Ball Biography

— The Corvey Poets Project at the University of Nebraska —

British Poetry of the later Eighteenth and Earlier Nineteenth Centuries

Bibliographical and Contextual Apparatus

Ball, Edward [Fitzball, Edward].

The Revenge of Taran. London: Whittaker, 1822.

Biographical Information

Edward Fitzball was one of the most prolific and popular melodramatists of the Romantic and Victorian periods. The peak of his success was in the 1820's to the 1830's. Fitzball reportedly wrote for at least 25 theatres and produced about 170 melodramas, opera librettos, burlettas, tragedies, comedies, and farces (his work is sparse in the last three).

Born in 1792 at Burwell in Cambridgeshire as Edward Ball, he was the second son of Nathan Ball, the farmer of 500acres of freehold in Burwell. His grandfather was the revered Dr. Robert Ball of Mildenhall in Suffolk. Edward Ball's mother, Mary Fritz (d. 1830), was left a substantial fortune from a previous marriage.
Edward's education took place at Albertus Parr Academy in Newmarket until he was 12 years-old and was forced to assist in the management of the family estate mostly due to his father's gambling habits at the Newmarket Races. His elder brother was serving in the Navy at the time. Edward became enamored with the theater and submitted his first play to the Bury St. Edwards Theatre, which the manger rejected.

In 1809, at the age of 16, he served a binding contract for a Norwich printer until his article finished in 1812. He attempted to print a poetry magazine, but his intended result was not accomplished. Soon after, he married Adelaide Alexandria Dupius (d. 1850) on August 15, 1815. They had only one child, a daughter named Louisa.

Edward produced his first three plays, Edwin (1817), Bertha (1819), and The Ruffian Boy (1819) in Norwich, and following strong encouragement, mostly from novelist Amelie Opie, he moved to London to take his chances with the theaters in the city, where he immediately secured work as a printer to support his fledgling career. In 1821, Edward Ball added his mother's maiden name to change his to Edward Fitzball. Supposedly, his intention was to avoid confusion with a songwriter named Ball.

Fitzball produced his first big hits at the Surrey Theater, starting with the debut of The Innkeeper of Abbeville (1821 or 1822 sources conflict) a domestic crime melodrama. He gained much notoriety and success writing melodramas in the form of a nautical, of macabre of crime, and the supernatural. He produced his best work at minor theaters like Surrey and Adelphi, and he saw his job in terms of entertaining the public and calculating moments to produce maximum effects on the audience. Fitzball's plays earned a reputation for being "fantastically staged" and "highly intricate." He commanded the use of fire and made innovations such as (he claims) the use of back projection - using light set on a track backstage to project a shadow on cotton gauze in the forestage so that the shadow of the object increased as the light moved further back from the object. In The Murder at the Roadside Inn (1827), he made a cross-section of a building, exposing four rooms with simultaneous and overlapping action sequences in each, despite protests from almost all of his co-workers. It was a huge success, running 264 nights. Fitzball was also well known as a borrower of material. He did many play adaptations of novels by such authors as Sir Walter Scott and James Fennimore Cooper.
From 1828, onwards he wrote for Covant Gardens, and from 1830 - 1838 he wrote for Vauxhall Gardens, from 1835 to 1838 he was the resident dramatist and reader at Covant Garden, and became a reader at Drury Lane in 1838. Fitzball produced many profitable plays, but by the late 1830's demand for his work waned as people's tastes changed. He continued to write songs and verse the rest of his life, his most famous song being, "My Pretty Jane" ("The Bloom is on the Rye").

Edward Fitzball was a great influence to writers Tom Taylor and Don Boucicault, and his influence in the theater had effect over filmmakers Griffith and DeMille. Edward Fitzball passed away October 27, 1873. He was buried at Chatham, where he retired ten years earlier.

