The Maniac Father (poster)

The Bower Saloon was a low London tavern theatre in Stangate which specialised in the 1850s in "dog-drama," a melodrama in which a pair of trained dogs aided the hero, hunted down and sometimes killed the villain. The theatre was built in 1838 and ceased to operate in 1879. It was located not far from the Royal Victoria (Old Vic). The interesting scene descriptions are perfectly accurate. The Maniac Father was an adaptation of W. T. Moncrieff's The Lear of Private Life, itself adapted from a novel by Amelia Opie, Father and Daughter (1801).