![Piccinni L'Avaro](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Piccinni_L%27Avaro.jpg)
A miser is a person who is reluctant to spend, sometimes to the point of forgoing even basic comforts and some necessities, in order to hoard money or other possessions. Although the word is sometimes used loosely to characterise anyone who is mean with their money, if such behaviour is not accompanied by taking delight in what is saved, it is not properly miserly.
Misers as a type have been a perennial object of popular fascination and a fruitful source for writers and artists in many cultures.
Accounting for misers
One attempt to account for miserly behaviour was
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...
's theory of
anal retentiveness
An anal retentive person is a person who pays such attention to detail that it becomes an obsession and may be an annoyance to others. The term derives from Freudian psychoanalysis.
Origins
In Freudian psychology, the anal stage is said to follow ...
, attributing the development of miserly behaviour to
toilet training
Toilet training (also potty training or toilet learning) is the process of training someone, particularly a toddler or infant, to use the toilet for urination and defecation. Attitudes toward training in recent history have fluctuated substantial ...
in childhood, although this explanation is not accepted by modern evidence-based psychology.
In the Christian West the attitude to those whose interest centred on gathering money has been coloured by the teachings of the Church. From its point of view, both the miser and the
usurer
Usury () is the practice of making unethical or immoral monetary loans that unfairly enrich the lender. The term may be used in a moral sense—condemning taking advantage of others' misfortunes—or in a legal sense, where an interest rate is c ...
were guilty of the cardinal sin of
avarice and shared behaviours. According to the parable of
the Elm and the Vine
The Elm and the Vine were associated particularly by Latin authors. Because pruned Elm, elm trees acted as vine supports, this was taken as a symbol of marriage and imagery connected with their pairing also became common in Renaissance literature. ...
in the quasi-Biblical
Shepherd of Hermas
A shepherd or sheepherder is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. ''Shepherd'' derives from Old English ''sceaphierde (''sceap'' 'sheep' + ''hierde'' 'herder'). ''Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations, i ...
, the rich and the poor should be in a relationship of mutual support. Those with wealth are in need of the prayers of the poor for their salvation and can only earn them by acts of charity. A typical late example of Christian doctrine on the subject is the Reverend
Erskine Neale's ''The Riches that Bring No Sorrow'' (1852), a moralising work based on a succession of biographies contrasting philanthropists and misers.
Running parallel has been a disposition, inherited from Classical times, to class miserly behaviour as a type of
eccentricity
Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to:
* Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal"
Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics
* Off-Centre (geometry), center, in geometry
* Eccentricity (g ...
. Accounts of misers were included in such 19th century works as G. H. Wilson's four-volume compendium of short biographies, ''The Eccentric Mirror'' (1807). Such books were put to comic use by
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
in ''
Our Mutual Friend'' (serialised 1864/5), with its cutting analysis of Victorian capitalism. In the third section of that novel, Mr Boffin decides to cure his ward Bella Wilfer of her obsession with wealth and position by appearing to become a miser. Taking her with him on a round of the bookshops,
In the following chapter, Mr Boffin brings a coachload of the books to his premises and readers are introduced to a selection of typical titles and to the names of several of the misers treated in them. Among the books appear
James Caulfield
James Caulfield (1764–1826) was an English author and printseller, known also as a publisher and editor.
Early life
Caulfield was born in the Vineyard, Clerkenwell, on 11 February 1764. His father was a music engraver, but poor eyesight preve ...
's ''Portraits, Memoirs, and Characters of Remarkable Persons'' (1794-5); ''Kirby's Wonderful Museum of Remarkable Characters'' (1803);
Henry Wilson's ''Wonderful Characters'' (1821); and F. Somner Merryweather's ''Lives and Anecdotes of Misers or The Passion of Avarice displayed in the parsimonious habits, unaccountable lives and remarkable deaths of the most notorious misers of all ages'' (1850).
The majority of the misers are 18th century characters, with
John Elwes and
Daniel Dancer at their head. The first account of Elwes' life was
Edward Topham
Edward Topham (1751–1820) was an English journalist and playwright, who publicized the Wold Cottage meteorite which fell on his property.
Education and military career
He was the son of Francis Topham, LL.D. (d. 15 October 1770), Master of ...
's ''The Life of the Late John Elwes: Esquire'' (1790), which was initially published in his paper ''The World''. The popularity of such accounts is attested by the seven editions printed in the book's first year and the many later reprintings under various titles. Biographies of Dancer followed soon after, at first in periodicals such as the ''Edinburgh Magazine'' and the
''
Sporting Magazine
''The Sporting Magazine'' (1793–1870) was the first English sporting periodical to devote itself to every type of sport.
Its subtitle was "Monthly Calendar of the Transactions of the Turf, the Chase and Every Other Diversion Interesting to the ...
'', then in the compendiums ''Biographical Curiosities'' (which also included Elwes) and ''The Strange and Unaccountable Life of Daniel Dancer, Esq. ... with singular anecdotes of the famous Jemmy Taylor, the Southwark usurer'' (1797), which was often to be reissued under various titles.
![Cooper Dancer](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Cooper_Dancer.jpg)
Jemmy Taylor's name also appears in the list of notable misers that Mr Boffin enumerates. He is coupled with the banker
Jemmy Wood of Gloucester, a more recent miser about whom Dickens later wrote an article in his magazine
All The Year Round. Others include John Little (who appears in Merryweather), Reverend Mr Jones of Blewbury (also in Merryweather) and Dick Jarrel, whose surname was really Jarrett and an account of whom appeared in the
Annual Register
''The Annual Register'' (originally subtitled "A View of the History, Politicks and Literature of the Year ...") is a long-established reference work, written and published each year, which records and analyses the year's major events, developmen ...
for 1806. The many volumes of this publication also figured among Mr Boffin's purchases.
Two more of the misers mentioned made their way into other literary works. John Hopkins, known as Vulture Hopkins, was the subject of a scornful couplet in the third of
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...
's Moral Essays, "Of the Use of Riches":
John Overs, with a slight change to his name, became the subject of a three-act drama by
Douglas William Jerrold
Douglas William Jerrold (London 3 January 18038 June 1857 London) was an English dramatist and writer.
Biography
Jerrold's father, Samuel Jerrold, was an actor and lessee of the little theatre of Wilsby near Cranbrook in Kent. In 1807 Dougla ...
, ''John Overy or The Miser of Southwark Ferry'' (1828), roughly based on an incident when he feigned death to save expenses and was killed by accident.
Another public source of information about misers, in Scotland at least, was the prose
broadside
Broadside or broadsides may refer to:
Naval
* Broadside (naval), terminology for the side of a ship, the battery of cannon on one side of a warship, or their near simultaneous fire on naval warfare
Printing and literature
* Broadside (comic ...
. One example concerns Isobel Frazer or Frizzle, who died in
Stirling
Stirling (; sco, Stirlin; gd, Sruighlea ) is a city in central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the royal citadel, the medieval old town with its me ...
on 26 May 1820. Much of the broadside is taken up with detailing the contents of her three rooms, into which she had let no one enter. Not more than £8 in currency was discovered there, but she had bought and hoarded many articles of dress over the years, although rarely wearing them. She had also carefully picked up every pin that fell in her way, till she nearly filled one hundred pincushions. In addition to much other
bric-a-brac, there were a great number of buttons, which had been cut off old coats. This makes her sound more like a
compulsive hoarder
Compulsive behavior is defined as performing an action persistently and repetitively. Compulsive behaviors could be an attempt to make obsessions go away. The act is usually a small, restricted and repetitive behavior, yet not disturbing in a pa ...
than the "Female Miser" that she is called in the report. The title was more deserved by Joseph MacWilliam, who was found dead of a fire on 13 June 1826. A servant whose home was a damp
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...
cellar without either bed, chair or table, his colleagues and neighbours claimed to have seen him in the same threadbare clothes for 15 years. After his death, property to the value of more than £3,000 was found in the cellar, some in the form of property deeds, and more in bank receipts.
