Man and Wife (novel)

Last updated

Man and Wife is Wilkie Collins's ninth published novel, first published in 1870. It is the second of his novels (after No Name ) in which social questions provide the main impetus of the plot. Collins increasingly used his novels to explore social abuses, which according to critics [1] [2] tends to detract from their qualities as fiction. The social issue which drives the plot is the state of Scots marriage law; at the time the novel was written, any couple who were legally entitled to marry and who asserted that they were married, either before witnesses or in writing, were regarded in Scotland as being legally married.

Contents

Plot summary

The novel has a complex plot, which is common in Collins's work. [3] In the Prologue, a selfish and ambitious man casts off his wife in order to marry a wealthier and better-connected woman by taking advantage of a loophole in the marriage laws of Ireland.

The initial action takes place in the widowed Lady Lundie's house in Scotland. Geoffrey Delamayn has promised marriage to his lover Anne Silvester (governess to Lady Lundie's stepdaughter Blanche), who has incurred the enmity of her employer. The spendthrift Geoffrey is about to be disinherited and wishes to escape from his promise and marry a wealthy wife. Nevertheless, he is obliged to arrange a rendezvous with Anne, in the character of his wife, at an inn, and documents this in an exchange of notes with her. Subsequently, urgent matters force him to send his friend Arnold Brinkworth, Blanche's fiancé, to Anne in his place. To gain access to her, Arnold must ask for "his wife". Although nothing improper passes between them, they appear to the landlady and to Bishopriggs, a waiter, to be man and wife.

Thus, both Geoffrey and Arnold might be deemed to be married to Anne, depending on the weight put on the spoken and written evidence. Most of the novel concerns Anne's, Geoffrey's and Arnold's attempts to clarify their marital status:

In subsequent chapters Geoffrey, a keen athlete, courts Mrs Glenarm, a wealthy young widow, while Anne consults lawyers who give her conflicting advice about her position, and later tries to explain the situation to Mrs Glenarm, who rebuffs her. Arnold seeks the advice of Lady Lundie’s brother-in-law Sir Patrick Lundie, a retired lawyer. Sir Patrick approaches the problem with energy, but owing to various mishaps, Geoffrey’s determination that his scheme shall succeed, and the unsatisfactory state of the law, is not immediately successful. However, he ascertains that the correspondence linking Geoffrey and Anne exists and was stolen at the inn by Bishopriggs, who tries to extort money for it. Anne, who strongly wishes to remove any impediment to Blanche and Arnold’s marriage, comes to the same conclusion and forces Bishopriggs to give her the letter by threatening to reveal its contents, which would make it worthless for blackmail. Eventually Anne offers to reveal her relations with Geoffrey, even at the cost of her reputation – impressing Sir Patrick with her courageous and honourable behaviour. At a meeting of all the parties and their lawyers, she makes her revelations. Geoffrey can no longer avoid honouring his promise to her and acknowledges her as his wife.

A sub-plot concerns Geoffrey’s athleticism. While training for an important race, Geoffrey is discovered to have a serious physical ailment rendering him liable to a paralytic stroke. In the race itself, in which Geoffrey represents the South of England against the North, he collapses near the end, leaving his opponent the victor. His “friends” desert him, having lost their bets placed on him.

The novel finally becomes a thriller. Geoffrey takes Anne to a secluded cottage in which the cook-housekeeper Hester Dethridge (who also features in the earliest scenes) is mute. Hester inadvertently reveals to Geoffrey that she murdered her brutal and rapacious husband by dismantling part of the wall of his (locked) bedroom in an almost-invisible way, leaning through and smothering him. Geoffrey forces Hester to show him how to do the same to Anne. By various stratagems he gets Anne to sleep in a suitably-placed bed. However he suffers a stroke when about to smother her, and while unconscious is throttled by Hester, who belatedly recognises the enormity of what she has been abetting. Sir Patrick, knowing the danger in which Anne is placed, has kept watch outside the house and, when Anne gives the alarm, duly rescues her.

In the final scene, Lady Lundie awaits a visit from Sir Patrick and his new bride. She is chagrined to discover that the lady in question, who takes precedence over her in the family, is her enemy Anne.

