Real Conversations

by William Archer

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300 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1904

About the author

William Archer was a Scottish writer and theatre critic, based, for most of his career, in London. He was an early advocate of the plays of Henrik Ibsen, and an early friend and supporter of George Bernard Shaw.

In 1878, in accordance with his father's wishes, he moved to London to train as a barrister. He was uninterested in the law, and was by now fascinated with the theatre. He qualified for the bar in 1883, but never practised. He supported himself by working as dramatic critic of The London Figaro, and after he finished his legal studies he moved to The World, where he remained from 1884 to 1906. In London he soon took a prominent literary place and exercised much influence.

Reviews

[Surreysmum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Conversations - i.e. edited & rewritten interviews where Archer himself did a fair bit of talking - with playwright Arthur W. Pinero, novelists Thomas Hardy, Mrs. Craigie (John Oliver Hobbes), Mrs. St. Leger Harrison (Lucas Malet), poet/dramatist Stephen Phillips, plus fellow men of theatre George Moore & W.S. Gilbert, Professor Masson, publisher William Heinemann, DNB founder Sidney Lee, military historian Spenser Wilkinson and actor-manager George Alexander. As you might guess from the high proportion of theatre people, Archer was himself a theatre critic & journalist, as well as a proponent of a national, endowed theatre at a time when English theatre was dominated by actor-managers. Now history gives a certain gloss to these things, but I must admit I genuinely enjoyed the interplay of ideas - not terribly structured - between educated minds, and was fascinated to see (for all the wrong-headed false predictions) how many accurate ideas of the shape of the 20th century were actually floating around in its first years. Archer, for instance, makes a stray remark about the demise of war because weapons will become so massively destructive - well, it's not quite right, we still have war, but close ... And Mrs. Harrison makes some extremely accurate predictions about developments in twentieth century fiction. The only interview I found really disturbing was, predictably, that with the military historian Spenser Wilkinson. Heinemann's opinions about the publishing industry were very interesting, and Sidney Lee's conversation about his lecturing & travelling in America most amusing. The Pinero and Hardy interviews would, I should think, be an invaluable source of anecdotal material for students of those two writers. Oh - and Gilbert answers the question, which came first, the music or the words?! (With him and Sullivan, always the words). Very entertaining.