Later in the 19th century there were small regional publications dealing with single individuals of local interest. Examples of such works include Frances Blair's 32-page ''Memoir of Margery Jackson, the Carlisle miser and misanthrope'' (Carlisle 1847) and in the United States the 46-page ''Lochy Ostrom, the maiden miser of Poughkeepsie; or the love of a long lifetime. An authentic biography of Rachel Ostrom who recently died in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., aged ninety years, apparently very poor, but really wealthy'' (Philadelphia 1870).
One trait of misers arising out of the accounts about them was their readiness to incur legal expenses where money was involved. Daniel Dancer was notorious for spending five shillings in an unsuccessful effort to recover three pence from a shop woman. He was also involved in a lawsuit with his equally miserly brothers when his sister died
intestate
Intestacy is the condition of the estate of a person who dies without having in force a valid will or other binding declaration. Alternatively this may also apply where a will or declaration has been made, but only applies to part of the estat ...
, although this time he was more successful. In the same century, Margery Jackson was involved in an epic Chancery suit between 1776–91 over a family inheritance. The American
Hetty Green
Hetty Green (November 21, 1834 – July 3, 1916), nicknamed the Witch of Wall Street, was an American businesswoman and financier known as "the richest woman in America" during the Gilded Age. She was named by the '' Guinness Book of World Reco ...
, who despite being a multimillionaire had also a reputation as a miser, involved herself in a six-year lawsuit to obtain her aunt's fortune, only to have it proved against her that she had forged the will. More modern times yield the Chinese example of an 80-year-old affronted by being called a miser in a poem by his son-in-law. Blaming his hospitalization with
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...
three years later on this, he sued his daughter for medical fees and 'spiritual compensation'.
Misers in literature
Fables
There were two famous references to misers in ancient Greek sources. One was
Aesop's fable
Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to ...
of "
The Miser and his Gold" which he had buried and came back to view every day. When his treasure was eventually stolen and he was lamenting his loss, he was consoled by a neighbour that he might as well bury a stone (or return to look at the hole) and it would serve the same purpose. The other was a two-line epigram in the
Greek Anthology, once ascribed to
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
. In this a man, intending to hang himself, discovered hidden gold and left the rope behind him; on returning, the man who had hidden the gold hanged himself with the noose he found in its place. Both these stories were alluded to or retold in the following centuries, the most famous versions appearing in
La Fontaine's Fables
Jean de La Fontaine collected fables from a wide variety of sources, both Western and Eastern, and adapted them into French free verse. They were issued under the general title of Fables in several volumes from 1668 to 1694 and are considered cla ...
as ''L'avare qui a perdu son trésor'' (IV.20) and ''Le trésor et les deux hommes'' (IX.15) respectively. Yet another of La Fontaine's fables was the late addition, ""The miser and the monkey" (XII.3), used as a cautionary tale for financiers. Here a man keeps his hoard in a sea-encircled tower until a pet monkey amuses itself one day in throwing the coins out of the window.
In Asia misers were the butt of humorous folklore. One very early cautionary tale is the ''Illisa Jataka'' from the Buddhist scriptures. This includes two stories, in the first of which a rich miser is miraculously converted to generosity by a disciple of the Buddha; following this, the Buddha tells another story of a miser whose wealth is given away when the king of the gods impersonates him, and when he tries to intervene is threatened with what will happen if he does not change his ways. Two 16th century stories concerning misers are included among the witticisms attributed to
Birbal
Birbal (; born Mahesh Das; 1528 16 February 1586), or Raja Birbal, was a Saraswat Hindu Bhatt Brahmin advisor and main commander (''Mukhya Senapati'') of army in the court of the Mughal emperor, Akbar. He is mostly known in the Indian subcon ...
during Mughal times. In one he extracts from a casuistical miser a fee for a poem written in his praise. In the other the miser is forced to reward a merchant who rescued his hoard from a fire with the whole of it. Arabs similarly made extensive use of misers in their literature. The most famous being the 600 page collection of anecdotes called ''Kitab Al Bukhala'' or Book of Misers by
Al-Jāḥiẓ
Abū ʿUthman ʿAmr ibn Baḥr al-Kinānī al-Baṣrī ( ar, أبو عثمان عمرو بن بحر الكناني البصري), commonly known as al-Jāḥiẓ ( ar, links=no, الجاحظ, ''The Bug Eyed'', born 776 – died December 868/Jan ...
. He lived in 800 CE during the
Abbasid Caliphate
The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...
in
Basra
Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is han ...
, making this the earliest and largest known work on the subject in
Arabic literature
Arabic literature ( ar, الأدب العربي / ALA-LC: ''al-Adab al-‘Arabī'') is the writing, both as prose and poetry, produced by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is '' Adab'', which is derived from ...
.
When there was renewed European interest in Aesop during the early
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
, the
Neo-Latin
New Latin (also called Neo-Latin or Modern Latin) is the revival of Literary Latin used in original, scholarly, and scientific works since about 1500. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy ...
poet
Laurentius Abstemius
Laurentius Abstemius (c. 1440–1508) was an Italian writer and professor of philology, born at Macerata in Ancona. His learned name plays on his family name of Bevilaqua (Drinkwater), and he was also known by the Italian name Lorenzo Astemio. A ...
wrote two collections of original fables, among which appeared ''Avarus et poma marcescentia'' (The miser and the rotten apples, fable 179), published in 1499. This was eventually translated into English by
Roger L'Estrange
Sir Roger L'Estrange (17 December 1616 – 11 December 1704) was an English pamphleteer, author, courtier, and press censor. Throughout his life L'Estrange was frequently mired in controversy and acted as a staunch ideological defender of Kin ...
and published in his fable collection of 1692. It concerns a miser who cannot bring himself to eat the apples in his orchard until they start to go rotten. His son invites in his playmates to pick the fruit but asks them not to eat the rotten ones since his father prefers those. The 18th century French fabulist
Claris de Florian was to adapt the story in his "L'avare et son fils" (The miser and his son, IV.9). In this version the miserly father hoards his apples and only eats those going rotten. His son, upon being caught raiding them, excuses himself on the grounds that he was confining himself to eating just the sound ones.
![Blake Miser&Plutus](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Blake_Miser%26Plutus.jpg)
In 18th century Britain, when there was a vogue for creating original fables in verse, a number featured misers.
Anne Finch's "Tale of the Miser and the Poet" was included among others in her 1713 Miscellany. There an unsuccessful poet meets
Mammon
Mammon in the New Testament of the Bible is commonly thought to mean money, material wealth, or any entity that promises wealth, and is associated with the greedy pursuit of gain. The Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke both quote Jesus us ...
in the guise of a miser digging up his buried gold and debates with him whether the life of wit and learning is a better calling than the pursuit of wealth. Eventually the poet is convinced that keeping his talent hidden until it is better regarded is the more prudent course. It was followed by
John Gay's "The Miser and Plutus", published in his collection of fables in 1737. A miser frightened for the security of his hoard denounces gold as the corruptor of virtue and is visited by the angry god of wealth, who asserts that not gold but the attitude towards it is what damages the personality.
While these are more or less original interpretations of the theme, French fabulist
Antoine Houdar de la Motte
Antoine Houdar de la Motte (18 January 167226 December 1731) was a French author.
De la Motte was born and died in Paris. In 1693 his comedy, ''Les Originaux'' (Les originaux, ou, l'Italien), was a complete failure, and so depressed the author ...
harks back to the light-hearted approach of the Greek Anthology in "The Miser and Minos", first published in his fables of 1719. Descending to the Classical underworld at his death, the miser is brought before the judge of the dead and is given the extreme punishment of returning to earth to witness how his wealth is now being spent. The Scottish poet
Allan Ramsay adapted this into dialect two years later, and Charles Denis provided a version in standard English in his ''Select Fables'' (1754), reversing the title to "Minos and the Miser".
