Richard Pearson lectures at the National University of Ireland Galway and was previously Head of Arts and Humanities at the University of Worcester. He is the director of an AHRC-funded digital archive, The Victorian Plays Project. His publications include W.M. Thackeray and the Mediated Text, The Victorians and the Ancient World, and The Index of English Literary Manuscripts.

List of Figures Acknowledgments Chronology Introduction: Legitimacy and Playwriting PART I: COMEDY AND TRAGEDY, BEFORE THE THEATRES ACT OF 1843 1. Farce, Family and the Minor Theatres: Dickens as a Legitimate Playwright 2. Text and Performance: Robert Browning and the Struggle of the Dramatic Author PART II: COLLABORATIONS AT MID-CENTURY, 1845-1868 3. The Novelist at the Stage Door: Dickens' and Thackeray's Dialogue with the Theatre 4. Dramatic Collaboration: Dickens' and Collins' Melodramas PART III: DRAMATIC IDENTITIES, 1870-1883 5. Adapting to the Stage: Wilkie Collins and the Double Text 6. Cometh the Hero? Alfred Lord Tennyson as the Nation's Playwright Notes Selected Bibliography Index

This book examines the dramatic work of Dickens, Browning, Collins, and Tennyson, their interaction with the theatrical world, and their attempts to develop their reputations as playwrights. These major Victorian writers each authored several professional plays, but why has their achievement been overlooked?