Authors: Wilkie Collins
The fifth act is set in the sanatorium. Lydia, who still hates Allan, proposes poisoning him. He is lured to the establishment by a false report of Neelie's being there. The âvaporizer' poisoning technique is suggested by Lydia, collaborating with Downward (Bashwood, like Oldershaw, is absent from this version of the plot). There is the familiar change of rooms, and Lydia finds that she has poisoned (but not quite killed) Ozias. She discovers round his neck a locket containing some of her magnificent red hair. She kills herself in an agony of remorse.
Miss Gwilt in this last stage version is much less guilty than her namesake in the novel, or in the first dramatization. But it is not quite accurate to say, as Catherine Peters does, that âshe is not implicated in the plots to sink Allan's yacht and to murder him with poison gas'. Lydia is, albeit not always wholeheartedly, a clear accessory before the murder.
As Collins records,
Miss Gwilt
was âput on for the first time at the Alexandra Theatre, Liverpool, 9 Dec 1875' and thereafter âperformed some hundreds of nights in England and in America'. It had its London opening in April 1876 at the Globe Theatre. It was not a critical success. The
Athenaeum
âs review (22 April 1876) was scathing:
So favourable a reception had, according to report, been awarded
Miss Gwilt
on its first production in Liverpool, a success in London had been discounted beforehand. The best laid plans o' mice and managers âgang oft agley'⦠To the faults which ordinarily attend dramatized versions of novels,
Miss Gwilt
adds some shortcomings which are specially characteristic of the author. It is long-winded, involved, oppressive in atmosphere, and artificial in treatment.
The reviewer liked Ada Cavendish, the actress who played Miss Gwilt, but thought the climactic murder wholly absurd.
1.
For Collins's theatrical activities with Dickens in the 1850s see Robert L. Brannan,
Under the Management of Mr Charles Dickens
(Ithaca: New York, 1966).
3.
Huntington Library, call mark HM 33787.
4.
Walter Dexter, ed.,
The Letters of Charles Dickens
(London, 1938), III, p.
477
.
5.
Huntington Library, call mark HM 33789.
7.
B. A. Brashear has studied the various dramatic versions of
Armadale
in his doctoral thesis, âWilkie Collins: from novel to play' (Case-Western Reserve University, 1972).
1824 | 8 January: Born at 11 New Cavendish Street, St Marylebone, |
 | London to William John Thomas Collins, RA (1788â1847), painter, and Harriet Collins, |
1826 | Family moves to Pond Street, Hampstead |
1828 | 25 January: Brother, Charles Allston Collins, born (d.1873) |
1829 | Family moves to Hampstead Square |
1830 | Family moves to Porchester Terrace, Bayswater |
1835 | 13 January: Attends Maida Hill Academy |
1836 | 19 Septemberâ15 August 1838:Family visits France and Italy |
1838 | August: Family moves to 20 Avenue Road, Regents Park; attends |
 | Mr Cole's private boarding school, Highbury Place |
1840 | Summer: Family moves to 85 Oxford Terrace, Bayswater; |
 | December: leaves Mr Cole's school |
1841 | January: Apprenticed to Edmund Antrobus, tea merchant of the Strand |
1842 | JuneâJuly: Visits Scotland with his father |
1843 | August: First published fiction, âThe Last Stage Coachman', |
1844 | Writes |
1845 | January: Submits |
1846 | 17 May: Enters Lincoln's Inn to study law |
1847 | 17 February: Death of father |
1848 | Summer: Family moves to 38 Blandford Square; November: |
 | first book, |
 | by Chapman and Hall |
1849 | Exhibits a painting, |
 | Summer Exhibition |
1850 | 26 February: First play, |
 | and Edmond Badon's |
 | Dean Street; 27 February: first novel, |
 | published by Richard Bentley; Summer: moves with mother to |
 | 17 Hanover Terrace; JulyâAugust: walking tour of Cornwall with |
 | Henry Brandling, artist |
1851 | 30 January: |
 | published by Bentley; March: meets Charles Dickens; first |
 | contribution to |