Poetry
Misers are frequent figures of fun in the epigrams of the
Greek Anthology. It is charged of them that they are not masters of their own money if they do not spend it. Niarchus tells of one who does not commit suicide because of the cost of the rope to do so; Lucillius tells of another who dies because funeral expenses are cheaper than calling in a doctor. Elsewhere in the anthology is another epigram by Lucillius of a miser's encounter with a mouse that assures him he only wants lodging, not board. In one more, a miser dreams that he is in debt and hangs himself.
The Latin writer
Horace put miserly behaviour at the centre of the first poem in his first collection of satires, dealing with extremes of behaviour. In writing an imitation of it, an English poet who provides only his surname, Minshull, was to emphasise this by titling his work ''The Miser, a Poem'' (London, 1735).
In
Dante Alighieris ''
Inferno
Inferno may refer to:
* Hell, an afterlife place of suffering
* Conflagration, a large uncontrolled fire
Film
* ''L'Inferno'', a 1911 Italian film
* Inferno (1953 film), ''Inferno'' (1953 film), a film noir by Roy Ward Baker
* Inferno (1973 fi ...
'', misers are put in the fourth circle of hell, in company with
spendthrift
A spendthrift (also profligate or prodigal) is someone who is extravagant and recklessly wasteful with money, often to a point where the spending climbs well beyond his or her means. "Spendthrift" derives from an obsolete sense of the word "thrift" ...
s as part of their mutual punishment. They roll weights representing their wealth, constantly colliding and quarreling.
During the 16th century,
emblem books
An emblem book is a book collecting emblems (allegorical illustrations) with accompanying explanatory text, typically morals or poems. This category of books was popular in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Emblem books are collection ...
began using an illustration of
an ass eating thistles Developed by authors during Renaissance times, the story of an ass eating thistles was a late addition to collections of Aesop's Fables. Beginning as a condemnation of miserly behaviour, it eventually was taken to demonstrate how preferences differ. ...
as symbol of miserly behaviour, often with an accompanying poem. They appeared in various European languages, among them the illustrated
trencher by
Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger
Marcus Gheeraerts (also written as Gerards or Geerards; 1561/62 – 19 January 1636) was a Flemish artist working at the Tudor court, described as "the most important artist of quality to work in England in large-scale between Eworth and van ...
, dating from about 1630, on which an ass laden with rich foods is shown cropping a thistle, surrounding which is the quatrain:
In the third book of ''
The Faerie Queene
''The Faerie Queene'' is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books IIII were first published in 1590, then republished in 1596 together with books IVVI. ''The Faerie Queene'' is notable for its form: at over 36,000 lines and over 4,000 sta ...
'',
Edmund Spenser created a portrait of a man trapped between conflicting desires in Malbecco, who appears in cantos 9-10. He is torn between his miserliness and love for his wife Hellenore. Wishing to escape with a lover, she sets fire to his storeroom and forces him to choose between them:
Eventually losing both, he becomes the embodiment of frustrated jealousy.
The 18th century, so culturally rich in miser lore, furnished some notable poetic examples.
Allan Ramsay's “Last speech of a wretched miser” dates from 1728 and is written in modified
Scots dialect. The miser bids farewell to his riches in a comic monologue and details some of his shifts to avoid expense.
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...
created another masterly portrait in the character of Cotta in his ''
Epistle to Bathurst'' (1733). Reluctance to spend confines this aristocrat to his ancestral hall, where he refuses to engage with the world. Later in the century another Scottish poet, Dr William Stevenson (1719–83), included nine satirical epitaphs on misers among his collected works, of which the last begins:
Poetic titles from the 19th century include the Irish Arthur Geoghegan's ''The Old Miser and Mammon: an Incident Poem'' (Newry 1818) and Frederick Featherstone's ''New Christmas Poem entitled The Miser's Christmas Eve'' (1893). There was also an anonymous didactic poem titled ''The Miser'' (London 1831). Although miserly behaviour is referenced during the course of its 78 pages, the real focus there is the attraction of money in all its manifestations.
Broadside ballads
![Old Miser ballad](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Old_Miser_ballad.gif)
In the realm of popular poetry, there were a range of narrative
broadside
Broadside or broadsides may refer to:
Naval
* Broadside (naval), terminology for the side of a ship, the battery of cannon on one side of a warship, or their near simultaneous fire on naval warfare
Printing and literature
* Broadside (comic ...
ballads concerning misers from the 17th century onward. Some of the earliest deal with the grain speculators who caused such suffering to the poorest. A representative example is "The Wretched Miser" (1682), prefaced as "a brief Account of a covetous Farmer, who bringing a Load of Corn to Market, swore the Devil should have it before he would take the honest Market price". The devil closes with the bargain and on accounting day carries off the farmer as well. The social message is carried by the refrain that follows each stanza: "O Farmers, covetous Farmers,/ why would you pinch the Poor?" The religious aspect is dealt with in the contemporary "A Looking-glass for a covetous Miser" by
Thomas Jordan. Here a West Country entrepreneur and a poor husbandman debate the respective merits of anxious profit-making and contentment. The miser laments the current low price of grain and resolves not to sell or plant more until the price rises. The theme continued into the early 19th century, where a farmer is again the subject of "The life and awful death of a rich miser ".
Another common subject of these ballads was the dilemma of the miser's daughter unable to marry the man of her choice and the stratagems employed to overcome her father. In "Bite Upon the Miser", printed in the late 18th century, a sailor dresses up as the devil and scares the miser and the parson he intended as her husband into allowing the match. Much the same situation occurs in "The Politic Lovers or the Windsor Miser Outwitted", where it is a butcher who impersonates the devil and scares the miser into handing over his riches. In about 1800 there appeared an English broadside ballad called “The old miser” which was to serve as basis for what grew into a
folk song with multiple versions. The scene is set in London, where a miser's daughter is courted by a sailor and the father arranges for him to be press-ganged to get him out of the way. As well as persisting in England, there are also versions in the US and
Tristan de Cunha. Misers were notorious tricksters, so ingenuity transcending barely credible impersonations was generally needed. "Bite upon bite or the miser outwitted by the country lass" (1736–63) does not feature the miser's daughter but another sort of damsel in distress. A girl bears a child out of wedlock and is advised by her mother to name it Maidenhead and offer it for sale. A rich miser closes the bargain and is eventually forced to support the child by the magistrate.
Still another ballad theme was the privations of the miser's servant, a comic situation in drama and fiction also, and here principally concerned with how little food the household has to live on. One example is "The Miser's Man (dating from between 1863-85). At the start of the 19th century, the theme had figured as an episode in
Robert Anderson's "Croglin Watty". A simple-minded countryman down from the fells, Watty was hired by the real-life
Carlisle miser Margery Jackson (1722–1812) and served her for a
quarter A quarter is one-fourth, , 25% or 0.25.
Quarter or quarters may refer to:
Places
* Quarter (urban subdivision), a section or area, usually of a town
Placenames
* Quarter, South Lanarkshire, a settlement in Scotland
* Le Quartier, a settlement ...
. The ballad mixes sung verses with prose description, both in Cumberland dialect:
Dame Margery is not named in the poem because at the time of writing (1805) she was still alive and known to be litigious. We know that it is meant to be her from the fact that in William Brown's painting of the ballad, "Hiring Croglin Watty at Carlisle Cross", it is she who figures in the foreground. About 1811, just before her death, Brown had already devoted another painting to her alone as she tramped through the town. That she is still amusedly remembered there is witnessed by the modern ''Miser! The Musical'' (2011), based on her life.
Drama
Misers were represented onstage as comic figures from Classical times. One of the earliest appears in the comic
Phlyax play
A Phlyax play ( grc, φλύαξ, also phlyakes), also known as a hilarotragedy, was a burlesque dramatic form that developed in the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia in the 4th century BCE. Its name derives from the Phlyakes or “Gossip Players ...
s developed in the Greek colonies in Italy during the 4th century BCE, which are known only from rare fragments and titles. They were also popularly represented on Greek vases, often with the names of the characters written above them. In one of these by
Asteas two men are depicted robbing a miser. At the centre the miser Charinos has settled for sleep on top of his strongbox in the comfort of two blankets. He is rudely awoken by two rascals mishandling him in an effort to lay their hands on his riches. On the left, Gymnilos has already pulled away the blanket on top of him while, on the right, Kosios drags out the blanket beneath. On the far right, the miser's slave Karion stands with outstretched arms and knocking knees.
