The Strike at Arlingford (1893) was George Moore’s third play. Written for subscribers of the Independent Theatre Society (of which he was a board member), it is about a fictional strike of coal miners in County Durham, England (where George’s close friends Charles and Mary Hunter owned a coal mining enterprise).
Written under the influence of Henrik Ibsen’s socio-psychological dramas, The Strike at Arlingford was concerned not with economics or politics but with “the development of a moral idea”: the difficulty of reconciling errant behavior with conscience.
George further developed the idea over the next five years in his novel Evelyn Innes (1898), in which a heroine is likewise torn between an aristocrat and a poet.
Acts
1893-06-01 — The Strike at Arlingford — Act 1
1893-06-01 — The Strike at Arlingford — Act 2
1893-06-01 — The Strike at Arlingford — Act 3
The Strike at Arlingford (AI)
The Strike at Arlingford (AI) is a PDF of the first edition that may be uploaded to AI applications such as Notebook LM for guided analysis and interpretation.
The Original Cover Art
According to Edwin Gilcher, stamping on the front cover of The Strike at Arlingford was from a design by the artist Albert Moore (no relation), who died soon after publication.
George Moorew “was particularly pleased with it and the same design, in blind, was used on the front covers of the Heinemann standard binding, beginning in 1906 with Memoirs of My Dead Life.”
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