction of the English translation of 'The Wife of Two
Husbands; A Musical Drama' by James Cobb . Inkle and
Yarico; or, Love in a Cave (1805) published by Lemoine,
was redacted from the opera of the same name by George Colman
the Younger (1762-1836), while The Travellers; or, Prince
of China (1806) published by Lemoine is a redaction
of the opera 'The Travellers' by Domenico Corri , libretto
by Andrew Cherry , first performed at Drury Lane on 22 January
1806. The Water Spectre; or, An Bratach. A Romance
, is founded on the popular melodrama by Charles Dibdin
(1768-1833), as performed at the Aquatic Theatre, Sadler's
Wells (1805) published by Lemoine . The Ruffian Boy:
Or, the Castle of Waldemar, a Venetian Tale (1820)
was based on the popular melodrama, itself taken from Mrs
Opie's celebrated tale of that name, published by J. Bailey;
while Conscience; or the Bridal Night. An Interesting
Venetian Tale Written from the Tragedy of J. H.
(1820) was adapted from the tragedy of James Haynes and
published by Dean & Munday. Wilkinson also adapted two
versions of Matthew Lewis's melodrama 'The Castle Spectre
' publishing The Castle Spectre; or, Family Horrors
in 1807 with Thomas Hughes, and The Castle Spectre;
an Ancient Baronial Romance in 1820 with John
Bailey.
Wilkinson
not only adapted dramas, she redacted 'popular' novels including:
The Pathetic and Interesting History of George Barnwell.
Founded on Facts. Carefully Abridged from Mr Surr's Celebrated
Novel(1804) published by Lemoine. John Bailey, who published
her adaptation of The Castle Spectre, also published
another redaction of Lewis's The Monk : The Castle
of Lindenberg; or, the History of Raymond and Agnes in
1820. It appears that Wilkinson was probably commissioned
by Bailey to produce redactions of Lewis, as these made
up the bulk of works published with him.
Dean &
Munday, on the other hand, published Wilkinson's redactions
of other 'popular' novels (non-Gothic) including: The
Pastor's Fireside; or, Memoirs of the Athelstan. Abridged
from the Popular Novel by Jane Porter (1822), The
Pirate, or the Sisters of Burgh Westra: A Tale of the Islands
of Shetland and Orkney Epitomized from the Celebrated Pirate
of Sir Walter Scott (1820) and Waverley; or, the
Castle of Mac Iver [sic]: A Highland Tale,
of Sixty Years since from the Pen of the Celebrated Author
of 'Kenilworth' &c.; Epitomized from the Original [n.d.].
What is interesting about the redaction of these novels
is that Wilkinson includes the author of the original work
in the title indicating that there was no attempt to hide
or disguise the fact that these were redactions. The title's
inclusion, in fact, was as much a selling-point as its abridgement.
THE
NOVELS
Wilkinson also wrote novels and while she
found no critical (and limited financial) success with her
novelistic attempts, they are however, useful insights into
the Gothic novel from the view point of a bluebook author.
Her novels demonstrate a clear assimilation of bluebooks
into Gothic novels as a direct consequence of the tremendous
outpouring of such productions in the early nineteenth century.
Of
all Wilkinson's novels The Fugitive Countess; or, the
Convent of St Ursula, a Romance (1807), most clearly
illustrates this assimilation of bluebooks into the form
of a legitimate Gothic novel. Like Horace Walpole's The
Castle of Otranto (1764), Ann Radcliffe's Sicilian
Romance (1790), and Eliza Parsons's The Castle of
Wolfenbach (1793), The Fugitive Countess, centres
on the crimes of the past which return to threaten the present
and is essentially a novel of retribution and reconciliation.
As in all of her novels and most bluebooks, the central
figure is a rejected wife, Magdalena, Countess of Ottagio,
who unwittingly discovers her husband's crimes and is forced
to become a fugitive in the Convent of St Ursula. Throughout
the novel, Wilkinson is fascinated by the possibilities
of adapting bluebooks for their simple and straightforward
moral story unhindered by complicated subplotting. In
The Fugitive Countess, Wilkinson not only develops simple
subplots which would eventually compose the matter of her
bluebooks, she carefully integrates a well-known drama she
had earlier redacted into the text. The flexibility of the
bluebook plot was such that it could be utilised by Wilkinson
and reworked into subplots that often diverted the readers'
attention from the main story, affording Wilkinson the appropriate
opportunity to moralise and educate.
