Charles Reade, a playwright as well as a novelist, became well known for his attacks against human injustice and his pleas for compassion through his fiction, of which Griffith Gaunt became a strong example. Reade’s fiction proved melodramatic and dealt in what the public considered daring themes. Griffith Gaunt, much to the chagrin of some critics, dealt with the topics of bigamy and religious intolerance, but offers redemption through the improbable reform of one wife by another.
Incorporating duels, a murder trial, and a “female Iago,” a reference to Shakespeare’s treacherous character from his play Othello, the book looked forward to its later dramatic production on a New York stage. When Reade compares his character to Shakespeare’s, echoes of the phrase “green-eyed monster” from Othello support the novel’s focus on jealousy.
The story opens with an argument between a married couple based on religious differences. Moving into a lengthy flashback, the plot reviews the romance of Catherine “Kate” Peyton, a high-minded independent socialite, with two male characters, the immature and passionate Griffith Gaunt and the more logical George Neville. Additional conflict develops due to Gaunt’s selection as heir to Catherine’s cousin, Mr. Charlton of Hernshaw Castle and Bolton Hall. Unfortunately, Charlton had offered Catherine’s only hope of inheritance, her father having promised his property to his son. But when Charlton “took a fancy” to Gaunt, his late wife’s relation, hope of her inheritance was lost.
Further complicating matters, Catherine’s profligate father was becoming desperate for funds. When Griffith proposes to Catherine, she refuses him mainly because, as a staunch Catholic, she cannot agree to marry a Protestant. When she shares the news that she will never marry but instead enter a convent, the incensed Gaunt, suspecting that she loves another, threatens to depart England for the United States.
Simultaneously, Neville visits Mr. Peyton, who accepts money from him in exchange for permission to ask Catherine to marry. Peyton believes that by assuring his daughter of the title Lady Neville, he has fulfilled his responsibility as her parent. This tension escalates when both men bequeath all they own, should they die, to Catherine, then stage a duel in which wounds are inflicted, but which Kate ends before anyone dies.
In a surprising turn of events, Catherine does inherit her cousin’s property, while Griffith inherits nothing, leading Mr. Peyton to deny his request to marry Catherine. Neville rejoices over that news, but Catherine eventually marries Gaunt anyway, following a plea from her as she looks down upon him from a high turret, recalling similar scenes from fairy tales.
They have a daughter, Rose, but the tale does not end with marital bliss. It proceeds through traditional melodramatic complications, such as Griffith’s seeming death and long illness and recovery, away from home, miscommunications, and mistaken identity. In the confusion, and due to treachery by a trusted acquaintance, Griffith marries his nurse, Mercy Vint. A pregnant Kate eventually stands accused of Griffith’s murder and receives the support of Neville, who had remained loyal to her.
Aptly named, Mercy will later find redemption from bigamy through Catherine’s guidance and reform. She testifies that the man whom Kate supposedly murders is not Griffith Gaunt, and the dead man is shown to have drowned of natural causes. During Kate’s childbirth, doctors transfuse the remorseful Griffith’s blood directly into the veins of his wife, rescuing her and giving them a spiritual tie. The novel concludes happily with that relationship mended, and a new one begun between Neville and Mercy.
Readers will immediately find many descriptive passages marked by Reade’s trademark melodrama, particularly in his character descriptions. In an early fox hunt scene, Catherine is described: “one glossy, golden curl streamed back in the rushing air, her gray eyes glowed with earthly fire, and two red spots on the upper part of her cheeks showed she was much excited without a grain of fear.” When Reade first introduces his theme of jealousy, it is in connection with Gaunt. Having caught a glimpse of Neville approaching Catherine’s house, Gaunt reacts, as Catherine observes “the livid passion of jealousy writing in every lineament of a human face. That terrible passion had transfigured its victim in a moment: the ruddy, genial, kindly Griffith, with his soft brown eye, was gone; and in his place lowered a face older and discolored and convulsed, almost demoniacal.”
When Kate, dressed in red, interferes with a duel between her two lovers by riding between them on her grey gelding, she is referred to as a “crimson Amazon.” She later demands the bullet that had wounded Griffith and finds he has had it engraved with the phrase “I love Kate.” Reade describes her reaction: “her face, glorified by the light, assumed a celestial tenderness he had never seen it wear before.”
Such dialogue is of interest to formalist critics, who look to the elements of fiction alone to gain meaning from a story. Also of interest is Reade’s design of portions of the courtroom scene as dramatic dialogue, formatted like that of a play.
Feminist critics would find of interest the dependent positions of several women in the plot, but most of all Catherine Peyton’s male qualities. She stands six feet tall and is a woman of strength and intelligence, yet can strategically faint on a whim to benefit herself socially, like all well-trained young women of her era. At one point she echoes Shakespeare’s heroines, such as Beatrice in the comedy Much Ado About Nothing, when she cries, “Oh that I were a man!” wishing to fight her own duel over insulted honor.
Feminist critics will also note the passage in which an imprisoned Kate requests that Neville interview the deceived second wife of her husband, instructing “All I beg of him is to […] see women with a woman’s eyes and not a man’s; see them as they are.” When Mercy clears Kate’s name, the judge tells her, “You have shown us the beauty of the female character,” helping balance Reade’s consistent authorial intrusions to comment in the broadest terms and usually with negative connotations on the nature of women.
Some critics found the story so outrageous and so likely to cause harm to female readers that they publicly attacked Reade’s morals, accusing him of inciting readers to an unhealthy passion and even lending his name to a writer of low reputation who actually wrote the novel. Most of the early accusations came from American publishers who Reade accused of cowardice, as they published their comments anonymously.
When a British periodical, The Globe, printed the statement that “Griffith Gaunt was declined by some of the lowest sensational weekly papers of New York,” Reade responded angrily. He wrote a public letter that accused the editors of not having read his novel, adding, in part, “But even assuming that you really had not the brains to read Griffith Gaunt for pleasure, nor yet the self-respect and prudence to wade through it before lending your columns to its defamation, at least you have read my letter to the American press; and, having read that, you cannot but suspect this charge of immorality and indecency to be a libel and a lie. Yet you have circulated the calumny all the same, and suppressed the refutation.”
Both the novel and the two letters are readily available in electronic format on the World Wide Web.
Bibliography
Rusk, J. “Letters by Charles Reade concerning Griffith Gaunt.” Blackmask.com. June 1, 2003. Available online. URL: http://www.blackmask.com/jrusk/gg/readletters.html. Downloaded March 30, 2025.
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