The Private Secretary (1883) is a three-act comedy by English actor and playwright Charles Hawtrey. Adapted from a popular German farce, The Private Secretary helped launch Hawtrey’s career as one of Victorian England’s leading theatrical figures. Initially panned by critics and audiences, The Private Secretary was revised and shortened by Hawtrey, who then restaged the play to resounding praise. Revived countless times throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, The Private Secretary is a comic masterpiece that set the stage for such playwrights as Oscar Wilde. Harry Marsland and Douglas Cattermole are two young friends who find themselves deeply in debt. Ever unwilling to take responsibility, they look to Robert Spalding, a clergyman as honest as he is innocent, for a way out. While Spalding is employed as a secretary for the Marsland family, Douglas…borrows…his identity in order to seek forgiveness from his creditors. Meanwhile, Douglas’ uncle returns from India and mistakes the unwitting clergyman for his nephew and precedes to berate him for his newfound silence and passivity. When a suspicious creditor uncovers their poorly concealed plan, the two friends must bribe him with a chance to stay at Harry’s family estate, which only further risks the chance of Spalding getting to the bottom of his own strange situation. The Private Secretary is a comedy of manners that dissects English aristocratic life in order to expose its capacity for vanity, greed, and exploitation. This edition Charles Hawtrey’s The Private Secretary is a classic work of English comedy reimagined for modern readers.
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Charles Hawtrey (1858-1923) was an English actor, director, producer, manager, and playwright. Specializing in comedy, Hawtrey earned a reputation as a leading performer of the Victorian era whose work and mentorship inspired such figures as Oscar Wilde, Somerset Maugham, and Noël Coward. After struggling to establish himself as an artist, he launched his career with The Private Secretary, an adaptation of a popular German farce involving the relationship between a clergyman and two irreverent, indebted young men. Knighted for his work in theater, Hawtrey starred in several silent movies toward the end of his life, making him a vital resource for tradition and expertise in a time when the dramatic arts saw extensive stylistic and technological change. Knighted in 1922, Hawtrey was a monumental figure in English theater who adapted with the times he served to define.
