William Harrison Ainsworth

The Miser's Daughter. By William Harrison Ainsworth

The Miser's Daughter is a novel by William Harrison Ainsworth serially published in 1842. It is a historical romance that describes a young man pursuing the daughter of a miserly rich man during the 18th century. Ainsworth wrote The Miser's Daughter in 1842 while he was writing Windsor Castle. During this time, he was constantly working and stopped only when his mother, Ann Ainsworth, died on 15 March 1842. It was published in a serialised form in the Ainsworth's Magazine with some overlap with Windsor Castle. George Cruikshank served as illustrator. The work was later published in novel format, but it did not include all of the illustrations used in the magazine. A play version was put on by Edward Stirling at Adelphia in October 1842. Another version was produced by T. P. Taylor in November 1842 at the City of London Theatre. In April 1872, a version of The Miser's Daughter, called Hilda, was produced for the Adelphi Theatre by Andrew Halliday. This prompted Cruikshank, on 6 April 1872, to write a letter to The Times about the theatrical production. In the letter, Cruikshank was upset that his name was left out of credits for the play and claimed that the idea for the novel came from himself and not from Ainsworth. This provoked a controversy between the two.