The Frozen Deep Other Tales

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

The Frozen Deep is a play, initially performed as an amateur theatrical, penned by Wilkie Collins under the considerable guidance of Charles Dickens. Excerpt: "The date is between twenty and thirty years ago. The place is an English sea-port. The time is night. And the business of the moment is—dancing. The Mayor and Corporation of the town are giving a grand ball, in celebration of the departure of an Arctic expedition from their port. The ships of the expedition are two in number—the Wanderer and the Sea-mew. They are to sail (in search of the Northwest Passage) on the next day, with the morning tide. Honor to the Mayor and Corporation! It is a brilliant ball. The band is complete. The room is spacious. The large conservatory opening out of it is pleasantly lighted with Chinese lanterns, and beautifully decorated with shrubs and flowers. All officers of the army and navy who are present wear their uniforms in honor of the occasion. Among the ladies, the display of dresses (a subject which the men don't understand) is bewildering—and the average of beauty (a subject which the men do understand) is the highest average attainable, in all parts of the room."

Excerpt from The Frozen Deep: And Other Tales (Relating the Adventures and Transformations of The Frozen Deep.) As long ago as the year 1856 I wrote a play called "The Frozen Deep." The work was first represented by amateur actors, at the house of the late Charles Dickens, on the 6th of January 1857. Mr. Dickens himself played the principal part, and played it with a truth, vigour, and pathos never to he forgotten by those who were fortunate enough to witness the performance. The other personages of the story were represented by the ladies of Mr. Dickens's family, by the late Mark Lemon (editor of "Punch"), by the late Augustus Egg, R.A. (the artist), and by the author of the play. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.