Such stock figures eventually provided inspiration for the Latin dramas of
Plautus
Titus Maccius Plautus (; c. 254 – 184 BC), commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the ...
.
The character of Euclio in his ''
Aulularia
''Aulularia'' is a Latin (language), Latin play by the early Ancient Rome, Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. The title literally means ''The Little Pot'', but some translators provide ''The Pot of Gold'', and the plot revolves around a lit ...
'' was to be particularly influential, as was the complicating subplot of a marriageable daughter. One of the earliest
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
writers to adapt the play was the Croatian
Marin Držić
Marin Držić (; also ''Marino Darza'' or ''Marino Darsa''; 1508 – 2 May 1567) was a Croatian writer from Republic of Ragusa. He is considered to be one of the finest Renaissance playwrights and prose writers of Croatian literature.
L ...
in about 1555, whose ''Skup'' (The Miser) is set in Dubrovnik.
Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...
adapted elements from Plautus for his early comedy ''
The Case is Altered
''The Case is Altered'' is an early comedy by Ben Jonson. First published in 1609, the play presents a range of problems for scholars attempting to understand its place in Jonson's canon of works.
Date and publication
The play's title was firs ...
'' (c. 1597). The miser there is the Milanese Jaques de Prie, who has a (supposed) daughter, Rachel.
Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft
Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft (16 March 1581 – 21 May 1647) - Knight in the Order of Saint Michael - was a Dutch historian, poet and playwright who lived during the Dutch Golden Age in literature.
Life
Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, often abbreviat ...
and
Samuel Coster
Samuel Coster (1 September 1579, Amsterdam – 1665) was a Dutch playwright.
Coster was the fifth child of Adriaen Lennaertz, sexton and carpenter, and Aeltgen Jansd. By around 1605, he was a member of the Amsterdam rederijkerskamer "De Eglan ...
followed with their very popular Dutch comedy ''Warenar'' (1617). The play is named from the miser, whose daughter is Claartje. Molière adapted Plautus' play into French as ''L'Avare'' (
The Miser
''The Miser'' (french: L'Avare; ; also known by the longer name ''L'Avare ou L'École du Mensonge,'' meaning The Miser, or the School for Lies) is a five-act comedy in prose by the French playwright Molière. It was first performed on September ...
, 1668) while in England
Thomas Shadwell
Thomas Shadwell ( – 19 November 1692) was an English poet and playwright who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1689.
Life
Shadwell was born at either Bromehill Farm, Weeting-with-Broomhill or Santon House, Lynford, Norfolk, and educated at B ...
adapted Molière's work in 1672 and a version based on both Plautus and Molière was produced by
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English novelist, irony writer, and dramatist known for earthy humour and satire. His comic novel ''Tom Jones'' is still widely appreciated. He and Samuel Richardson are seen as founders ...
in 1732. Among later adaptations there was
Vasily Pashkevich
Vasily Alexeyevich Pashkevich also Paskevich (russian: Васи́лий Алексе́евич Пашке́вич or Паске́вич) (c. 1742, probably Ukraine – March 20, 1797 in St. Petersburg) was a Russian composer, singer, violin ...
's 18th-century Russian comic opera ''The Miser'' and pioneering dramatic works in Arabic by
Marun Al Naqqash
Marun Al Naqqash (Arabic: مارون النقاش) (1855–1817) was a Sidon-born Maronite who produced the first theatre play texts in Arabic language.
Early life and education
Al Naqqash was born in Sidon on 9 February 1817 into a Maronite ...
(1817–55) and in Serbian by
Jovan Sterija Popović
Jovan Sterija Popović (; sr-cyr, Јован Стерија Поповић; 13 January 1806 – 10 March 1856) was a Serbian playwright, poet, lawyer, philosopher and pedagogue who taught at the Belgrade Higher School. Sterija was recognized by ...
.
![Volpone Beardsley](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Volpone_Beardsley.jpg)
There were also independent dramatic depictions of misers, some of them being variations of the Pantaleone figure in 16th-century Italian
commedia dell’arte. He is represented as a rich and miserly Venetian merchant, later to become the father of
Columbina
Columbina (in Italian Colombina, meaning "little dove"; in French and English Colombine) is a stock character in the ''commedia dell'arte''. She is Harlequin's mistress, a comic servant playing the tricky slave type, and wife of Pierrot. Rudli ...
. The Venetian characters who reappear in English drama include the Jewish moneylender
Shylock in
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's ''
The Merchant of Venice
''The Merchant of Venice'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock.
Although classified as ...
'' (1598) and the title character of
Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...
's ''
Volpone
''Volpone'' (, Italian for "sly fox") is a comedy play by English playwright Ben Jonson first produced in 1605–1606, drawing on elements of city comedy and beast fable. A merciless satire of greed and lust, it remains Jonson's most-perfor ...
'' (1606). In
Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (21 August 187216 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced by Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the ...
's title page for the latter, Volpone is shown worshiping his possessions, in illustration of the lines from the play, "Dear Saint, / Riches, the dumb god that giv'st all men tongues." A similar scene takes place in the second act of
Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
's short tragedy ''Skupoi rytsar'' (1836). This concerns a son, Albert, kept short of funds by his father, the Baron. Under the title
The Miserly Knight
''The Miserly Knight'', Op. 24, also ''The Covetous Knight'' (russian: Скупой рыцарь, ''Skupój rýtsar’''), is a Russian opera in one act with music by Sergei Rachmaninoff, with the libretto based on Alexander Pushkin's drama of the ...
, it was made an opera by
Sergei Rachmaninoff in 1906. In the corresponding act in the latter, the Baron visits his underground storehouse, where he gloats at a new addition to his coffers and moodily contemplates the extravagance of his son during a 15-minute solo.
Following on from the continuing success of Molière's ''L'Avare'', there was a spate of French plays dealing with misers and their matrimonial plans over the next century and a half. What complicates matters is that several of these had the same title but were in fact separate plays written by different authors. ''L'Avare Amoureux'' (The Miser in Love) by Jean du Mas d' Aigueberre (1692–1755) was a one-act comedy acted in Paris in 1729. It is not the same as the anonymous one-act comedy of the same title published in 1777.
Another set of plays borrows a title from the Italian dramatist
Carlo Goldoni Carlo is a given name. It is an Italian form of Charles. It can refer to:
* Carlo (name)
* Monte Carlo
* Carlingford, New South Wales, a suburb in north-west Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
*A satirical song written by Dafydd Iwan about Prince ...
, who was working in France at the end of his life. He had already produced a one-act comedy titled ''L'avaro'' (The Miser) in Bologna in 1756. In 1776 he produced in France the five-act ''L' avare fastueux'' (The Spendthrift Miser). The same title was used by L. Reynier for his five-act verse drama of 1794 and by Claude Baron Godart d'Aucourt de Saint Just (1769-1826) for his three-act verse drama of 1805.
The early 19th century saw misers become the subject of the musicals then fashionable in France.
Eugène Scribe
Augustin Eugène Scribe (; 24 December 179120 February 1861) was a French dramatist and librettist. He is known for writing "well-made plays" ("pièces bien faites"), a mainstay of popular theatre for over 100 years, and as the librettist of ma ...
and
Germain Delavigne
Louis Marie Germain Delavigne (1 February 1790 – 3 November 1868) was a French playwright and librettist.
Delavigne was born in Giverny to Louis-Augustin-Anselme Delavigne, a surveyor of the French royal forests, and his wife. He was the broth ...
collaborated on
''L'avare en goguette'' (The miser's spree) in 1823, while
Jean-François Bayard
Jean-François Alfred Bayard (17 March 1796, Charolles, Saône-et-Loire – 20 February 1853, Paris) was a French playwright. He was the nephew of fellow playwright Eugène Scribe.
