Already known as a writer with a social conscience, Charles Reade published It Is Never Too Late to Mend specifically to stimulate public interest in social revolution. He proved successful, spurring his reading public to lead a movement to reform the prison system. Like thesis novels of the previous decade, It Is Never Too Late to Mend showed readers the disaster that existed within their society, as well as the fact that they had the power to salvage corrupt systems.

Spurred to investigate published findings regarding the cruel treatment by prisoners at the hands of the governor of Birmingham jail, Reade studied facts about the Durham, Oxford, and Reading jails, incorporating his findings into this first novel. The setting in part reflects the English prison in New South Wales, characterizing the Australian colony’s attempt to rebuff the effects of early convict settlers.

The novel focuses on two stories. One incorporates the news regarding the Australian colony’s gold-rush fever in 1851, describing the dangers of the miner’s life. The details Reade supplies regarding the camp caused critics to first recognize him as a powerful realistic and dramatic novelist. Reade’s narrative first points out the seeming incongruity in an earl’s son, the Honorable Frank Winchester, leaving England to seek his fortune in a distant colony.

Despite his title, however, Frank is without fortune or prospects, and loves a woman he cannot formally court until he procures that fortune. In the opening scene, he tries to convince George Fielding, a farmer who had saved Winchester’s life, to accompany him to become a bailiff or agricultural manager. George is also in love with a woman beyond his reach, his cousin, Susan Merton, a woman who had “a host of lovers.” Conflict arises as George’s brother, William, quietly loves Susan as well, but the two farmer brothers lack cash.

When they approach their uncle, called old Merton, for a loan, he disapproves of their lack of resources and declares that Susan will not marry a penniless man. Reade also introduces John Meadows, a man with “a cool head, and iron will,” and “an eye never diverted from […] wealth and money.” Meadows is missing some money, part of which is recovered by a merchant who accepted it from a Mr. Robinson, a stranger from California who the authorities look to arrest. He has “pestered” George to travel to California to make his fortune in gold there.

In addition, “an oriental Jew” named Isaac Levi requests that Meadows not turn him out of his home. When an argument arises and Meadows prepares to strike Levi with his whip, Fielding blocks the blow, reflecting the contrast between his and Meadows’s personalities.

A short time later, the Fieldings learn that a lien has been placed on their farm; they do not realize Meadows has pushed the lien. At that moment, a letter arrives for George from Frank Winchester, advising George he has booked two berths to Australia. When George accepts the offer to travel with Frank, Susan blames her father for driving him away. As George leaves to pack his belongings, the police arrive to arrest Robinson, who, the onlookers learn, has several aliases.

When told he will be shipped to Australia, Robinson makes light of the sentence, saying, “I would rather have gone to California; but any place is better than England.” However, Robinson will remain in England to serve his torturous sentence, while George attempts to survive his miner’s camp. Meadows celebrates George’s imminent departure, hoping to convince Susan to marry him. When the narrator explains, “a respectable man can do a deal of mischief; more than a rogue could,” the reader understands more than one type of criminal exists within this plot.

The plot then branches into two tales, one focusing on the prison, and the other on the camp. Horrors revealed at the hand of Governor Hawes at the English prison include prisoner torture through starvation; their being tied to various machinery they were required to operate upon ridiculous demands; the use of “the jacket,” described as a crucifixion without nails, using a constricting collar instead—all in the name of turning the prisoners into honorable citizens.

While their suffering is somewhat relieved through the attentions of a chaplain named Evans, Robinson and the others seem doomed to die. When Evans requests a copy of the prison rules from Hawes, Hawes determines to rid the prison of the effects of the chaplain. A reformer aptly named Mr. Francis Edens, known to Susan through the school where she teaches, tries to discover evidence against Hawes, even urging the inmates to publish a paper telling their stories. Susan participates in attempts to reveal to the public the deplorable prison conditions.

Reade makes these clear, including calls to the reader such as, “Imagine yourself cramped in a vice, no part of you movable a hair’s breadth, except your hair and your eyelids. Imagine a fierce cramp growing and growing, and rising like a tide of agony higher and higher above nature’s endurance, and you will cease to wonder that a man always sunk under Hawes’s man-press.” Deaths in the prison bring the dismissal of Hawes, and Robinson’s story figures prominently. While that relation could have served as a novel of its own, Reade returns to George’s departure, starting a new plotline that incorporates many of the already-known characters. It will allow George to fulfill his predictable role as a romantic hero and Robinson to become a more nontraditional type of hero.

George’s story begins with Chapter 36, as he joins Winchester for the journey, sunk in misery over leaving Susan. George works for Winchester for several months, then leaves to find his own fortune; Winchester basically disappears from the tale at this point. Within a year, George doubles his investment in his sheep farm and learns that he must be patient. However, disaster strikes, and he loses the herd slowly to disease, constantly regretting having left Susan.

George then falls ill, nursed for a time by his hired man, Jacky, whom he sends away when he suspects he will die. In a switch to England, readers observe Mr. Edens helping to operate the prison from which Robinson will soon depart to travel to exile in Australia. Edens urges Robinson to find George on his farm as soon as possible. After several harrowing experiences, Robinson realizes that he needs the company of a good man to help him “walk straight.” He retrieves a letter to George written by Susan, and sets out to find George. He discovers the cabin where George lies ill and nurses him back to health.

George finds a five-pound note meant for Robinson in Susan’s letter and presents it to him. It is meant for Thomas Sinclair, one of Robinson’s alternative identities. Robinson is puzzled that someone knows his real name. He and George travel to a mining camp to attempt earning their fortune, earning deadly enemies as well, accompanied by George’s devoted dog, Carlo. When Carlo is shot by one of the competing miners and dies, Robinson urges George to go back home, saying, “Gold can’t pay for what we go through in this hellish place.”

George is determined to remain until he earns an additional £500 and can return to Susan. Robinson decides to set traps for the men who killed Carlo, assuming they will also want to kill George and himself. He catches Black Will, who manages to untangle himself and almost kills George and Robinson, but they are saved by a patrol. Levi rejoins the characters, having sailed to Australia, where he operates a gold-dust-weighing facility, and Robinson, in an ironic turn, becomes a judge for the mining group.

Robinson and George engage in a frightening hunt for Black Will and the evil Crawley, actually employed by Meadows to murder George. They discover the gold that had long eluded them, prompting George to kiss a large nugget and say, “Oh, you beauty! … not because you are gold, but because you take me to Susan.” Robinson tempers his joy, reminding him they must act carefully and keep their secret, as “the very honest ones would turn villains at sight of it. It is the wonder of the world.”

The two return to England with an enormous fortune, but Meadows constructs a lie, telling Susan that George made his fortune and has already married. She falls ill, but recovers, although deeply hurt by George’s perceived betrayal. George appears to rescue Susan from marriage to Meadows, and virtue proves worthy of reward.

At a time when fiction was taken seriously, Reade’s work was enough to move popular sentiment toward prison reform, while also providing them a satisfying romance. In George they had their traditional romance hero, while Robinson’s heroism lies in his admission of weakness and the necessity of the company of decent men to keep himself decent. The book remains readily available in both hard and electronic print.

Bibliography
Phillips, Walter Clark. Dickens, Reade, and Collins: Sensation Novelists: A Study in the Conditions and Theories of Novel Writing in Victorian England. New York: Russell & Russell, 1962.

Categories: British Literature, Literature, Novel Analysis

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