Charles Reade

Charles Reade 1814-84, English novelist and dramatist. He is noted for his historical romance The Cloister and the Hearth. After being elected a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, he was called to the bar. His interests, however, soon turned to the theater. He achieved his first success with Masks and Faces (1852), written in collaboration with Tom Taylor . The play, concerned with life in the theater, was used as the basis for his first novel, Peg Woffington (1853). An ardent reformer, he began a long series of propagandist novels with It's Never Too Late to Mend (1856), describing the cruelties of prison discipline. Others in the series included Hard Cash (1863), and Put Yourself in His Place (1870). He also wrote the novels Griffith Grant (1866), Foul Play (1869), and A Terrible Temptation (1871). His masterpiece, The Cloister and the Hearth (1861), is a picaresque novel concerning the adventures of Gerard, the father of Erasmus. In 1879 Reade collaborated with Charles Warner in writing Drink, a dramatization of Zola's L'Assommoir.

Bibliography: See biography by M. Elwin (1931); study by W. Burns (1961).

Reade, Charles (1814–84), English novelist, also the author of a number of plays, of which the best known are Masks and Faces (1852), dealing with Garrick and Peg Woffington and written in collaboration with Tom Taylor; The Courier of Lyons (1854), which as The Lyons Mail (1877) provided a marvellous vehicle for Irving in the dual roles of Dubosc and Lesurques, parts played later by Martin-Harvey; and It's Never Too Late to Mend (1864), based on his own novel. He also dramatized Tennyson's Dora (1867), and in 1874 persuaded Ellen Terry to return to the theatre after her liaison with Godwin to take over the part of Philippa Chester in his play The Wandering Heir (1873), first produced with Mrs John Wood in the part. Among his later plays the best was a version of Zola's novel L'Assommoir (1877) as Drink (1879), which he wrote in collaboration with Charles Warner who played Coupeau. Reade was essentially a novelist, and his best work for the theatre was done in collaboration with more theatrically minded men, or based on existing foreign plays.