The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To MARK LEMON, 24 JUNE 1852

MS Shaun Springer.

Tavistock House

Twenty Fourth June 1852

Wednesday – I mean / Thursday

My Dear Mark. I think we shall do more, alone, tomorrow night.1 The point must now be decided2 as they cry for Bills in the country.  

Faithfully Ever / CD

• 1. CD was preparing for further performances by the Amateur Company in aid of the Guild of Literature and Art: see further Pilgrim Letters 6. The repertoire was Bulwer Lytton’s Not So Bad As We Seem (reduced by CD to three acts from five); J. R. Planché’s Charles XII; and two farces: Lemon and CD’s Mr Nightingale’s Diary, and Two o’Clock in the Morning, adapted from the French by Mrs Catherine Gore (as A Good Night’s Rest; or, Two in the Morning, 1839; revised by Charles Mathews, 1840). The Company gave eight performances: Nottingham (23 Aug); Derby (25 Aug); Newcastle (27 Aug); Sunderland (28 Aug); Sheffield (30 Aug); Manchester (1,2 Sep); Liverpool (3 Sep), generally with great success.
• 2. To settle which of the farces, essentially two-handers for CD and Lemon, should be played where. They had both played in Mr Nightingale in May 51. CD had first played in Mrs Gore’s version of Two o’Clock in the Morning in Montreal, 1842, and revived it for himself and Lemon in 1845 and in 1848: see Pilgrim Letters 3, pp. 236-7 & n, Pilgrim Letters 4, pp. 347-8 & n. It was decided to play both farces every night, but Two o’Clock in the Morning was dropped after Nottingham, it being “impossible to get anything out of it after the scream of Mr. Nightingale’s Diary”, a printed announcement of withdrawal being distributed at the doors (To Forster, 29 Aug 52; Pilgrim Letters 6, p. 748).