The Marble Heart

Having the good fortune to have found someone willing to spend hours in the British Library on my behalf, reading through old periodicals (thanks, Rosalie), I am going over some old ground -- Miss Emma Harding, 1834-1856.

More than twenty years spent, from the death of her father, until her conversion to Spiritualism, in the theatre -- that's a quarter of her life.

As readers will know, EHB explains the year's hiatus between her last role at the Adelphi (in Waiting for an Omnibus..., a farce) in July of 1854, and her decision to join the Wallack Company's Shakespeare-in-Paris boondoggle in the summer of 1855 as a year during which she was the kept mistress of the "baffled sensualist".

In looking at her final work at the Adelphi, I realize something significant happened at the Adelphi in mid-1854: Benjamin Webster assumes management of the theatre, in April of 1854. And less than a month after he assumes management, he's putting on a new Charles Selby adaptation, The Marble Heart (Emma had acted in several Selby pieces already), casting Emma in the piece (as Mariette), and acting in it himself (as Volage).

Change in management....hmmm. Webster....hmmm. Friend of Charles Dickens....hmmm.