Of one of these trips, William Raeper writes:

“Meanwhile, the MacDonalds decided that it was about time they returned to England. They returned there for the summer months [1879], but had to stage Pilgrim’s Progress in order to pay for their traveling expenses. Louisa hired halls all over London and took the players as far afield as Malvern, Cheltenham, Nottingham, and Leicester. MacDonald wrote merrily to his American friend James Fields: ‘We are now, as you may have heard, turned into a sort of company of acting strollers—I mean strolling actors—and have a good reception and tolerable results. We have really hardly tried the country yet though people seem a good deal interested in our attempt.’ ⁷

“MacDonald began lecturing again on 28 May, while the family had fun, playing to captive audiences, and enjoying the attention given them. They were soon experts at hanging the curtains and striking up on the piano in the oddest places. Often MacDonald would sit in the wings, in his spangled costume, maniacally correcting proofs while the children tripped out one by one to play their roles. Greville…thought the acting interfered too much with schoolwork and routine life, and did not enjoy seeing his brothers and sisters sporting themselves on stage…flaunting themselves in costume.” ⁸

William Raeper speculates that the increase in the family’s dramatic performances was almost entirely a financial enterprise. I have the feeling he may be considerably embellishing MacDonald’s despondency and “anguish” and the financial motivation for the productions. The “financial martyrdom” theme so emphasized in MacDonald’s biography continues as a somewhat dubious undercurrent to events.

“MacDonald was battling with severer problems that gathered over his head like stormclouds. As usual, his health was fitful, interrupting his work, and consequently affecting the family’s income. To make matters worse, MacDonald’s friend and publisher Strahan had separated from his partners, and could not offer MacDonald the prices for his books that he had been accustomed to. Strahan went as far as rejecting MacDonald’s recently finished Paul Faber Surgeon as not being suitable for his newly-established journal The Day of Rest, and gave him only £400 for the three-volume edition—less than half of his previous prices. MacDonald was helpless and crestfallen. He needed more money, not less, as there was the burden of Mary’s health to think of.

“Louisa was troubled at her husband’s anguish and decided to take matters into her own hands. She devised of her own a startling scheme for bringing about an increase in the family’s finances—she would put her children on the stage. She reckoned that the family had charmed friends and charity audiences for long enough, and determined to cull some income from their acting.” ⁹

It is my sense that, whatever extra money they may have produced, Louisa’s dramatic efforts were more motivated by her own creative instincts than finances. Indeed, she had published a book of her own, Dramas for Children, long before (released by Strahan in 1870). Music and drama were in her blood.

And Greville speaks a little less glowingly of the family obsession with drama.