13 June 2014

Review: The Frozen Deep by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins

Hardcover, 173 pages
Published 1966 (contents: 1857)
Acquired November 2012
Read December 2012
Under the Management of Mr. Charles Dickens: his production of "The Frozen Deep"
by Wilkie Collins, edited by Robert Louis Brannan

Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens worked together on an "amateur" theatrical called The Frozen Deep in 1857, later turned by Collins into a novella. This is the only accessible printing of the script that I could find, an edition which does not mention Collins as the writer on the cover or title page, even though he was the solely credited writer on the original playbill! Did people just not care about Collins as much as they did Dickens when this edition was published in the 1960s?

Anyway, this is about a group of stranded Arctic explorers. I can see the potential in such a premise for gripping drama, but on the page at least, there's nothing engaging to be found. Pretty forgettable, even if Queen Victoria was moved to tears.

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