Meredith, Sutro, Forbes-Robertson, and the Dramatic Version of 'The Egoist'

Abstract

In 1898 George Meredith and Alfred Sutro collaborated to write a play based on Meredith's novel The Egoist. Though not precisely unknown, the dramatized version of The Egoist is almost entirely neglected, and for reasons having little to do with its merits. It has had an unlucky history, which includes among its episodes an abortive plan for production on the London stage; publication in an edition so small that it has never been easily available to the reading public (an edition, moreover, in which the second and third acts are misnumbered and printed in reverse order); scanty and unfavourable critical commentary, some of which may have been motivated by other than critical considerations; and the (apparently deliberate) suppression and distortion of facts surrounding cancellation of the London production. By I898, Meredith had 'become a name'. The crippled sage of Box Hill had been recognized as a great writer, and his wide and diverse acquaintanceship included many theatre people, among them William Archer, the critic, and the actor-manager Johnston Forbes-Robertson.1 It may have been Forbes-Robertson who fired Alfred Sutro with the desire to make a play of The Egoist; it certainly was William Archer who brought Meredith and Sutro together in January 1898 to discuss the possibility.2 The collaboration, as it soon became, extended throughout the year. In his memoirs (1933), Sutro recounts in some detail his collaboration with Meredith. In Sutro's account, the story begins with his 'great desire to make a stage adaptation of George Meredith's Egoist', a desire which he confided to William Archer. Just when Sutro began to think of adapting The Egoist is not certain, but it is likely (from the chronology of later events) that he