Charles Reade

Charles Reade (8 June 1814 – 11 April 1884) was an English novelist and dramatist, best known for The Cloister and the Hearth.

Charles Reade was born at Ipsden, Oxfordshire, to John Reade and Anne Marie Scott-Waring, and had at least one brother. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, taking his B.A. in 1835, and became a fellow of his college. He was subsequently dean of arts and vice-president, taking his degree of D.C.L. in 1847. His name was entered at Lincoln's Inn in 1836; he was elected Vinerian Fellow in 1842, and was called to the bar in 1843. He kept his fellowship at Magdalen all his life but, after taking his degree, he spent most of his time in London. William Winwood Reade, the influential historian, was his nephew.

Reade began his literary career as a dramatist, and he chose to have "dramatist" stand first in the list of his occupations on his tombstone. As an author, he always had an eye to stage effect in scene and situation as well as in dialogue. His first comedy, The Ladies' Battle, appeared at the Olympic Theatre in May 1851. It was followed by Angela (1851), A Village Tale (1852), The Lost Husband (1852), and Gold (1853).

But Reade's reputation was made by the two-act comedy, Masks and Faces, in which he collaborated with Tom Taylor. It was produced in November 1852, and later was expanded into three acts. By the advice of the actress, Laura Seymour, he turned the play into a prose story which appeared in 1853 as Peg Woffington. The same year he wrote Christie Johnstone, a close study of Scottish fisher folk. In 1854 he produced, in conjunction with Tom Taylor, Two Loves and a Life, and The King's Rival, and, unaided, The Courier of Lyons (well known under its later title, The Lyons Mail) and his adaptation of Tobias Smollett's Peregrine Pickle. In the next year appeared Art (1855), afterwards known as Nance Oldfield.

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