Who Was Charles Reade?
Charles Reade (1814-84) was born in Oxfordshire, being the youngest son of a squire. He was educated at Iffley and Oxford, and then, entering Lincoln’s Inn, was called to the Bar. He was only slightly interested in the legal profession, but very fond of the theatre and traveling. After 1852 he settled down to the career of the successful man of letters. He died at Shepherd’s Bush.
He began authorship with the writing of plays. As a playwright, he had a fair amount of success, his most fortunate production being Masks and Faces (1852), written in collaboration with Tom Taylor. Peg Woffington (1853) was his first novel, and was followed by Christie Johnstone (1853), which deals with Scottish fisherfolk. It Is Never Too Late to Mend (1856) treats of prisons and of life in the colonies. The Cloister and The Hearth (1861), one of his best novels, is a story of the later Middle Ages, and shows the author’s immense care and knowledge; Hard Cash (1863) is an attack upon private lunatic asylums; and Griffith Gant, Or Jealousy (1866), Foul Play (1868), and some other inferior books are in the nature of propaganda against the abuses of the time
When at his best Reade tells a fine tale, for he can move with speed and describe incidents with considerable power. He has the dramatist’s sense of situation, and his gift is for striking scenes rather than the careful integration of plot. Often he is melodramatic, and his characters lack subtlety and depth. His style is, for the most part, virile and concentrated, and his dialogue shows the influence of his theatrical experience. On occasions he tends to overload his story with historical detail, of which he accumulated great masses, or mar his style by overemphasis.