The novel
centres on Magdalena, who is tyrannised and victimised by
her cruel and capricious husband, the Count Ottagio. Like
her aristocratic progenitors, Magdalena is a victim of her
father's debt, her husband's greed and the duplicity of
an evil agent, Stefano. Similarly, she shares with her antecedents
formidable morals which are only second to her (obligatory)
compassion for the sufferings of others.
The Fugitive
Countess opens with Magdalena in extreme distress. The
Count is attempting to murder her, for it would seem on
the onset that the Countess's morals are not only in doubt,
but in serious danger. The bitter exchange between the Count
and Countess immediately draws the readers' attention to
a pronounced moral division, common in Wilkinson's works,
between a husband and his wife:
‘Spare me-for heaven's
sake-for your own sake-spare me!-Plant not the horrors
of unavailing remorse within your bosom; should you be allowed
to escape the vengeance of your fellow creatures, and your
crimes remained concealed from human knowledge; yet, remember,
there is, above, an all-seeing eye, from whom no secret
is hid. O strike not, suspend your uplifted arm-I have yet
another plea to offer-Innocence.’
'Innocent!' repeated the
Count, with a malignant sneer,-'then you are better prepared
to meet your impending doom.' [14]
For Wilkinson, the issue of moral disparity
within a marriage, is invariably the basis for an immediate
and often permanent separation. A well-timed knock at the
door distracts the Count, allowing a disguised Magdalena
to flee the Castle of Ottagio to seek sanctuary in the Convent
of St Ursula under the protection of her maternal aunt,
Lady Viola Del Serina.
The horror
of secret, arranged, or forced marriages is another theme
commonly found in Wilkinson's novels and bluebooks. For
Wilkinson such marriages will inevitably remain loveless
where 'the first duties, next to chastity, in a female is
filial and connubial obedience; and nothing more hateful
in her than a spirit of argument and contradiction' (II, 28).
Like Lady Emily de Cleve in The Subterraneous Passage
; or, Gothic Cell (1803) and Rosalthe di Zoretti
in The Convent of the Grey Penitents; or, the Apostate
Nun (1809), Magdalena has been forced into a
marriage with the Count of Ottagio to whom she feels both
'aversion' and 'horror'. In Wilkinson's bluebooks such as
The Subterraneous Passage, her characters are often
delivered by deception into the hands of a nefarious suitor:
Emily de Cleve is kidnapped by Dubois, the leader of banditti
with the assistance of Madam Rambouillet, Emily's governess.
Rambouillet and Dubois were partners in vice; Dubois wanted
Emily's money and Madam Rambouillet wanted the daughter
out of the way, that she might not hinder her designs on
the father, the Marquis de Cleve. Marriage is forcibly performed
with Emily the unwilling partner: 'In vain she shrieked,
and implored for mercy: no friendly hand was near to give
her aid; and the servile priest performed the office in
spite of her resistance, and pronounced them man and wife'.
[15]
Similarly, Magdalena's father, the Count di Verona in The
Fugitive Countess, having squandered her inheritance
at the gaming table, has arranged to settle his debt with
Ottagio by offering the hand of his daughter. However, unprepared
to counter Magdalena's aversion to the Count, Di Verona
challenges his daughter to prepare for the loss of his life
(and soul) as consequence of what he bitterly terms her
'caprice'. In a dramatically staged confrontation, the Count
di Verona contemptuously invites Magdalena to 'exult over
the ashes of a parent' (II, 9-10)
Despite deploring
forced and arranged marriages, Wilkinson fundamentally supports
the traditional importance of duty within that marriage,
a quality which Magdalena (despite her name) not only upholds
but strictly separates from affection. Throughout The
Fugitive Countess, Wilkinson clearly delineates between
Magdalena's duty to her husband and her love for the Count,
and she extends this throughout the novel in her refusal
to disclose the crimes of her husband, which would free
her from her hated marriage vows. Safely secreted in the
Convent, the Countess is able cautiously to unveil the Count's
crime through a series of fragmentary documents and personal
histories. The first disclosure, in fact, is related through
Magdalena's servant, Laura who fled the castle with her
mistress.