Themes and influences

The theme of the Prologue is repeated in the main action, Anne and Blanche being the daughters of the abandoned women and her dearest friend.

Apart from the marriage laws of Scotland, discussed above, Collins attacks the legal disadvantages of married women – also a mainspring of the plot of The Woman in White – and the cult of athleticism. In the novel he describes the practice of competitive athletics as dangerous to the athlete's health, and as productive of anti-intellectualism and brutality.

Page [2] points out that the last of these is not cognate with the other two, both of which were widely recognised as scandalous and were soon rectified by changes to the law, whereas athleticism and athletes appear to have been a pet hate of the diminutive and un-athletic Collins. However he argues that an obsession with physical, rather than intellectual or moral, culture is emblematic of the brutality and coarseness present in the social attitudes of the period. Page also notes the sexual element, explicit for the time, in the relationship of Geoffrey and Mrs Glenarm.

Like No Name, the novel is structured in scenes, reflecting Collins's enduring interest in the theatrical. Peters [1] states that it was “one of [his novels] originally conceived as a play”. Page notes that the action would have been too controversial to have been presented on the Victorian stage.

Collins put effort into ensuring the accuracy of the novel's action in terms of the law of the time. Law was a subject of abiding interest to him, and legal questions and lawyers appear often in his works, notably in The Woman in White, Armadale , No Name and The Moonstone .

Publication

Man and Wife was first published in 1870 as a serial in Cassell's Magazine (London) and Harper's Weekly (New York). It was published in book form by F. S. Ellis the same year. [2]

Critical reception

The novel, the next in sequence after Collins's highly successful The Moonstone, was a commercial success. Among modern critics, Peters [1] holds a low opinion of its plot and characterisation, but Page [2] argues that it should be classed with Collins's acclaimed 1860s fiction rather than with his later, and inferior, polemical novels. The novel has proved enduringly popular and remains in print.

Dramatization

Three stage adaptations were written by Americans: Fred Lyster's was adopted by the California Theatre, San Francisco; another, by one F. Williams, had a successful run in Boston, a third, by Frank M. Mayo, was adapted by Augustin Daly in New York, and had a long run. Mary Gladstane secured the sole right to play this version in the Australian colonies and in England. [4]

Related Research Articles

<i>Pride and Prejudice</i> 1813 novel by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice is the second novel by English author Jane Austen, published in 1813. A novel of manners, it follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the protagonist of the book, who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between superficial goodness and actual goodness.

The Forsyte Saga, first published under that title in 1922, is a series of three novels and two interludes published between 1906 and 1921 by the English author John Galsworthy, who won the 1932 Nobel Prize in Literature. They chronicle the vicissitudes of the leading members of a large upper-middle-class English family that is similar to Galsworthy's. Only a few generations removed from their farmer ancestors, its members are keenly aware of their status as "new money". The main character, the solicitor and connoisseur Soames Forsyte, sees himself as a "man of property" by virtue of his ability to accumulate material possessions, but that does not succeed in bringing him pleasure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk</span> English nobleman, diplomat and military commander

Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk was an English military leader and courtier. Through his third wife, Mary Tudor, he was brother-in-law to King Henry VIII.

<i>Persuasion</i> (novel) 1818 novel by Jane Austen

Persuasion is the last novel completed by the English author Jane Austen. It was published on 20 December 1817, along with Northanger Abbey, six months after her death, although the title page is dated 1818.

Margaret Drummond was a daughter of John Drummond, 1st Lord Drummond, and a mistress of King James IV of Scotland.

Margaret of Norfolk or Margaret of Brotherton, Duchess of Norfolk in her own right, was the daughter and eventual sole heir of Thomas of Brotherton, eldest son of King Edward I of England by his second marriage. In 1338, she succeeded to the earldom of Norfolk and the office of Earl Marshal. In 1397, she was created Duchess of Norfolk for life.

<i>The Way of the World</i> 1700 play by William Congreve

The Way of the World is a play written by the English playwright William Congreve. It premiered in early March 1700 in the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London. It is widely regarded as one of the best Restoration comedies and is still occasionally performed. Initially, however, the play struck many audience members as continuing the "immorality" of the previous decades, and was not well received.

