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The Dressing Room
The Public Readings of Charles Dickens
On 5th April 1858, Dickens wrote to his friend Thomas Beard that he had all but decided to read on for my own profit - this idea, carried out shortly afterwards, was to change his life, fortune and reputation until his death in 1870. From 1853, Dickens had given public performances of adaptations from his own novels and stories to benefit numerous charities throughout the country. These dramatic Readings were enormously successful, but Dickens found it increasingly frustrating to devote so much of his time to them without any remuneration.
On the evening of the 29th April 1858, he gave his first commercial reading. Before it he made a short speech explaining his reasons for becoming a professional reader. Like most of his letters concerning his second career, the speech showed a certain ambivalence in his attitude. On the one hand, the performances opened up a new source of income, which gave Dickens the financial security he had been longing for. On the other, they offered an opportunity to strengthen his relations with the public and enjoy a personal friendship with his readers.
Dickens's Public Readings can be seen as a milestone in the history of entertainment. The enormous success of the performances, an unprecedented publicity strategy for the international tours, and the emerging fan-culture demonstrate how crucial the Public Readings were in the development of modern show business.
Objects on display in this tableaux: on the platform stands Charles Dickens's original Reading Desk, built after his own design. This was not the first of Dickens's desks, but certainly the most elegant and practical. The novelist took the Gladstone Travelling Bag with him on his American Reading tour. It can be seen in a cartoon in our exhibition, depicting Dickens with a bag full of money; an allusion to the huge profit he made with his readings. The bottles and jug represent the diet of the performer during his later Reading Tours: in the morning, he had a tumbler of fresh cream and two tablespoonfuls of rum. At noon he had a sherry cobbler and a biscuit, followed at three by a pint of champagne. Before the reading, he had an egg beaten up in a glass of sherry. During an dafter the performance, strong beef tea and a bowl of soup would complete his daily ration. This diet was recommended because of his bad health, which made it increasingly difficult to go on stage. Dickens might also have used his walking stick.
On the evening of the 29th April 1858, he gave his first commercial reading. Before it he made a short speech explaining his reasons for becoming a professional reader. Like most of his letters concerning his second career, the speech showed a certain ambivalence in his attitude. On the one hand, the performances opened up a new source of income, which gave Dickens the financial security he had been longing for. On the other, they offered an opportunity to strengthen his relations with the public and enjoy a personal friendship with his readers.
Dickens's Public Readings can be seen as a milestone in the history of entertainment. The enormous success of the performances, an unprecedented publicity strategy for the international tours, and the emerging fan-culture demonstrate how crucial the Public Readings were in the development of modern show business.
Objects on display in this tableaux: on the platform stands Charles Dickens's original Reading Desk, built after his own design. This was not the first of Dickens's desks, but certainly the most elegant and practical. The novelist took the Gladstone Travelling Bag with him on his American Reading tour. It can be seen in a cartoon in our exhibition, depicting Dickens with a bag full of money; an allusion to the huge profit he made with his readings. The bottles and jug represent the diet of the performer during his later Reading Tours: in the morning, he had a tumbler of fresh cream and two tablespoonfuls of rum. At noon he had a sherry cobbler and a biscuit, followed at three by a pint of champagne. Before the reading, he had an egg beaten up in a glass of sherry. During an dafter the performance, strong beef tea and a bowl of soup would complete his daily ration. This diet was recommended because of his bad health, which made it increasingly difficult to go on stage. Dickens might also have used his walking stick.
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