Ellen Terry and the ‘Bloofer Lady’: Femininity and Fallenness

Abstract

Stoker’s engagement at the Lyceum coincided with that of Ellen Terry. The newly appointed business manager arrived in London in December 1878, just a few days before the opening of Hamlet on 30 December, in which Terry was to play Ophelia. In Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving, Stoker describes his first encounter with Terry at the theatre on 23 December, in the

somewhat dark passage under the staircase leading to the two ‘star’ dressing-rooms […] But not even the darkness of that December day could shut out the radiant beauty of the woman to whom Irving, who was walking with her, introduced me. Her face was full of colour and animation, either of which would have made her beautiful. (1906, vol. 2: 190)

Stoker’s initial impression of Terry accords with her introduction to her 1908 memoir, in which she also draws on metaphors of lightness and darkness:

I gave up the search for a motto which should express my wish to tell the truth so far as I know it, to describe things as I see them, to be faithful according to my light, not dreading the abuse of those who might see in my light nothing but darkness. (1908: xi)

As an actress, Terry radiated on the Victorian stage, specializing in playing victims and fallen women from Shakespeare to popular dramas.