The Private Secretary (1883) is a three-act comedy by English actor
and playwright Charles Hawtrey. Adapted from a popular German farce,
The Private Secretary helped launch Hawtrey's career as one of
Victorian England's leading theatrical figures. Initially panned by
critics and audiences, The Private Secretary was revised and shortened
by Hawtrey, who then restaged the play to resounding praise. Revived
countless times throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, The
Private Secretary is a comic masterpiece that set the stage for such
playwrights as Oscar Wilde. Harry Marsland and Douglas Cattermole are
two young friends who find themselves deeply in debt. Ever unwilling to
take responsibility, they look to Robert Spalding, a clergyman as honest
as he is innocent, for a way out. While Spalding is employed as a
secretary for the Marsland family, Douglas...borrows...his identity in
order to seek forgiveness from his creditors. Meanwhile, Douglas' uncle
returns from India and mistakes the unwitting clergyman for his nephew
and precedes to berate him for his newfound silence and passivity. When
a suspicious creditor uncovers their poorly concealed plan, the two
friends must bribe him with a chance to stay at Harry's family estate,
which only further risks the chance of Spalding getting to the bottom of
his own strange situation. The Private Secretary is a comedy of
manners that dissects English aristocratic life in order to expose its
capacity for vanity, greed, and exploitation. With a beautifully
designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition
Charles Hawtrey's The Private Secretary is a classic work of English
comedy reimagined for modern readers.