Life
As a law student and a lawyer's clerk, Bayard wrote with p ...
and
Paul Duport
Nicolas-Paul Duport (22 April 1798 – 26 December 1866) was a French dramatist and librettiste who also wrote under the pen names M. P. D., Paulin and Erbert.
Theatre
* 1824 : ''Le Beau-frère, ou la Veuve à 2 maris'', comédie-vaudeville in ...
collaborated on the two-act ''La fille de l'avare'' (The Miser's Daughter) in 1835.
The latter play was freely adapted in 1835 by
John G. Millingen
John Gideon Millingen (1782–1862) was a British army surgeon and author. He was the brother of James Millingen and an uncle of Julius Michael Millingen.
Biography
Born in Westminster to parents of Dutch people, Dutch descent, Millingen was educ ...
under the title of ''The Miser’s Daughter''. Two further adaptations of the French play were to follow later: ''Love and Avarice'' (1859) by J. V. Bridgeman (1819-89), and
John Palgrave Simpson's ''Daddy Hardacre'' in 1857. Meanwhile,
William Harrison Ainsworth
William Harrison Ainsworth (4 February 18053 January 1882) was an English historical novelist born at King Street in Manchester. He trained as a lawyer, but the legal profession held no attraction for him. While completing his legal studies in ...
's period novel ''
The Miser's Daughter'' (first serialised in 1842) was spawning a fresh crop of dramas of that title. Two were played in 1842 and a further adaptation called ''Hilda'' in 1872. A similarly titled play was the five-act comedy partially in verse, ''The Miser's Daughter or The Lover's Curse'' of 1839, a schoolboy indiscretion of the future controversial churchman, Rev.
John Purchas
John Purchas, (born at Cambridge, 14 July 1823; died at Brighton, 18 October 1872), was an author and a priest of Church of England who was prosecuted for ritualist practices. He received his education at Bury St Edmunds, Rugby School and Christ' ...
. And on the other side of the Atlantic there was a stage production of ''Julietta Gordini:The Miser's Daughter'', a verse play in five acts, which claimed to derive its plot 'from an Italian story'.
Douglas William Jerrold
Douglas William Jerrold (London 3 January 18038 June 1857 London) was an English dramatist and writer.
Biography
Jerrold's father, Samuel Jerrold, was an actor and lessee of the little theatre of Wilsby near Cranbrook in Kent. In 1807 Dougla ...
's ''John Overy or The Miser of Southwark Ferry'', (1828) also brings in a daughter whom the miser attempts to sell off as a mistress to her disguised lover. Earlier Jerrold had written a one-act farce, ''The Smoked Miser or The Benefit of Hanging'' (1823), in which a miser tries to marry off his ward to advantage. Another farce produced in Canada, Major John Richardson's ''The Miser Outwitted'' (1841), had an Irish theme and dealt with a plot to trick a miser out of his money. The later
Thomas Peckett Prest
Thomas Peckett (or Preskett) Prest (probable dates 1810–1859) was a British hack writer, journalist, and musician. He was a prolific producer of penny dreadfuls and was known as a skilled author in the horror genre. He is now remembered as the co ...
's ''The Miser of Shoreditch or the Curse of Avarice'' (1854) was based on a
penny dreadful
Penny dreadfuls were cheap popular serial literature produced during the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom. The pejorative term is roughly interchangeable with penny horrible, penny awful, and penny blood. The term typically referred to ...
story by him; later he adapted it as a two-act romantic drama set in time of Henry VIII.
The popularity of these theatrical misers is evident from the number of paintings and drawings based on them, many of which were then adapted as prints. In 18th-century England, it was Fielding's "The Miser" that attracted most attention.
Samuel Wale's drawing of the second act was also made into a print. But it was principally depictions of various actors in the character of Lovegold, the play's anti-hero, which attracted artists.
Samuel De Wilde pictured
William Farren
William Farren (13 May 1786 – 24 September 1861) was an English actor, who was the son of an actor (born 1725) of the same name, who played leading roles from 1784 to 1795 at Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.
Life
Raised on Gower Street in Lo ...
in the role at the
Theatre Royal, Bath
The Theatre Royal in Bath, England, was built in 1805. A Grade II* listed building, it has been described by the Theatres Trust as "One of the most important surviving examples of Georgian theatre architecture". It has a capacity for an audien ...
. Several other works became plates in one or another book dedicated to English drama. James Roberts II (1753 – c. 1810) executed a pen and ink watercolour of
Edward Shuter in character which was adapted as a print for the six-volume play collection, ''Bell's British Theatre''.
Charles Reuben Ryley
Charles Reuben Ryley (1752?–1798) was an English painter.
Life
The son of a trooper in the Horse Guards, he was born in London about 1752. He was of weak constitution and deformed in figure. At first he studied engraving, for which he receiv ...
made a print of Thomas Ryder in the role for ''Lowndes' British Theatre'' (1788), while
Thomas Parkinson's painting of
Richard Yates as Lovegold was adapted for the 1776 edition of that work. In the following century, Thomas Charles Wageman's dramatic head and shoulders drawing of
William Farren
William Farren (13 May 1786 – 24 September 1861) was an English actor, who was the son of an actor (born 1725) of the same name, who played leading roles from 1784 to 1795 at Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.
Life
Raised on Gower Street in Lo ...
as Lovegold illustrated
William Oxberry's collection of texts, ''The New English Drama'' (1820). From this time too dates the coloured print of Samuel Vale acting the part of Goliah Spiderlimb, the comic servant in Jerrold's ''The Smoked Miser''.
Molière's ''L'Avare'' was not altogether eclipsed in England by the work adapted from it. A drawing by
William Hogarth
William Hogarth (; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraver, pictorial satirist, social critic, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like ...
of the play's denouement was included as a print in the translation of Molière's work and prints based upon it were made by various other engravers.
William Powell Frith
William Powell Frith (9 January 1819 – 2 November 1909) was an English painter specialising in genre subjects and panoramic narrative works of life in the Victorian era. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1853, presenting ''The Sleep ...
devoted one of his theatrical paintings to a scene from L'Avare in 1876 while the French actor
Grandmesnil in the role of Harpagon was painted by
Jean-Baptiste François Desoria.
In addition, the challenging and complex part of Shylock was favoured by English artists.
Johann Zoffany painted
Charles Macklin
Charles Macklin (26 September 1699 – 11 July 1797), (Gaelic: Cathal MacLochlainn, English: Charles McLaughlin), was an Irish actor and dramatist who performed extensively at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Macklin revolutionised theatre in ...
in the role that had brought him fame at
the Covent Garden Theatre (1767–68) and Thomas Gray portrayed a confrontation between Shylock and his daughter Jessica (1868). Character portraits of other actors in Shylock's role have included Henry Urwick (1859–1931) by Walter Chamberlain Urwick (1864-1943),
Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree (17 December 1852 – 2 July 1917) was an English actor and theatre manager.
Tree began performing in the 1870s. By 1887, he was managing the Haymarket Theatre in the West End, winning praise for adventurous progr ...
by
Charles Buchel and
Arthur Bourchier, also by Buchel.
Fiction
Characterisation of misers has been a frequent focus in prose fiction:
![Cruickshank miser](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Cruickshank_miser.jpg)
* The miserly priest who was
Lazarillo de Tormes
''The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and of His Fortunes and Adversities'' ( es, La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades ) is a Spanish novella, published anonymously because of its anticlerical content. It was published s ...
' second master in the Spanish
picaresque novel
The picaresque novel ( Spanish: ''picaresca'', from ''pícaro'', for "rogue" or "rascal") is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish, but "appealing hero", usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corru ...
published in 1554.
* Yan Jiansheng in an episode of ''
The Scholars'' by Wu Jingzi (吳敬梓), written about 1750. This miser was unable to die easily until a wasteful second wick was removed from the lamp at his bedside.
*Jean-Esther van Gobseck – an affluent usurer in the novel ''
Gobseck'' (1830) by
Balzac.