The suddenness and gravity of Magdalena's
flight overwhelms the 'fugitive' Countess, who almost immediately
succumbs to illness. During the long hours, Laura's attention
shifts to the book-press where she searches 'for some work
of imagination, that should be adapted to her taste, which
it must be owned rather bordered on the romantic' (I, 19).
For Wilkinson, the most unassuming and obvious method of
reintegrating the bluebook is through the inclusion of a
fragment of manuscript. The fragment's ominous opening naturally
reflects the Countess's position as a 'fugitive':
The storm sill raged-the gusts of wind
were repeated with, if possible, increased violence-Eudora
pressed her babe to her woe-worn breast-'Alas! my child, but
for thee,' exclaimed the wretched mother, 'the warring elements
might pass unheeded-the drenching rain-the lightning's glare-the
thunder's tremendous peal-could not affect a wretch like me.
The storm within my breast makes me callous to that without.
(I, 21)
The overtly
moralistic plot of the inset tale centres on the
consequences of Eudora's seduction, betrayal and the deception
of Lord Willibald. '[S]educed from the paths of virtue,
to the precipice of vice', Eudora and her young son Willibald,
endeavour in vain to remind him of his promised pledge just
days after his wedding to the Heiress of Passenger. In anger,
he murders both the baby and Eudora and eventually takes
his own life. The fragment ends with a typical Wilkinson
punishment of the lecherous and 'unnatural Baron':
Every night, at the exact hour Eudora was
murdered, the isolated castle is supernaturally illumined;-lord
Willibald, the self-destroyed Baron, can be distinctly seen
through the gothic windows, by those who have the courage
to gaze thereon, flying from chamber to chamber,-pursued by
the shrieking Eudora, clasping her infant to her bleeding
bosom, and demanding heaven's vengeance on the head of their
destroyer. (II, 60)
The moral of the tale is simply: '[b]eware,
lest a vile villain's insidious arts should destroy both
thy body and thy soul' (II, 42).
Wilkinson's fragment, concentrates on the quick administration
of morality and the horrific.
Wilkinson's
use of personal histories, like fragmentary documents, are
essential to reveal the Count's crimes; therefore, individual
histories are only disclosed in order to influence the present
as well as underlining the moral. According to Wilkinson,
to elucidate the mysteries attending to Magdalena's behaviour,
it is requisite to inform the reader of her history. Raised
by her father, Magdalena was initially educated by a governess
and then sent to the Convent of St Ursula. Like Emily in
The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and Elena
in The Italian (1797), Magdalena initially appears
unsociable, if not withdrawn, and is attracted to the demanding
life of the nuns, even contemplating taking vows. Her aunt,
Viola, the abbess, however, while sympathetic to her desires,
admonishes her to avoid such a life and in doing so narrates
her own story.
The abbess,
as a young woman, although the elder of two sisters, was
forced into the convent, due in part to the fact that her
mind was of a more serious nature than her worldly sister.-'My
boudoir was filled with select authors, globes, and
drawing utensils. I wrote essays on various subjects, poems,
&c. &c. corresponding with the tone of my mind,
which was unfortunately sensitive to a painful degree' (II, 91-92).
Though disappointed, Viola thrived until an accidental meeting
with Horace Beverly, the brother of Sister Frances. Love
inevitably followed as did an escape from the convent. Fleeing
to a castle, Viola was discovered by her father instead
of her lover. Horace, imprisoned by the Count Del Serina,
eventually dies and Viola is returned to the Convent.
The Abbess's
story, like the fragment, is intended by Wilkinson as instructional.
The tale anticipates Magdalena's most distressing challenge,
that of unfeigned filial duty to her father. After several
years of disinterest in his daughter, the Count di Verona,
arrives to take Magdalena to Ottagio castle. As I have already
indicated, Magdalena was offered to Ottagio in lieu of Verona's
debt. On the night of the wedding, Magdalena discovers the
Count and his accomplice Jacintha as they enter the library,
and, following, she watches them descend through a trapdoor
in the chapel. Resolved to discover their secret, the following
night she descends down the trapdoor and discovers Thomasina,
the housekeeper, who promises to reveal their secret. The
Count's dreadful secret is, of course, that the Count's
first wife, Lady Clementina di Lusini, and their daughter,
Adeline are alive, immured in a subterraneous dungeon. The
plot element of the imprisoned wife is familiar enough in
Gothic romance; it had been much utilised writers in the
eighteenth century and was in common use in nineteenth century
Gothic. To a contemporary reader, this scene would have
recalled memories of many others: perhaps the key scene
in Sophia Lee's The Recess (1785), or Ann Radcliffe
's A Sicilian Romance (1790), in which Julia discovers
her mother, Marchioness Mazzini, imprisoned in the deserted
wing of their decaying mansion.