 | acts with Dickens in Edward Bulwer-Lytton's |
 | Seem; 27 |
 | newspaper, |
 | Mr Wray's Cash-Box |
1852 | 24 April: First contribution to |
 | Strange Bed'; 16 November: |
 | published by Bentley |
1853 | JulyâSeptember: Stays with Dickens in Boulogne; Octoberâ |
 | December: tours Switzerland and Italy with Dickens and |
 | Augustus Egg |
1854 | Joins the Garrick Club; 6 June: |
 | Bentley; JulyâAugust: stays with Dickens in Boulogne |
1855 | 16 June: First play, |
 | by Dickens's theatrical company; September: sails to Scilly Isles |
 | with Pigott |
1856 | February: First collection of short stories, |
 | by Smith, Elder; 1â29 March: |
 | Words; |
 | staff writer on |
1857 | 3 January: |
 | and (from 24 January) in |
 | Deep |
 | published in volume form by Bradbury and Evans; 10 August: |
 | The Lighthouse |
 | tours Cumberland, Lancashire and Yorkshire with Dickens; |
 | 3â31 October: they describe the trip in |
 | Idle Apprentices, |
 | orates with Dickens on âThe Perils of Certain English |
 | Prisoners' |
1958 | First French translation, |
 | to Broadstairs, Kent; September: resigns from the Garrick club, |
 | in protest at the expulsion of his friend Edmund Yates; 11 |
 | October: |
 | flops |
1859 | JanuaryâFebruary: Lives with Mrs Caroline Graves at 124 |
 | Albany Street; apart from one short interlude, they remain |
 | together until his death; MayâDecember: lives at 2a Cavendish |
 | Square; October: |
 | Blackett; 26 Novemberâ25 August 1860: |
 | serialized in |
1860 | 17 July: Charles Allston Collins marries Kate Dickens; August: |
 | The Woman in White |
 | Low; 22 August: opens bank account at Coutts |
1861 | January: Resigns from |
 | Athenaeum club; August: visits Whitby, Yorkshire, with Caroline Graves |
1862 | 15 Marchâ17 January 1863: |
 | Round |
1863 | August: Visits the Isle of Man with Caroline and her daughter, |
 | Harriet; November: a collection of journalism, |
 | published by Sampson Low |
1864 | NovemberâJune 1866: |
 | Magazine |
1865 | Chair of the Royal General Theatrical Fund |
1866 | May: |
 | October: visits Italy with Pigott; 27 October: |
 | opens at the Olympic Theatre |
1867 | September: Moves to 90 Gloucester Place; December: collaborates |
 | with Dickens on short story âNo Thoroughfare'; 24 |
 | December: theatrical adaptation produced, Adelphi Theatre |
1868 | Finds lodgings for Martha Rudd, his second mistress, at 33 |
 | Bolsover Street, Portland Place; she uses the name âMrs |
 | Dawson'; 4 Januaryâ8 August: The Moonstone serialized in |
 | the Year Round |
 | published in volume form by Tinsley Brothers; 29 October: |
 | witnesses the marriage of Caroline Graves to Joseph Charles Clow |
1869 | 29 March: |
 | actor Charles Fechter, opens at the Adelphi Theatre; 4 July: |
 | daughter, Marian Dawson, born to Collins and Martha Rudd; |
 | 20 Novemberâ30 July 1870: |
1870 | June: |
 | June: Death of Dickens |
1871 | April: Caroline Graves returns to live with Collins in Gloucester |
 | Place; 14 May: second daughter, Harriet Constance Dawson, |
 | born to Collins and Martha Rudd at 33 Bolsover Street; 9 October: |
 | The Woman in White |
 | February 1872: |
1872 | 26 January: |
 | Bentley; OctoberâJuly 1873: |
 | Temple Bar |
1873 | 17 January: |
 | 22 February: |
 | 9 April: Charles Allston Collins dies; 17 May: |
 | published in volume form by Bentley; 19 May: stage version of |
 | The New Magalen |
 | in New York for reading tour of America; 10 November: |
 | New Magdalen |
1874 | Martha Rudd moves to 10 Taunton Place, Regents Park; 7 March: |
 | Collins leaves Boston for England; 26 Septemberâ13 March 1875: |
 | The Law and the Lady |
 | Frozen Deep and Other Stories |
 | son, William Charles Collins Dawson, born to Collins and Martha |
 | Rudd at Taunton Place |
1875 | Copyright for Collins's work acquired by Chatto and Windus, |
 | who remain his publishers until his death; February: |
 | and the Lady |