An Interview with Miss Braddon.

Evening Star, Issue 6913, 28 May 1885, Page 3

An Interview with Miss Braddon.

[Joseph Hatton, in the ‘Age.’]

“ We have known each other twenty years,” she said. “Youwere one of the contributors to the first number of ‘Belgravia,’ and if you want to write about me I am sure you have material enough, without making a formal advance upon so poor a subject.” “ But I want to interview you, something in the fashion of a stranger, as if I did not know you, as if my editor had directed me to drive from London to Richmond for the express purpose. Tell me something about your working day.” “ My idea of a perfect and pleasant day,” replied Mrs Maxwell, “ is to devote the whole of it to writing and reading ; when I say the whole of it I mean from breakfast at ten say until dinner at seven, with intervals of strong tea, and sometimes a little luncheon. I can do this four days during the week and enjoy it, and get through a lot of work, if I have the other two for riding, and more especially for hunting.” “ And your reading ? Who are your favorite authors, as the new inquisitorial autograph books put it ?”—“ Well, I must confess that I have read very few of my contemporary novelists ; I think I have read more French stories than English. I have read and am fond of George Eliot, Rhoda Broughton, Wilkie Collins, of course ; and I know my Thackeray, my Dickens, and my Scott. I always say that I owe ‘ Lady Audley’sSecret ’to ‘The Woman in White.’ Wilkie Collins is assuredly my literary father. My admiration for ‘ The Woman in White ’ inspired me with the idea of ‘ Lady Audley ’ as a novel of construction and character. Previously my efforts had been the didactic direction of Bulwer, long conversations, a great deal of sentiment, you know what I mean. I suppose every young writer starts with an ideal author; Bulwer was mine, and the late Lord Lytton took great interest in my work. He undertook to correct and criticise my first story, and both he and his son, the present Lord Lytton, have written very many charming and valuable letters. The late Earl wrote me long criticisms of almost every book I wrote, not mere complimentary letters, but fault-finding letters, pointing out where ho thought I was wrong, and being very generous, of course, touching what he thought were good points in my work. I dedicated ‘ Lady Audley ’ to him. He was the first author of note to give me any real encouragement. I think I have no hesitation in saying that, all round, Dickens has given me more pleasure than any other writer. Charles Reade I admired greatly, both as a man and an author. I think he was one of the most powerful of our English writers ; and what a world of tenderness of thought he brought into his work !” Her face becomes as animated when talking of Reade as when previously she was talking of hunting. “ I read a great deal at our house in the Forest. Charles Lamb is one of my great favorites, Steele another, and I never tire of De Quincy, or to go in quite another direction, of Daudet, Balzac, and Victor Hugo. “ I see you have ‘ Nana ’ among your French books. What do you think of Zola?”—“That he is very clever, not immoral as some people think, but that he is horrible and maudlin in his new departure of so-called realism. It cannot be regarded as immoral when the vices of humanity are exposed in their most revolting details, neither is it art, I think, and it certainly is most unpleasant reading.” “ Now let us talk about your method of story-telling. I remember many years ago discussing this subject with Mrs Hcnxy 'Wood. She told me that her system of beginning and working out a story was of the most methodical character. First she sketched her plot; then she elaborated it and set forth her characters; then she divided it into three parts for three volumes; then she divided up her volumes into chapters, and allotted each chapter its incidents; so that finally she sat down to work knowing exactly what she had to do—how much for each chapter, and so on—without any particular mental strain, I think Trollope worked very much in the same way. Now, how do you begin, and how do you finish ? Tell me as I were that same interviewer under editorial instructions of whom we talked at the outset.” “ Very well, then,” she said, clasping her hands and looking into the fire. “lam not as systematic as Mrs Wood, nor can I write exactly to measure as Trollope did. Sometimes when I get a special order, as I do now and then from the newspapers or a magazine, I find myself literally without an idea in my head. My mind is a blank, quite empty as one may say. Ihen all of a sudden and unexpectedly an idea comes, the germ of a story. For example, ‘ Henry Dunbar ’ —l thought of that story as I was driving into the city one day to meet my

husband, thought of. it in the street in it cab ; but jfVgcrm of if be.eit already in my. mind.i s.pggpsted ,„py _ a police case I had read in . the •. memoirs of a Frencli detective. Have you read Carpenter’s physiology? Well, he explains how the brain works on its ovm account; how it has a sort of double action, as it were, and will, as it were, debate and work out a theme while we ar« unconscious, sb to speak, of its operations. lam sure I have had many experiences of the truth ol this theory. When I have got my germ, and it has developed into anything like shape, I make a skeleton plot, describe the characters, note the incidents, and sketch out the general idea. That done, I begin my copy for the printer, and work at it straight to the finish. Of course new devdopmtints occur as 1 go along, changes sometimes of incident and motives, but so long as I adhere to the general plan I accent these ehanges and find that the Whole schfclilb..works pht Coh'fectW: ” i .. . “Willy oil snow nub a skeleton ?” , She goes to her desk and hands me a siiiall memorandum book. , • v . • u “There,is ‘lsKmael,’ my last novel; the skeleton occupies i seven pages.” r , • They were closely pages, and had been marked through, bit by bit, a reporter marks his note-book after transcription. “ May I copy half of the.first page ? “ If you care to take the trouble.” I did care, and here it is—the first half page of the skeleton of Miss Braddon s latest, and not the least popular, of her novels

IHHMAET,. A man of forty years in Paris—rich, cumvatecl, handsome, of powerful frame, extraordinary energy, courage, audacity. No one knows who he is, but —supported by his large wealth, ho reaches a great success in society. A woman—lovely, iuqiassioned, but past the bloom of girlhood—patrician, etc., etc. falls madly in love with him —for a time lie avoids her, even to discourteousncss —at last in a passionate scene he reveals his love. She is happy—he not —he plans to take her to South America, or some French colony. She is willing to resign Paris, friends, country, for his Bake. On their wedding morning he is WeUnded —ol before wedding. “ I Wrote ‘ Lady Alldley’s Secret' without a skeleton plot, Without a single note,” Continues my hostess, when I hand back to hci the plot of “Ishmael." “I read The Woman in White.’ and it so excited me that I felt my mind at work in a new direction. 1 wrote ‘ Lady Audley ’as a novel of construction. Then I had to divide it into as many stages as was necessary for three volumes. By the way we were speaking of Trollope. Well, he took gr«at pains to find out the rate at which he wrote on an average —how many words an hour. My curiosity was thus aroused as to how much I did, and I found that when I am at work I write quite as fast as Trollope. That is a veiy trivial matter, but it will interest some PC *nw e drifted into that kind of general conversation which does not belong to the strict domain of interviewing, and presently I was prowling among the books of reference, and talking all the time of the authors we both liked, of the successes that amazed us, and the failures we could not understand. During this final ramble round the room we passed in review “ The Specator,” “ The Tattler,” “ Chambers’s Miscellany,” “ Southey’s Common - Place Book, “Buckle's Common-Place Book," “Beaumont and Fletcher,” and Jeremy Taylor. The latter author, my hostess pronounced “ capital reading for style,” and I felt constrained to confess that I prerfer the modern style of Macaulay, And so we parted with just sufficient difference of opinion to relieve our conversation from monotony, and to set up in the reader’s mind a point for debate and development.