Dickens's 'Young Men' This page intentionally left blank Dickens's 'Young Men' George Augustus Sala, Edmund Yates and the World of Victorian Journalism RD. EDWARDS Routledge Taylor & Francis Croup First published 1997 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX 14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 1997 P.D. Edwards The author has asserted their moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the.author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Edwards, Peter D. Dickens's 'Young Men': George Augustus Sala, Edmund Yates and the World of Victorian journalism. (Nineteenth Century series) 1. Sala, George Augustus. 2. Yates, Edmund. 3. Journalism— England—History—19th century. I. Title. 072'.09034 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Edwards, Peter David. Dickens's 'young men': George Augustus Sala, Edmund Yates, and the world of Victorian journalism/P.D. Edwards, p. cm. (Nineteenth century) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-85928-043-9 (acid-free paper) 1. Sala, George Augustus, 1828-95. 2. English fiction—19th century—History and criticism. 3. Dickens, Charles, 1812-70— Friends and associates. 4. Journalism—Great Britain— History—19th century. 5. Novelists, English—19th century— Biography. 6. Journalists—Great Britain—Biography. 7. Yates, Edmund Hodgson, 1831-94. I. Title. II. Series: Nineteenth century (Aldershot, England). PR5299.S2Z69 1997 072'.09034—dc21 97-18805 CIP ISBN 9781859280430 (hbk) Transfered to Digital Printing in 2009 Contents List of figures ix Acknowledgements x Introduction 1 1 Bohemians: 1851-56 5 2 Personal Journalists: 1856-63 41 3 Novelists: 1860-74 73 4 'Specials': 1863-74 101 5 Gentlemen of the Press: 1874-84 136 6 Ghosts: 1884- 171 Bibliography 208 Index 217 This page intentionally left blank The Nineteenth Century General Editors' Preface The aim of this series is to reflect, develop and extend the great bur- geoning of interest in the nineteenth century that has been an inevitable feature of recent decades, as that former epoch has come more sharply into focus as a locus for our understanding not only of the past but of the contours of our modernity. Though it is dedicated principally to the publication of original mongraphs and symposia in literature, history, cultural analysis, and associated fields, there will be a salient role for reprints of significant texts from, or about, the period. Our overarching policy is to address the spectrum of nineteenth-century studies without exception, achieving the widest scope in chronology, approach and range of concern. This, we believe, distinguishes our project from com- parable ones, and means, for example, that in the relevant areas of scholarship we both recognize and cut innovatively across such param- eters as those suggested by the designations 'Romantic' and Victorian'. We welcome new ideas, while valuing tradition. It is hoped that the world which predates yet so forcibly predicts and engages our own will emerge in parts, as a whole, and in the lively currents of debate and change that are so manifest an aspect of its intellectual, artistic and social landscape. Vincent Newey Joanne Shattock University of Leicester This page intentionally left blank List of figures 1.1 '"Boz" in his Study'. Engraving on stone by Sala for The Battle of London Life, or Boz and His Secretary by 'Morna' (Thomas O'Keefe). 10 1.2 Sala aged 28. Photograph by John Watkins, reproduced in the Welcome Guest, 8 January 1859: 8. 36 3.1 Yates in 1865. Photograph by Adolphe Beau. 86 3.2 'A Waiting Race'. Once a Week, 27 July 1872: facing p. 78. 94 4.1 'Tame Cats'. Drawing by Sala. 118 4.2 'G.A.S. Dux Est Lux'. One of Sala's visiting cards, in colour; probably his own design. 118 4.3 Sala laid up with gout, 31 March 1874: self-portrait. 119 4.4 Sala invites the Yateses to dinner, 22 April 1874. 119 5.1 'Edmund Yates: The New Archimedes'. Cartoon by Alfred Thompson on the front cover of the Mask, 12 July 1879. 146 5.2 '"G.A.S." in the Historic Fur Coat'. Photograph by Abdullah Freres, Constantinople, reproduced as the frontispiece to Sala's Echoes of the Year Eighteen Hundred and Eighty-Three. 151 5.3 'Punch's Fancy Portraits No. 46: George Augustus Sala' by Linley Sambourne. Punch, 27 August 1881: 94. 155 5.4 'Monday Popular Concerts: Madame Norman Neruda'. The Pictorial World, 14 March 1874: 29. 163 6.1 The Doom of the Editor'. St. Stephen's Review, 3 May 1884. 176 6.2 'The Land of the Golden Fleece' (detail). Melbourne Punch, Almanac for 1886. 186 6.3 'George Augustus Sala 25/10/88'. Photograph by Boussed Valadon, Paris, reproduced as the frontispiece to Sala's Life and Adventures. 