List from the New Grove Dictionary of Opera
PLAYS:
Waverley, or Sixty Years Since (Scottish drama), G. H. Rodwell, 1824;
The Songs of the Birds (musical drama), Rodwell, 1826;
The Flying Dutchman, or The Phantom Ship (nautical drama), Rodwell, 1827;
The Bottle Imp (melodrama, with R. B. Peake), Rodwell, 1828;
The Earthquake, or The Spectre of the Nile (burletta operatic spectacle), Rodwell, 1828;
The Devil's Elixir, or The Shadowless Man (musical romance), Rodwell, 1829;
The Night before the Wedding and the Wedding Night (operatic farce), H. R. Bishop, 1829;
Ninetta, or The Maid of Palaiseau, Bishop, 1830;
Under the Oak, or The London Shepherdess (vaudeville), Bishop, 1830;
Adelaide, or The Royal William (national and nautical musical burletta), Bishop, 1830;
The Black Vulture, or The Wheel of Death (musical drama), Rodwell, 1830;
The Sorceress, Ries, 1831;
The Demon, or The Mystic Branch (with J. B. Buckstone), Bishop, 1832;
Der Alchymist (with T. H. Bayly), Bishop, 1832;
The Magic Fan, or The Fillip on the Nose (vaudeville), Bishop, 1832;
The Bottle of Champagne (vaudeville), Bishop, 1832;
The Sedan Chair (operetta), Bishop, 1832;
The Maid of Cashmere (ballet op), Bishop, 1833;
The Soldier's Widow, or The Ruins of the Mill (musical drama), J. Barnett, 1833;
Jonathan Bradford or The Murder at the Roadside Inn! (drama), J. Jolly, 1833;
The Lord of the Isles, or The Gathering of the Clans, Rodwell, 1834;
Paul Clifford (musical drama), Rodwell and J. Blewitt, 1835;
The Siege of Rochelle (original op), M. W. Balfe, 1835;
The Bronze Horse, or The Spell of the Cloud King (operatic drama), Rodwell, 1835;
Quasimodo, or The Gipsy Girl of Notre Dame (drama), Rodwell, 1836;
The Rose of the Alhambra, or The Enchanted Lute, J. de Pinna, 1836;
The Sexton of Cologne, or The Burgomaster's Daughter (operatic romance), Rodwell, 1836;
Thalaba the Destroyer, or The Burning Sword (melodrama), Rodwell, 1836;
Joan of Arc (grand op), Balfe, 1837;
Diadeste, or The Veiled Lady (opera buffa), Balfe, 1838;
The Maid of Palaiseau, Bishop, 1838;
The King of the Mist, or The Miller of the Hartz Mountains (melodrama), G. F. Stansbury, 1839;
Keolanthe, or The Unearthly Bride, Balfe, 1841;
The Queen of the Thames, or The Anglers, or Uncle Brayling (operetta), J. L. Hatton, 1842;
Pasqual Bruno (comic op), Hatton, 1844;
Maritana (grand op), V. Wallace, 1845;
The Desert, or The Imann's Daughter (spectacular op), J. H. Tully, 1847;
The Forest Maiden and the Moorish Page (musical drama), Tully, 1847;
The Maid of Honour, Balfe, 1847;
Quentin Durward, H. R. Laurent, 1848;
The Cadi's Daughter (operetta), E. J. Nelson, 1851;
Berta, or The Gnome of the Hartzberg, H. T. Smart, 1855;
Raymond and Agnes (romantic op), Loder, 1855;
Auld Robin Gray (burletta), A. Lee, 1858;
Lurline (grand romantic op),
Wallace, 1860;
She Stoops to Conquer, G. A. Macfarren, 1864; The Magic Pearl, T. Pede, 1873:

Author's Note: Other lists of Fitzball's writing exist. This one is the most readily available list of his plays.

List from The St. James Reference Guide to English Literature: The Romantic and Victorian Periods.
FICTION:
The Idiot Boy. 1815.
The Black Robber. 1819.
The Sibyl's Warning. 1822.
Michael Schwartz; or, The Two Runaway Apprentices. 1858.
VERSE:
Serena of Oakwood; or, Trials of the Heart, and Other Poems. 1815.
The Revenge of Taran. 1821 (conflicts with date of the Corvey Collection edition).
The House to Let, with Other Poems. 1857.
Bhanavar; The Story of Fadleen. 1858.
The Wee Craft. 1866.
My Pretty Jane. 1891.
OTHER:
Thirty-Five Years of a Dramatic Author's Life (autobiography). 2 vols., 1859.

Author's Note: No publishers given with titles in this list.

Sources:

Ashley, Leonard R.N. St. James Guide to English Literature: The Romantic and Victorian Periods, excluding the novel. Chicago and London: St. James Press, 1985. 57 - 62.
Booth, Michael R. "Fitzball , Edward (1793-1873)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. http://www.oxforddnb.com.library.unl.edu:80/view/article/9539.
Ditchfield, G. M. 'Lofft, Capel (1751-1824)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16930.
Kaloustian, David. 'Bloomfield, Robert (1766-1823)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/2676
Sadie, Stanley, ed. "Edward Fitzball." New Grove Dictionary of Opera. London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 1992.
Watson, George. (Eds.) The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. Vol. 3 1800 - 1900. Cambridge: CAMBRIDGE at the University Press, 1969. 1125.