Earlier in the year I posted about the character of Mrs Brown created by the journalist Arthur Sketchley (George Rose 1817-1882) who first appeared in ‘Fun’ magazine. Mrs Brown went on to enjoy a further career in a series of books, produced in small, tough editions with highly coloured boards by Routledge, ‘one shilling each, fancy boards.’
I’m going to talk about two of the titles ‘Mrs Brown on the Royal Marriage’ about the forthcoming marriage of Alfred Ernest Albert, Duke of Edinburgh, the second son of Queen Victoria, to Duchess Marie of Russia in 1874. The second is ‘Mrs Brown on Cleopatra’s Needle’ (1878).
What I find so interesting about these books is how quickly they must have been turned out to allow the author make comment on the great and more minor events of the day. ‘Mrs Brown on Cleopatra’s Needle’ not only narrates a popular view of the extraordinary story of the transportation, near loss at sea and erection of the Needle on the Thames Embankment. Sketchley also takes the opportunity to comment on a range of other contemporary happenings – from the coming of new coffee-houses as rivals to public houses and a savage indictment of the commutation of the death sentences of the four accused in the death of Harriet Staunton in April 1877. The same thing again in ‘Mrs Brown on the Russian Marriage’ – here the Russian marriage allows an opportunity for Mrs Brown to comment admiringly on Florence Nightingale though she’s highly critical of Nightingale’s book with its idea of not disease but dirt.’
Mrs Brown gave Arthur Sketchley considerable success. This included a series of ‘pictorial entertainments’ at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly as reported in 1880, “he has successfully conducted the worthy lady through the United Kingdom, America, Canada and has eventually found his way with her to the Antipodes.”
The Solitary Reader 