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London: The National Acting Drama Office, Not Dated [1845], First Edition. Adapted from Charles Dickens' The Cricket On The Hearth , A Fairy Tale of Home. Scarce work bound in full red morocco, no title to the spine, title and lined gilt decoration to the front board. The Cricket on the Hearth … by Edward Stirling … As Performed at the Theatre Royal, Adelphi. London: Published at the National Acting Drama Office, [ca. 1845]. Etched frontispiece by G. Dorrington reinforced to the rear stuck to another page. 36pp. Edward Stirling (originally, "Lambert") "adapted" or pirated eight of Dickens's works for the stage. ​He was also a prolific borrower from other writers, among them, Sir Walter Scott and William Harrison Ainsworth. By trade a banker's clerk, while still in his late teens, Lambert took the stage name "Stirling" when he entered the theatrical world in 1828 at London's Pavilion, and was soon a fast favourite with English audiences. He staged his first production, Sadk and Kalasrade, at Birmingham, and subsequently wrote and produced at least 190 other plays. On 20 December 1845, just days after the novella's publication, Stirling opened an adaptation of Dickens's The Cricket on the Hearth at the Adelphi which proved so popular that it ran for over ninety performances. Stirling pirated this work and seven others. While he may have been flattered by the attention, Dickens was soon angered by the liberties some playwrights took with his work. This was especially the case when dramatisations were produced before the serial publications were completed. Dickens put his anger into Nicholas Nickleby, ridiculing hack playwrights and adding I would rather pay your tavern score for six months, large as it might be, than have a niche in the Temple of Fame with you for the humblest corner of my pedestal, through six hundred generations . Despite this anger, Dickens worked with theatres and playwrights to adapt his work and create new plays. He collaborated with various theatres to produce his Christmas stories, each written with the stage in mind. In collaboration with Wilkie Collins and others, he wrote plays such as A Message from the Sea. He also acted in amateur productions and performed dramatic readings to the public. Yet Dickens never achieved a professional acting career, nor did he succeed very frequently in making his own adaptation of his own work the most popular version on stage at any one time. Approximately 6 ½ inches tall. Condition Report Externally Spine good condition 7 double lined gilt bands separating 6 compartments, worn at the top. Joints good condition sound. Corners good condition gently bumped and worn. Boards good condition bright red boards with gilt lined decoration with gilt titles to the centre of the front, very small mark down the inner edge of the front board and a very small nick out of the leather down the outer edge of the front. Page edges good condition top edge slightly darkened, fore and bottom edges tanned with some foxing. See above and photos. Internally Hinges good condition intact. Paste downs good condition plain, the front paste down has an Armorial bookplate for Frederick Macmillan . End papers good condition plain, internal free end papers are lightly tanned with some foxing. Title good condition tanned and foxed, damp staining along in the bottom left hand corner, there is also some damage at the top left hand corner where it seems the frontispiece has adhered to it and then separated. Pages good condition b/w frontispiece The Cricket On The Hearth which is tanned and foxed and has some damage to the top right hand corner and also signs of moisture in the bottom right hand corner, pages are tanned throughout with foxing and also damp staining along the bottom edge of most pages. Binding good condition an attractive copy. See photos Publisher: see above. Publication.
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