Charles Reade

Shannon R. Wooden (Missouri State University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.07: English Writing and Culture of the Victorian Period, 1837-1901.
Vol. editors: Gillian Fenwick (University of Toronto), Jessica Gossling (Goldsmiths College, University of London)

Dates

Born 8 Jun 1814
Died 11 Apr 1884
Activity 1834-1884

Places

Born in England
Active in England

Activities

Primary

Journalist
Novelist
Playwright / Dramatist
Story-writer

Resources

Reade's Works

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The reputation of Victorian novelist and playwright Charles Reade was never uncomplicated. Even in his lifetime, critics and fans couldn’t agree on whether he was one of the best English writers of the nineteenth century or one of the worst; he was on the one hand praised alongside Charles Dickens and George Eliot (Phillips 20;

Oxford

613) while on the other criticized for his “crude[ly]” melodramatic, even “vaudevillian” plots (

Merriam-Webster

933; Smith 55). Still, most of his contemporaries probably did not imagine that he would be utterly “neglected, almost forgotten” within just a few decades of his death in 1884 (Burns 11). Though once his work was so widely read that Walter Phillips describes him as “one of the most popular men of [Victorian] letters” in his…

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2796 words

Citation: Wooden, Shannon R.. "Charles Reade". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 July 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3720, accessed 23 November 2024.]