*Felix Grandet – whose daughter is the title character in the novel ''
Eugénie Grandet
''Eugénie Grandet'' is a novel first published in 1833 by French author Honoré de Balzac. While he was writing it he conceived his ambitious project, ''La Comédie humaine'', and almost immediately prepared a second edition, revising the names ...
'' (1833) by
Balzac.
*Fardarougha Donovan in the Irish
William Carleton
William Carleton (4 March 1794, Prolusk (often spelt as Prillisk as on his gravestone), Clogher, County Tyrone – 30 January 1869, Sandford Road, Ranelagh, Dublin) was an Irish writer and novelist. He is best known for his ''Traits and St ...
's ''Fardarougha the Miser'' (1839).
*John Scarve – in the novel ''
The Miser's Daughter'' (1842) by
William Harrison Ainsworth
William Harrison Ainsworth (4 February 18053 January 1882) was an English historical novelist born at King Street in Manchester. He trained as a lawyer, but the legal profession held no attraction for him. While completing his legal studies in ...
. The story is set in the 1770s and the character of Scarve was inspired by the real-life miser
John Elwes.
*
Ebenezer Scrooge – the lead character of ''
A Christmas Carol'' (1843) by
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
. He too was based on John Elwes. The story has been
adapted many times for stage and screen.
*Mr. Prokharchin – title character of the short story ''
Mr. Prokharchin
"Mr. Prokharchin" (russian: Господин Прохарчин, ''Gospodin Prokharchin''), also translated as "Mr. Prohartchin", is a short story written in 1846 by Fyodor Dostoevsky and first published in the '' Annals of the Fatherland''. Inspir ...
'' (1846) by
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 ...
.
*Uncle Jan and his nephew Thijs in
Hendrik Conscience
Henri (Hendrik) Conscience (3 December 1812 – 10 September 1883) was a Belgian author. He is considered the pioneer of Dutch-language literature in Flanders, writing at a time when Belgium was dominated by the French language among the upper cl ...
's novel of Flemish peasant life, ''De Gierigaard'' (1853, translated into English as "The Miser" in 1855).
*Silas Marner – title character of
George Eliot
Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Anne or Marian), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrot ...
's novel ''
Silas Marner
''Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe'' is the third novel by George Eliot. It was published in 1861. An outwardly simple tale of a linen weaver, the novel is notable for its strong realism and its sophisticated treatment of a variety of issues ...
'' (1861), who eventually abandons his avaricious ways.
*Ebenezer Balfour the villain of
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll a ...
's ''
Kidnapped
Kidnapped may refer to:
* subject to the crime of kidnapping
Literature
* ''Kidnapped'' (novel), an 1886 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson
* ''Kidnapped'' (comics), a 2007 graphic novel adaptation of R. L. Stevenson's novel by Alan Grant and Ca ...
'' (1886), which is set during the
Jacobite disturbances in 18th century Scotland. Attempting to deprive his nephew David (the hero of the novel) of his inheritance, he arranges to have the young man kidnapped.
*Francisco Torquemada, the main character in
Perez Galdós' ''Torquemada en la hoguera'' (Toquemada on the pire, 1889). The novel is centred on a Madrid moneylender who had appeared incidentally in earlier novels of his and now had three more devoted to him: ''Torquemada en la cruz'' (Toquemada on the cross, 1893), ''Torquemada en el purgatorio'' (Toquemada in Purgatory, 1894) and ''Torquemada y San Pedro'' (Torquemada and Saint Peter, 1895). All of these deal with Spanish social trends in the closing years of the 19th century.
*Trina McTeague, the miserly wife in ''
McTeague
''McTeague: A Story of San Francisco'', otherwise known as simply ''McTeague'', is a novel by Frank Norris, first published in 1899. It tells the story of a couple's courtship and marriage, and their subsequent descent into poverty and violence ...
: a story of San Francisco'' (1899) by
Frank Norris
Benjamin Franklin Norris Jr. (March 5, 1870 – October 25, 1902) was an American journalist and novelist during the Progressive Era, whose fiction was predominantly in the naturalist genre. His notable works include '' McTeague: A Story of San ...
. As avarice slowly overtakes her, she withdraws her savings so that she can gloat over the money and even roll about in it. The book was the basis for a silent film in 1916 and
Erich von Stroheim's ''
Greed
Greed (or avarice) is an uncontrolled longing for increase in the acquisition or use of material gain (be it food, money, land, or animate/inanimate possessions); or social value, such as status, or power. Greed has been identified as und ...
'' in 1924. More recently, it was also the basis for
William Bolcom
William Elden Bolcom (born May 26, 1938) is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, a Grammy Award, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. He ...
's opera ''McTeague'' (1992).
*Henry Earlforward in
Arnold Bennett
Enoch Arnold Bennett (27 May 1867 – 27 March 1931) was an English author, best known as a novelist. He wrote prolifically: between the 1890s and the 1930s he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays (some in collaboratio ...
's novel ''
Riceyman Steps
''Riceyman Steps'' is a novel by British novelist Arnold Bennett, first published in 1923 and winner of that year's James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. It follows a year in the life of Henry Earlforward, a miserly second-hand bookshop ow ...
'' (1923), who makes life miserable for the wife who married him in the hope of security.
*Séraphin Poudrier, the central figure in
's ''Un Homme et son péché'' (1933). This French-Canadian novel was translated into English as "The Woman and the Miser" in 1978. Set at the end of the 19th century, the novel broke with the convention of extolling rural life and depicts a miser who mistreats his wife and lets her die because calling in a doctor would cost money. There have been adaptations for stage, radio, TV and two films, of which the most recent was ''Séraphin: un homme et son péché'' (2002), titled
Séraphin: Heart of Stone in the English-language version.
There were beside many other prolific and once popular novelists who addressed themselves to the subject of miserliness. For the most part theirs were genre works catering to readers in the
circulating libraries A circulating library (also known as lending libraries and rental libraries) lent books to subscribers, and was first and foremost a business venture. The intention was to profit from lending books to the public for a fee.
Overview
Circulating li ...
of the 19th century. Among them was the
gothic novel ''The miser and his family'' (1800) by
Eliza Parsons
Eliza Parsons (née Phelp) (1739 – 5 February 1811) was an English Gothic novelist, best known for ''The Castle of Wolfenbach'' (1793) and '' The Mysterious Warning'' (1796). These are two of the seven Gothic titles recommended as reading by a ...
and
Catherine Hutton
Catherine Hutton (11 February 1756 – 13 March 1846) was an English novelist and letter-writer.
Born in Birmingham, the daughter of historian William Hutton, Hutton became a friend of the scientist and discoverer of oxygen Joseph Priestley a ...
's ''The miser married'' (1813). The latter was an
epistolary novel
An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of letters. The term is often extended to cover novels that intersperse documents of other kinds with the letters, most commonly diary entries and newspaper clippings, and sometimes considered ...
in which Charlotte Montgomery describes her own romantic affairs and in addition those of her mother, an unprincipled spendthrift who has just married the miser of the title. Another female novelist, Mary E. Bennett (1813–99), set her ''The Gipsy Bride or the Miser's Daughter'' (1841) in the 16th century.
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Mary Elizabeth Braddon (4 October 1835 – 4 February 1915) was an English popular novelist of the Victorian era. She is best known for her 1862 sensation novel ''Lady Audley's Secret'', which has also been dramatised and filmed several times.
...
's
Aurora Floyd
''Aurora Floyd'' (1863) is a sensation novel written by the prominent English author Mary Elizabeth Braddon. It forms a sequel to Braddon's highly popular novel ''Lady Audley's Secret'' (1862).
Plot
Aurora Floyd is the spoiled, impetuous, but ...