191 6.4 'The Late Mr. Edmund Yates'. Photograph by Suscipi, Rome, reproduced in the Illustrated London News, 26 May 1894: 643. 193 Acknowledgements I owe particular thanks to Rosemary Kaplan (Edmund Yates's great- granddaughter) and the late Ralph Kaplan for delivering the Edmund Yates Papers to me at Paddington Station, and to Spencer Routh for subsequently arranging their purchase by the University of Queensland Library; to Judy McKenzie for generously sharing with me her extensive knowledge of Sala and of Victorian journalism generally, reading the book in draft, and making many corrections and helpful suggestions; to the Australian Research Council, and its predecessor the Australian Research Grants Committee, for two grants which greatly facilitated my research; to the Department of English, University of Queensland, and the University of Queensland Library for many years of support, both moral and material; to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library for the award of the A. Bartlett Giamatti Fellowship which enabled me to spend a full month working on the Sala Papers in the spring of 1995, and to Vincent Giroud and his colleagues at the Beinecke for their always friendly, thoughtful, and efficient help; to Ruth Blair, Francis Bywater, Andrew Dowling, Susan Gardner, Barbara Garlick, Patricia Morris, Joanne Shattock, Michael Slater, Graham Storey, David Storor, Sue Thomas, Chris Tiffin, Kathleen Tillotson, and Elaine Zinkhan for advice or assistance; and to the staff of the following libraries: Australian National Library; Bath Reference Library; Berg Collection, and Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library; Birmingham University Library; British Library; British Newspaper Li- brary; Brotherton Collection, Leeds University Library; Carl A. Kroch Library of Rare Books and Manuscripts, Cornell University; Houghton Library, Harvard University; Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin; Huntington Library; University of Ken- tucky Libraries; University of London Library; John Rylands Library, University of Manchester; National Portrait Gallery; Post Office Records and Archives Centre, London; Punch Library; Princeton University Li- braries; Reading University Library; Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester; National Library of Scotland. Introduction They came to be called Dickens's 'young men' during the 1850s. As well as George Augustus Sala and Edmund Yates they included Blanchard Jerrold, Sydney Blanchard, William Moy Thomas, Walter Thornbury, John Hollingshead, James Payn, Percy Fitzgerald, and Andrew Halliday.1 Most of them, but not Yates, were frequent contributors to Dickens's weekly, Household Words. Wilkie Collins, who rapidly acquired an independent reputation, was never one of them. Sala and Yates took longer than Collins to make names for themselves, and some of the others never did. Sala's celebrity, chiefly as a special correspondent, leader-writer, and weekly columnist, dated from the early sixties; Yates's, as an editor and newspaper proprietor, from the seventies, after Dick- ens's death. In their maturity, Sala and Yates were less strongly influ- enced by Dickens than critics, biographers, and literary historians have often assumed. Their novels, which brought both of them some acclaim in the sixties, are much less 'Dickensian' than the reviewers expected and often perceived them to be, and as journalists both achieved their greatest success in styles and modes that Dickens never attempted at all. At the time of Dickens's death in 1870, and for the remainder of their lives, they continued to proclaim their reverence for him as man and writer and to remind the world how intimately they had been associated with him. But their narratives of their literary careers, Yates's Recollec- tions and Experiences and Sala's Things I Have Done and People I Have Known and The Life and Adventures of George Augustus Sala, make it clear that other mentors and models influenced them at least as strongly in their early years. Both of them knew Thackeray and ben- efited from his advice and encouragement, and as struggling young writers they identified more with Pendennis than with David Copperfield. They both owed much to the friendship and professional guidance of the then-celebrated novelist and entertainer, Albert Smith, before and after they came to Dickens's notice; and Yates as a novice was be- friended by and collaborated with another of the most popular novelists of the forties and fifties, Frank Smedley. When they started to write novels themselves, they believed their inspiration came as much from Balzac as from Dickens.