Wilkinson,
it appears, was particularly practised in the confinement
of distressed females: in The Subterraneous Passage
Emily de Cleve discovers Madame Dubois, the wife of the
murdered Count Dubois, imprisoned by her brother-in-law
to obtain her property and, in The Priory of St Clair;
or, the Spectre of the Murdered Nun, Julietta, a young
nun, is kidnapped from her Convent by the Count de Valve,
and imprisoned in the dungeon beneath his castle until her
ignominious death. Similarly, Clementina di Lusini's distressful
tale, as related to Magdalena, parallels many of Wilkinson's
bluebook plots. Clementina's tale, narrated over several
trips to the subterraneous dungeon, confirms Magdalena's
suspicions regarding the Count and prefigures certain elements
in Magdalena's future or textual past. The tale is an adaptation
of an earlier Wilkinson bluebook The Wife of Two Husbands
and a subplot in Eliza Parsons's Mysterious Warnings
(1796). Wilkinson's The Wife of Two Husbands (1804),
which (as previously mentioned) claimed to be a translation
from the French drama of the 'La Femme à Deux Maris' by
René-Charles Guilbert and 'formed into an interesting story',
was actually based on the musical adaptation of James Cobb
as performed at the Theatre-Royal, Drury-Lane. The bluebook,
like the drama, relates the story of Eliza, whom marries
Isidore Fritz against her father's wish. Fritz is a man
of deceit, who whilst in prison, fakes his own death. Believing
that she is a widow, the Count Belfior marries her. Years
later, Fritz returns to claim his wife, as well as her property.
Eliza, caught between duty to a husband whom she loves and
one whom she despises, concedes that she should leave the
Count, but his friend recognises Fritz as a deserter and
has him immediately arrested. Spared the death penalty through
Eliza's intercession, Fritz repays her kindness by attempting
to murder the Count, but is himself slain.
Wilkinson
has reworked her adaptation of Eliza's tale into Clementina's.
There are many similarities between the bluebook and the
inset tale: both Eliza and Clementina marry against the
wish of their father; both mistakenly believe their first
husbands to be dead; and both are confronted by the horror
of their contrasting duties. As I have already argued, for
Wilkinson, the traditional importance of duty within a marriage
is fundamental. By placing Eliza and Clementina in a situation
which brings them into direct conflict with this duty, Wilkinson
underlines a woman's imprisonment in an institution that
binds one party by certain rules and restrictions which
are flouted by the other. However, despite these broad similarities,
there are important differences in presentation and emphasis
between Eliza's and Clementina's tales, and these can be
understood as a response to changes from bluebook to a tale
within a novel.
While Wilkinson
took the basic plot structure from her dramatic adaptation,
she simultaneously drew from other popular themes found
in Gothic novels, most notably from Eliza Parsons's The
Mysterious Warning. The inset tale, which was later
extracted verbatim and published anonymously as The Horrible
Revenge; or, the Assassin of the Solitary Castle by
Fairburn in 1828, contained the memoirs of Baron S-- which
records, with exacting detail, the imprisonment of his wife
and 'husband'. Baron S-- saves Count Zimchaw and his daughter
Eugenia from banditti. In gratitude Zimchaw offers the Baron
Eugenia's hand in marriage, and though she appears hostile
to the union, the father's will prevails and they are united.
That night, Eugenia disappears from her room; all searches
prove futile. This humiliation drives the Baron to distraction:
'[f]or my part, neither time nor disappointment had abated
my passion; I still loved to a degree of fury, for rage,
and a desire of revenge on her and her paramour, went hand
in hand with my inclination for her person'. [16]
Eventually, the Baron discovers Eugenia and her lover, Count
M--. Baron S-- accuses his wife: 'you, who at the altar
gave me your hand and faith, and now live as an adultress
with the man you swore never to be join with without your
father's consent; know you are still my wife, and I will
prove my right by my power of punishing you' (p. 18). This
threat is similar to the threats of Count Ottagio: 'I regard
not your marriage, unsanctioned by parental consent, as
any bar to my wishes;' said Ottagio, fiercely, 'but look
on you in the light of a base adulterer, striving to dishonour
my name' (Fugitive Countess, II, 151).
