Lovel the Widower

Abstract

Lovel the Widower, as we know, took its origin from a dramatic comedy called The Wolves and the Lamb that Thackeray had written during the composition of The Newcomes— specifically between his return from Paris at the end of November 1854 and 17 March 1855, when he sent it off to receive what became the first of several refusals by London stage managers (Letters, III, 430, 450, IV, 148). The Newcomes includes a number of passages of extensive dialogue sustained by brief narrative phrases, but at this very time Thackeray also wrote several explicitly dramatic scenes consisting of unbroken dialogue introduced, as in a play, by italicized names of the speakers. Four of these overtly scenic conversations, chiefly involving Clive and Ethel, appeared in Volume II, chapter ix, pp. 82–96 (part of Number 15 for December 1854), while a similar passage of stage dialogue between Pen and Laura occurred in Volume II, chapter xi, pp. 105–7 (part of Number 16 for January 1855).