(1863) was a successful
sensation novel
The sensation novel, also sensation fiction, was a literary genre of fiction that achieved peak popularity in Great Britain in the 1860s and 1870s.I. Ousby ed., ''The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English'' (1995) p. 844 Its literary forebears i ...
in which banknotes rather than gold are the object of desire and a motive for murder. It was dramatised the same year and later toured the US; in 1912 it was made a silent film. Later examples include
Eliza Lynn Linton
Eliza Lynn Linton (10 February 1822 – 14 July 1898) was the first female salaried journalist in Britain and the author of over 20 novels. Despite her path-breaking role as an independent woman, many of her essays took a strong anti-feminist s ...
's ''Paston Carew, Millionaire and Miser'' (1886); ''Miser Farebrother'' (1888) by
Benjamin Leopold Farjeon
Benjamin Leopold Farjeon (12 May 1838 – 23 July 1903) was an English novelist, playwright, printer and journalist. As an author, he was known for his huge output.
Life
Farjeon was born in London to Dinah Levy and Jacob Farjeon, Orthodox Jews. ...
; and ''Dollikins and the Miser'' (1890) by the American Frances Eaton. In 1904
Jerome K. Jerome
Jerome Klapka Jerome (2 May 1859 – 14 June 1927) was an English writer and humourist, best known for the comic travelogue ''Three Men in a Boat'' (1889). Other works include the essay collections '' Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow'' (1886) an ...
created ''Nicholas Snyders, The Miser of Zandam'' in a sentimental story of the occult in which the Dutch merchant persuades a generous young man to exchange souls with him.
Misers in art
![Jheronimus Bosch 050](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Jheronimus_Bosch_050.jpg)
Mediaeval art works of Christian origin take a clear moral stance on the sin of avarice in its various manifestations. The frieze on the west wall of
Lincoln Cathedral depicts the torments of Hell visited on those guilty of this sin, while
Sassetta
''For the village near Livorno, see Sassetta, Tuscany''
Stefano di Giovanni di Consolo, known as il Sassetta (ca.1392–1450 or 1451) was an Tuscan painter of the Renaissance, and a significant figure of the Sienese School.Judy Metro, ''Italia ...
made "The Blessed Ranieri showing the friars the soul of the Miser of Citerna carried to hell by demons" a panel of an altarpiece (now in the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
).
But the bracketing of the miser and the usurer as equally culpable types, mentioned earlier, makes it difficult to interpret the subject of later moralistic paintings, since they may represent either a hoarder, a money lender or even a tax collector.
Such paintings cluster into recognisable genres, all of which point to the sinful nature of preoccupation with money for its own sake.
Hieronymus Bosch
Hieronymus Bosch (, ; born Jheronimus van Aken ; – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch/ Netherlandish painter from Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, generally oil on o ...
's panel of
Death and the Miser
''Death and the Miser'' (also known at ''Death of the Usurer'') is a Northern Renaissance painting by Hieronymus Bosch produced between 1490 and 1516 in Northern Europe. The piece was originally part of a triptych, but the center piece is missing ...
, dating from the 1490s, started a fashion in depicting this subject among
Low Countries
The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
artists. Bosch shows the miser on his deathbed, with various demons crowding about his possessions, while an angel supports him and directs his attention to higher things. The link between finance and the diabolical is also drawn by another Fleming,
Jan Matsys
Jan Massijs or Jan Matsys (c.1510 – 8 October 1575) was a Flemish Renaissance painter known for his history paintings, genre scenes and landscapes. He also gained a reputation as a painter of the female nude, which he painted with a sensua ...
, in his portrayal of the man of affairs being assisted in his double bookkeeping by a demon. The same connection is made in "The devil and the usurer" in the Valenciennes
Musée des beaux-arts, formerly attributed to
Pieter Bruegel the Younger
Pieter Brueghel (also Bruegel or Breughel) the Younger (, ; ; between 23 May and 10 October 1564 – between March and May 1638) was a Flemish painter, known for numerous copies after his father Pieter Bruegel the Elder's work as well as h ...
, in which two devils pluck at the sleeve of a poorly dressed moneylender.
The Gospel
Parable of the Rich Fool
The Parable of the Rich Fool is a parable of Jesus which appears in The Gospel of Luke. It depicts the futility of the belief that wealth can secure prosperity or a good life.
This parable has been depicted by several artists, including Rembra ...
lies behind another series of paintings which stem ultimately from mediaeval illustrations of the
Dance of Death. There a skeleton compels those from all walks of life, but particularly types of the rich and the powerful, to join him in his dance to the grave. In 1538
Hans Holbein the Younger initiated a popular treatment of this subject in which each type is separately illustrated, of which there were many imitations in succeeding centuries. Among the depictions is a man starting up in protest behind a table piled with wealth on which a skeleton is laying hands. In his print of 1651,
Wenceslas Hollar
Wenceslaus Hollar (23 July 1607 – 25 March 1677) was a prolific and accomplished Bohemian graphic artist of the 17th century, who spent much of his life in England. He is known to German speakers as ; and to Czech speakers as . He is particu ...
makes the connection with the parable clear by quoting from it in the frame. A variation is provided by
Jan Provoost
Jan Provoost, or Jean Provost, or Jan Provost (1462/65 – January 1529) was a Belgian painter born in Mons.
Provost was a prolific master who left his early workshop in Valenciennes to run two workshops, one in Bruges, where he was made a burgh ...
's 16th century diptych in which death confronts the man of affairs with his own account. A century later,
Frans Francken the Younger
Frans Francken the Younger (1581 in Antwerp, 1581 – 6 May 1642, in Antwerp) was a Flemish painter who created altarpieces and furniture panels and gained his reputation chiefly through his small and delicate cabinet pictures with historical, m ...
treats the theme twice, in both versions of which a skeleton serenades a luxuriously dressed greybeard sitting at a table. Another curious variation occurs in
Pieter Quast's print of "The Miser and Death" (1643). Here the man sits at table clasping his money bags while contemplating a skull wearing a plumed hat, beside which is an
hour-glass
An hourglass (or sandglass, sand timer, sand clock or egg timer) is a device used to measure the passage of time. It comprises two glass bulbs connected vertically by a narrow neck that allows a regulated flow of a substance (historically sand) ...
. The visitation of death is carried forward in the 19th century in similarly titled works. They include a portrayal by Franz Häussler (1845-1920) of an old man standing at his desk who peers round fearfully as he glimpses a skull reflected in a mirror. The charcoal and watercolour drawing by the Austrian Albert Plattner (1869–1919) is more ambiguous and has the figures facing away from each other in a cramped space.
Yet another genre was the Allegory of Avarice, of which one of the earliest examples is
Albrecht Dürer's painting of a naked old woman with a sack of coins (1507). This makes the point that age comes to all and confiscates all consolations. A woman is chosen as subject because the Latin ''avaritia'' is of the feminine gender. Low Countries artists who took up the allegorical theme added the variation of making the woman examine a coin by the light of a candle or lantern, as in the paintings by
Gerrit van Honthorst
Gerard van Honthorst (Dutch: ''Gerrit van Honthorst''; 4 November 1592 – 27 April 1656) was a Dutch Golden Age painter who became known for his depiction of artificially lit scenes, eventually receiving the nickname ''Gherardo delle Notti' ...
and
Mathias Stomer
Matthias Stom or Matthias Stomer (c. 1600 – after 1652) was a Dutch, or possibly Flemish, Painting, painter who is only known for the works he produced during his residence in Italy. He was influenced by the work of non-Italian followers of Cara ...
. In his own allegorical treatment,
Paulus Moreelse
Paulus Moreelse (1571 – 6 March 1638) was a Dutch painter, mainly of portraits.
Life
Moreelse was born and lived most of his life in Utrecht. He was a pupil of the Delft portrait painter Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt, who had himself bee ...
made the link with the dance of death genre by introducing a young boy slyly fingering the coins while keeping a wary eye on the woman to see if she has noticed. These Dutch variations were mostly painted during the 1620s, when
Rembrandt too borrowed the imagery, but his candlelit examiner of a coin is male and the piece is variously titled "The Money Changer" or "The Rich Fool", in reference to the parable already mentioned.