But as with Clementina, Eugenia had secretly married Count
M-- before meeting the Baron. The Baron moved the family,
consisting of the Count, Eugenia and young daughter, to
a dungeon. In an act of unadulterated evil, Baron S-- dashes
the family's water to the floor, just as their young daughter
is dying from thirst. The cruel Baron eventually dies and
the Count M-- and Eugenia are freed from their prison.
Again, the
similarities between Parsons's and Wilkinson's inset tales
are consistent: second marriages, cruel revenge, and conflicting
duty (though more focused on the tension between filial
and matrimonial). Wilkinson's attraction to this inset tale
though is directly associated with its male perspective.
There are broad similarities between Count Ottagio and Baron
S-- which link the two texts. While The Wife of Two Husbands
focuses on the dreadful circumstance from the viewpoint
of the wife, Parsons's inset tale (extracted as The Horrrible
Revenge) illustrates the viewpoint of the Baron. In
similar terms, Wilkinson's inset tale focuses on Clementina's
perspective of discovering that Leonardo still lives, while
Ottagio's cruel revenge, seen from his perspective, is defending
his honour. The amalgamation of the two perspectives allows
Wilkinson to contrast their individual roles within marriage.
For the Count it is honour, for Clementina (and Magdalena)
it is merely duty.
The bluebook
incidents such as these are utilised by Wilkinson to moderate
the pace of the narrative, often allowing characters the
time and ability to reflect on circumstances in the past.
For example, in the case of Magdalena, Clementina's distressful
confinement in a dungeon confirms all of her growing suspicions
about the Count. Throughout The Fugitive Countess,
Wilkinson is continually experimenting with assimilating
bluebooks, as inset tales, into her novels as a method of
both moralising and revealing the past. Recycling her 'trade'
into novels is not unexpected, but they indicate a fluidity
and connection to the larger Gothic market that is politely
ignored by critics who view the Gothic merely as an art
form.
Sarah Wilkinson's
diverse literary corpus reflects not only the perilous pitfalls
of living by the pen, but also the shifting readers' interest
in Gothic fiction in the early nineteenth century. Her enormous
output of bluebooks underlines the existence of a distinct
bluebook 'trade', separate from the book publishers, one
where morality, decency and education was equally important
as sensational and horrific. Her novels, while relying on
recycled scenes and motifs, uniquely show the amalgamation
of the bluebook and the novel.
Notes
1. 'The
Life of an Authoress, Written by Herself', Tale 57 in Tell-Tale
Magazine (London: Ann Lemoine, 1803), p. 28. Further references
to this tale are given in the text.
2. The
tale is attached to The Eastern Turret; or, Orphan of Navona.
A Romance, which, though not attributed, has the distinct
characteristics and language found in Wilkinson's other Tale-Tell
stories. Particularly, Wilkinson's discussion of female wit
is found verbatim in later novels of hers, such as The Convent
of Grey Penitents (1810).
3. Letter
to the Royal Literary Fund, 10 Feb 1824: Loan No. 96 (Case 375),
British Library. Hereafter referred to as RLF and accompanied
by the date of the letter.
4.
These textbooks comprised: A Visit to London: Containing
a Description of the Principal Curiosities in the British Metropolis
(1810), A Visit to a Farm-House (1805) both published
at the Juvenile and School Library by M'Millan, and The Instructive
Remembrancer: Being an Abstract of the Various Rites and Ceremonies
of the Four Quarters of the Globe. For the Use of Schools (1805)
published by M'Kenzie,
5.
Robert Mayo identifies eleven works by Wilkinson, though, my
research indicates at least sixteen. See Mayo's The English
Novel in the Magazines, 1740-1815 (Evanston, IL: Northwestern
University Press, 1962), p. 368, which lists the following tales,
all of which appeared in the Tell-Tale: The Adopted
Child, or the Castle of St Villereagh, The History of
George Barnwell, Lissette of Savoy, or the Fair Maid
of the Mountains, Lord Gowen, or the Forester's Daughter,
The Maid of Lochlin, or Mysteries of the North, The
Marriage Promise, Monastic Ruins, or the Invisible Monitor,
The Mountain Cottager, or the Deserted Bride, Orlando,
or the Knight of the Moon, The Sorcerer's Palace, or
the Princess of Sinadone, The Wife of Two Husbands.
