1 p. 18.

2 Carr (1849-1916) was a well-known London art and drama critic who contributed to a wide variety of periodicals. He wrote plays as well, most of them adaptations, but at the time of his collaboration with Hardy he was very much a novice playwright. Far From the Madding Crowd, in fact, may well have been his first stage piece. A version of Frou Frou which opened at the Princess's in April 1881 is usually cited as Carr's first play, but Mrs. Carr—in J. Comyns Can, Stray Memories (London, 1920), pp. 83–84MGoogle Scholar—claims that she was the adapter of Frou Frou, and that Carr's career as a playwright began with Far From the Madding Crowd.

3 Era, 7 January 1882, p. 10; letter dated 1 January 1882. The Era collected the entire exchange, twelve letters in all, and printed them in two installments: 7 January 1882, p. 10, and 21 January 1882, p. 3. My citations all refer to the reprinted letters in the Era, but I provide the dates of the letters for those having access to The Times and the Daily News, where the letters originally appeared. Pinero's contributions to the exchange have been reprinted in The Collected Letters of Sir Arthur Pinero, ed. J. P. Wearing (Minneapolis, 1974), pp. 58-66.

4 Era, 7 January 1882; letter dated 2 January 1882.

5 It was anonymously reported in 1906, for instance, that the problem had arisen because an unidentified woman had sold the same plot to both Hardy and Pinero ("The Lounger," Critic, XLVIII, 293), a report discredited in 1937 by Carl J. Weber—in "Plagiarism and Thomas Hardy," Colophon, ns. 2:3, 447—who attributed the alleged existence of this mysterious woman to "the erratic memory of the writer in the Critic who was trying to recall the fading events of twenty-four years before." In 1933 Mrs. Kendal—in Dame Madge Kendal (London, 1933), p. 144Google Scholar—strangely dismissed the whole dispute by attributing it to Hare's having mislaid the Hardy-Carr manuscript, thereby causing Carr to lose his temper. Yet in 1954—in Thomas Hardy, A Bibliographical Study (London, 1954), p. 29Google Scholar—Richard Little Purdy states bluntly: "Mrs. Kendal was the culprit. Long afterwards Pinero confessed to Carr that she had given him his plot, he knowing nothing of Hardy's novel or play," though where this information comes from Purdy does not say.

6 Dame Madge Kendal, p. 144Google Scholar.

7 Theatre (April 1882), 246Google Scholar.

8 6 May 1882, p. 564.

9 I cannot reconcile all of the discrepancies. Nothing could be plainer than the account of the origin of the play given by Hardy in his letter of 1 January 1882. He had long been aware, he said, that the central idea of his novel "afforded a promising theme for the stage. I accordingly dramatised the story, and read the play to Mr. Comyns Carr, the art critic, who kindly improved it, and offered the play to the theatre above mentioned"—that is, the St. James's. The manuscript evidence seems to support this account, for some of the marginal notes bear the signature "T. H." and are apparently in response to alterations made by some other party, presumably Carr, in the original draft. Nonetheless, Mrs. Carr in 1920—in J. Comyns Carr, Stray Memories, p. 84Google Scholar—claimed that she wrote the original draft and that her husband reworked it; and Florence Hardy in 1928—in The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1840-1891 (New York, 1928), p. 198Google Scholar—attributed the play entirely to Carr. Richard Little Purdy, citing evidence from Mrs. Carr, tries to clarify some of the problem by stating that Hardy and the Carrs both wrote adaptations independently in late 1879 or early 1880. In response to overtures by the Carrs, Purdy says, "Hardy gave them his version to work with, and a collaboration of sorts followed in the spring of 1880." Later, Purdy say, Hardy "tried to dissociate his name and his novel from the play, and in after years he fostered the impression that the work was wholly Carr's," but for what reason is not clear (Thomas Hardy, p. 28).

10 "This manuscript, the licensing copy submitted to the Lord Chamberlain's Office, is, so far as I know, the only extant copy of the play. It is in the Manuscript Department of the British Library (Additional Manuscript 53267, item 29).

11 Morley, Henry, The Journal of a London Playgoer From 1851 to 1886 (London, 1891), pp. 5–6Google Scholar.

12 James, Henry, "The London Threatres, 1879," The Scenic Art, ed. Allan Wade (New York, 1957), pp. 119–120Google Scholar.

13 Archer, William, About the Theatre (London, 1886), pp. 4–5Google Scholar.

14 11 October 1880, p. 6.

15 See, for example, the "Captious Critic's" review of The Red Stain on the Forehead, Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 4 May 1878, pp. 157-158; or the review, probably by Henry LaBouchere, of Branded. This review originally appeared in Truth, but was reprinted in the Theatre, May 1881, pp. 296-300Google Scholar.

16 Era, 4 March 1882, p. 8Google Scholar.

17 Pinero, Arthur W., The Squire (London, 1905).Google Scholar

18 Era, 7 January 1882, p. 10; letter dated 31 December 1881.Google Scholar

19 Dame Madge Kendal, p. 144.Google Scholar

20 Merrick, Mercy, the heroine of Wilkie Collins's The New Magdalen (1873)Google Scholar, was the most notable exception to this general rule. A former prostitute, Mercy marries a preacher at the end. Many people wondered aloud in the columns of newspapers and magazines why the Examiner of Plays licensed this play.

21 Pinero, Arthur W., "Robert Louis Stevenson as a Dramatist," Papers on Playmaking, ed. Brander Matthews (New York, 1957), p. 73Google Scholar.

22 "Robert Louis Stevenson as a Dramatist," p. 56.Google Scholar

23 "Robert Louis Stevenson as a Dramatist," p. 57.Google Scholar