Jan Steen
Jan Havickszoon Steen (c. 1626 – buried 3 February 1679) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, one of the leading genre painters of the 17th century. His works are known for their psychological insight, sense of humour and abundance of colour.
Lif ...
, on the other hand, makes his subject very obviously a miser who hugs a small sack of coins and holds one up for intent inspection.
In the Hieronymus Bosch ''Death and the Miser'', the pull between spirituality and materialism is highlighted by making the deathbed a scene of conflict between the angel and demons. Quentin Matsys suggests the same polarity in his ''The moneylender and his wife'' (1514). Here the woman is studying a religious book while her husband is testing coins by weight. In the hands of the later
Marinus van Reymerswaele
Marinus may refer to:
*Marinus (crater), a crater on the Moon
*Marinus (given name), for people named Marinus
*Dr. Marinus, a recurring character in the novels of David Mitchell
See also
*''The Keys of Marinus
''The Keys of Marinus'' is the ...
the contrast disappears. The wife of his moneylender is shown helping with the bookkeeping and leaning sideways, as mesmerised as her husband by the pile of coins.
Gillis van Tilborch
Gillis van Tilborgh or Gillis van Tilborch (''c''. 1625 – ''c''. 1678) was a Flemish painter who worked in various genres including portraits, 'low-life' and elegant genre paintings and paintings of picture galleries. He became the keeper of ...
's painting of much the same scene is titled ''The Misers'' and again demonstrates the ambivalent targets of the moral message. The only difference is that the couple engaged in inspecting their money are old, as was the case in all the allegories of avarice.
David Teniers the Younger depicted a couple similarly engaged in 1648 which was later engraved in France by
Pierre-François Basan under the title ''Le plaisir des vieillards'' (the pleasures of old age). Verses as the bottom underline the moral: "Why do you make/ such piles of gold?/ Soon you’ll grow old/ and Death takes all.
Another area of ambivalence centres on the kind of clothes worn by the so-called misers. The subject of
Hendrik Gerritsz Pot
Hendrik Gerritsz Pot (c. 1580 – 15 October 1657 (buried)) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, who lived and painted in Haarlem, where he was an officer of the militia, or ''schutterij''. Dutch artist Frans Hals painted Pot in militia sash in ...
's painting from the 1640s in the
Uffizi
The Uffizi Gallery (; it, Galleria degli Uffizi, italic=no, ) is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums ...
is fashionably dressed and wearing a ring. He may be inspired by the wealth and jewelry piled on his table, but he obviously has no objection to advertising his well-to-do status. On the other hand, the ''Miser Casting His Accounts'' presented by
Jan Lievens
Jan Lievens (24 October 1607 – 4 June 1674) was a Dutch Golden Age painter who was associated with his close contemporary Rembrandt, a year older, in the early parts of their careers. They shared a birthplace in Leiden, training with Pieter La ...
is poorly dressed and his interest in hoarding is indicated by the way he gloats on the key that will lock his money away. The same dichotomy occurs in later centuries.
Jean-Baptiste Le Prince
Jean-Baptiste Le Prince (September 17, 1734 – September 30, 1781) was an important French etcher and painter. Le Prince first studied painting techniques in his native Metz. He then travelled to Paris around 1750 and became a leading student ...
's miser is also richly robed as he sits surrounded by his possessions, while Theodore Bernard Heuvel's miser sits on the chest containing his hoard and looks anxiously over his shoulder.
Paul Gavarni
Paul Gavarni was the pen name of Sulpice Guillaume Chevalier (13 January 1804 – 24 November 1866), a French illustrator, born in Paris.
Early career
Gavarni's father, Sulpice Chevalier, was from a family line of coopers from Burgundy. Pau ...
's miser shows much the same apprehension as he leans on the table where his money is piled and glances round suspiciously.
![Old Gripus plundered](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Old_Gripus_plundered.jpg)
A sub-theme of this kind of contrast occurred in
Hans Holbein the Younger's "The Miser and his Mistress". There a young woman in luxuriant Renaissance dress stands behind an ugly miser, reaching across him to take coins from the money bags he clutches to his chest, while he looks up at her, crying out with a grimace and trying to push away her hand. An updated version by
Philip Dawe
Philip Dawe (c.1730 – 13 August 1832) was an English mezzotint engraver, artist and political cartoonist. He is thought to have been born in London in the 1730s, the son of a city merchant. He died in Kentish Town, London. He was married t ...
was published as a print in 1773 under the title of ''The Scramble, or Old Gripus plunder'd by his Young Wife''. Underneath is a verse commentary:
:::How hard is the conflict, yet claims ridicule,
:::When doting and avarice possess an old fool!
:::His wife while she plunders with smiles and caresses,
:::At once cools his love and his avarice distresses.
Literary manifestations of the theme of the mismatched couple include the Malbecco episode in "The Faerie Queene" and Catherine Hutton's novel "The Miser Married".
English depictions of misers in the 18th century begin as genre paintings.
Gainsborough Dupont's poorly dressed character clutches a bag of coin and looks up anxiously in the painting in the
Ashmolean Museum. John Cranch (1751-1821) pictures two armed desperadoes breaking in on his. However, it is in the realm of satirical prints that the most inventiveness is found.
James Gillray
James Gillray (13 August 1756Gillray, James and Draper Hill (1966). ''Fashionable contrasts''. Phaidon. p. 8.Baptism register for Fetter Lane (Moravian) confirms birth as 13 August 1756, baptism 17 August 1756 1June 1815) was a British caricatur ...
does not neglect the moral dimension either in his "The miser's feast" (1786). He is pictured seated at a table eating a meager meal, attended by Death in the guise of an emaciated and naked manservant holding in his right hand a tray with a bone on it and behind him, in his left hand, the dart of death. Famine, a withered hag naked to the waist, is also in attendance wearing a large hat and fashionable skirt. These characters are identified by the verse at the bottom: "What else can follow but destructive fate,/When Famine holds the cup and Death the plate?"
Among other details in Gillray's crowded print is a fashionably dressed prostitute coming through the door. Lechery was supposed to be an attribute of some misers, exposing them to a contest between satisfying this weakness and their overmastering passion to save expense, as exemplified in the Old Gripus print.
Thomas Rowlandson
Thomas Rowlandson (; 13 July 175721 April 1827) was an English artist and caricaturist of the Georgian Era, noted for his political satire and social observation. A prolific artist and printmaker, Rowlandson produced both individual social an ...
points to one solution of his dilemma in a print showing a miser engaged with two nude prostitutes whom has hired for the price of one. In another Rowlandson revisits the theme of the meager feast, depicting his miser crouched by an empty grate and keeping himself warm by hugging his money-bags. A hag enters, bringing a tiny portion to eat on a plate which a famished cat scrambles to reach. One more dichotomy explored by Rowlandson appears in his watercolour of "The spendthrift and the miser". The drunken young man alarming the miser there is probably his son, taking up a literary theme to be found, among other places, in Allan Ramsay's comic monologue. It will be remembered too that the thriftless ne'er-do-well of ''
A Rake's Progress
''A Rake's Progress'' (or ''The Rake's Progress'') is a series of eight paintings by 18th-century English artist William Hogarth. The canvases were produced in 1732–1734, then engraved in 1734 and published in print form in 1735. The series ...
'' inherited his money from a miserly father.
By the end of the 19th century the theme of the miser was distancing itself from the simple moralities of journeyman painters and becoming a subject for aristocratic amateurs. The Empress
Maria Feodorovna's miser of 1890 handles a small strongbox. The Indian
Raja Ravi Varma paints a Jewish character type for his miser, dated 1901, while the Hungarian nobleman
Ladislav Medňanský titles his humanised study "Shylock" (1900). Apart from them, there is an etching by
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...
which emphasises the essential isolation of such figures. His enigmatic "The Miser" of 1860 pictures an individual of indeterminate gender seated with its back to the viewer in the corner of a bare room next to the window. He is looking down as if examining something and the room behind him is spartanly furnished with just a table and bench, while a broadsheet is tacked to the wall.
References
External links
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Miserliness– Sermons and Biblical Studies
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