6.
For example, the name Sarah Wilkinson appears on the title page
of The Spectres; or, Lord Oswald and Lady Rosa published
by Langley in 1814 and Sara Scudgell Wilkinson appears on the
title page of The White Pilgrim; or, Castle of Olival
published by Dean & Munday in 1820.
7.
Valentine Readers were collections of poems written, generally,
for the working class, often for specific occupations and events
such as proposals of marriage.
8. 'Mackintosh,
Sir James (1765-1832), British writer and public servant, b.
Scotland. His Vindiciae Gallicae (1791), a spirited reply
to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution,
was the leading Whig statement in favour of the French Revolution,
but from 1796 he grew hostile to French radicalism. His writings
include several historical works.'-Dictionary of National
Biography: Index and Epitome (London: Smith, Elder, &
Co., 1906), p. 819.
'Holland, Sir Henry (1788-1873),
physician, son of Peter Holland, medical practitioner, and the
medical attendant on the Princess of Wales (afterwards Queen
Caroline). He became one of the best known men in London society,
the friend and adviser of almost every man of note. In 1837
he was appointed physician extraordinary to Queen Victoria,
in 1840 physician in ordinary to the prince consort, and he
declined a baronetcy offered by Lord Melbourne in 1841. He was
made physician in ordinary to the queen in 1852, and accepted
a baronetcy in 1853.'-ibid., p. 631.
9. The
novel almost certainly remained unpublished at her death.
10.
The bluebook Mysterious Novice; or, Convent of the
Grey Penitents should be distinguished from her two-volume
romance, Convent of Grey Penitents; or, the Apostate Nun
(London: J. F. Hughes, 1810).
11.
Frederick Frank, The First Gothics: A Critical
Guide to the English Gothic Novel, (London: Garland Publishing
Inc., 1987), p. 412.
12.
'The Spectre; or, the Ruins of Belfont Priory', in The
Lifted Veil, ed. by A. Susan Williams (London: Xanadu, 1992),
p. 16.
13.
Sarah Wilkinson, The Eve of St Mark; or, the Mysterious Spectre
(London: J. Bailey, 1820), p. 5. Further references to this
tale are given after quotations in the text.
14.
Sarah Wilkinson, The Fugitive Countess; or, the Convent of
St Ursula. A Romance (London: J. F. Hughes, 1807),
i, 1-2. Further references to this novel are given in the text.
15.
Sarah Wilkinson, The Subterraneous Passage; or, Gothic Cell.
A Romance (London: Anne Lemoine and J. Roe, 1803), p. 15.
16. The
Horrible Revenge; or, the Assassin of the Solitary Castle
(London: Fairburn, 1828), p. 11.
Copyright Information
This article is copyright © 2003 Centre for
Editorial and Intertextual Research, and is the result of the
independent labour of the scholar or scholars credited with
authorship. The material contained in this document
may be freely distributed, as long as the origin of information
used has been properly credited in the appropriate manner (e.g.
through bibliographic citation, etc.).
Referring to this Article
F. POTTER. 'Writing for the Spectre of Poverty: Exhuming Sarah
Wilkinson's Bluebooks and Novels', Cardiff Corvey: Reading
the Romantic Text 11 (Dec 2003). Online: Internet (date
accessed): <http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/romtext/articles/cc11_n02.html>.
Contributor Details
Franz Potter received his doctorate from the University of East
Anglia for his thesis, 'Twilight of a Genre: Art and Trade in
Gothic Fiction, 1814-1834'. Currently, he is teaching writing
and composition at Plymouth State University and Southern New
Hampshire University. He is the site manager of 'The Gothic
Literature Page' <http://members.aol.com/iamudolpho/basic.html>
and runs Zittaw Press <http://www.zittaw.com>,
a small press which specialises in exact reproductions of Gothic
chapbooks and bluebooks.
Last modified
25 January, 2006
.
This document is maintained by Anthony Mandal
(Mandal@cf.ac.uk).
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