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Gather ye, to meet The Dickens Girl, here to tell you about cosplay performances, 1906-style.
Arabella Allen, also known as The Dickens Girl, talks here in the July 1906 edition of Cassell& #39;s Magazine (found hiding on my bookshelf) about her approach to becoming Dickens& #39; finest.
Arabella Allen, also known as The Dickens Girl, talks here in the July 1906 edition of Cassell& #39;s Magazine (found hiding on my bookshelf) about her approach to becoming Dickens& #39; finest.
The first mention I can find of her is a citation from L& #39;Universel in 1903; the last is an advertisement for her mid-billing in a show at the Newport Empire in South Wales, in 1908.
"Arabella Allen" is a character from The Pickwick Papers. I wonder who she really was?
"Arabella Allen" is a character from The Pickwick Papers. I wonder who she really was?
Marvels in "Make-Up": Apparently her transformation into the male characters was so convincing, the teenager "adopted the plan of & #39;making up& #39; on the stage" to prove she was not replaced by a male actor.
The photographs are fantastic, and the costuming is quite something. The descriptions are as Dickensian as the characters; writing and interview is by Joseph F. Heighton (about whom I can, similarly, find precious little, in the moments I spent searching not-too-far).
"Allen" explains that, in discussion with her parents, it was decided she should take on male characters to set herself apart from her music hall peers. Success was "practically stipulated".
"Sometimes I get a little discouraged when an audience does not seem to appreciate a character, in studying which I have probably spent a great deal of time and trouble. But my mother tells me that I must have faith and confidence in myself."
& #39;Twas ever thus, I think.
& #39;Twas ever thus, I think.