<i>Pendennis</i> 1848–1850 novel by William Makepeace Thackeray

The History of Pendennis: His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy (1848–50) is a novel by the English author William Makepeace Thackeray. It is set in 19th-century England, particularly in London. The main hero is a young English gentleman Arthur Pendennis, who is born in the country and sets out for London to seek his place in life and society. As such, it is generally categorized as a bildungsroman. The novel took two years for Thackeray to write and, in line with other Thackeray works, most notably Vanity Fair, it offers an insightful and satiric picture of human character and aristocratic society. The characters include the snobbish social hanger-on Major Pendennis and the tipsy Captain Costigan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Bowes-Lyon</span> Princess Anne of Denmark

Anne Ferelith Fenella Bowes-Lyon was a member of the Danish royal family by marriage and a first cousin of Elizabeth II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katheryn of Berain</span> Welsh noblewoman

Katheryn of Berain, sometimes called Mam Cymru, was a Welsh noblewoman noted for her four marriages and her extensive network of descendants and relations.

The Palliser novels are six novels written in series by Anthony Trollope. They were more commonly known as the Parliamentary novels prior to their 1974 television dramatisation by the BBC broadcast as The Pallisers. Marketed as "polite literature" during their initial publication, the novels encompass several literary genres including: family saga, bildungsroman, picaresque, as well as satire and parody of Victorian life, and criticism of the British government's predilection for attracting corrupt and corruptible people to power.

<i>The Woman in White</i> (novel) 1860 novel by Wilkie Collins

The Woman in White is Wilkie Collins's fifth published novel, written in 1860 and set from 1849 to 1850. It started its publication on 26 November 1859 and its publication was completed on 25 August 1860. It is a mystery novel and falls under the genre of "sensation novels".

<i>Peveril of the Peak</i> 1823 novel by Walter Scott

Peveril of the Peak (1823) is the longest novel by Sir Walter Scott. Along with Ivanhoe, Kenilworth, and Woodstock this is one of the English novels in the Waverley novels series, with the main action taking place around 1678 in the Peak District, the Isle of Man, and London, and centring on the Popish Plot.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lady Cynthia Mosley</span> British politician (1898–1933)

Lady Cynthia Blanche Mosley, nicknamed "Cimmie", was a British aristocrat, politician and the first wife of the British Fascist politician Sir Oswald Mosley.

<i>Lady of Quality</i> 1972 novel by Georgette Heyer

Lady of Quality is the final Regency romance written by Georgette Heyer. Published in the UK by The Bodley Head in 1972, and by E. P. Dutton in the U. S., it was the last of her novels to be published during her lifetime.

Frances Hyde, Countess of Clarendon, born Frances Aylesbury, was an English peeress. As the mother of Anne Hyde, she was mother-in-law to James II and VII, the deposed king of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the maternal grandmother of Mary II and Queen Anne.

This is a list of fictional stories in which illegitimacy features as an important plot element. Passing mentions are omitted from this article. Many of these stories explore the social pain and exclusion felt by illegitimate "natural children".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Boleyn</span> English noblewoman (1499–1543)

Mary Boleyn, also known as Lady Mary, was the sister of English queen consort Anne Boleyn, whose family enjoyed considerable influence during the reign of King Henry VIII.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Montagu, 4th Earl of Salisbury</span> 14th/15th-century English nobleman

Thomas Montagu, 4th Earl of Salisbury, KG of Bisham in Berkshire, was an English nobleman and one of the most important English commanders during the Hundred Years' War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Brandon, Baroness Monteagle</span> English noblewoman

Lady Mary Brandon was an English noblewoman, and the daughter of Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, by his second wife, Anne Browne. Mary was the wife of Thomas Stanley, 2nd Baron Monteagle, by whom she had six children.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Peters, Catherine (1993). The King of Inventors . Princeton University Press. ISBN   978-0-691-03392-1.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Page, Norman (1995). Man and Wife (Introduction to Oxford Classics ed.). Oxford University Press.
  3. ↑ Peters, Catherine (1989). Armadale (Introduction to Oxford Classics ed.). Oxford University Press.
  4. ↑ "Theatre Royal". The Herald (Melbourne) . No. 7840. Victoria, Australia. 20 February 1871. p. 3. Retrieved 14 July 2021– via National Library of Australia.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.