In July 1880, Raymond took the good Colonel for a cruise across the Atlantic for an engagement at the London GAIETY THEATRE. However, success did not follow the Colonel to England. In fact, the play's failure tended to fan the fire of the Clemens-Raymond feud. The following excerpt from the July 25th London Sunday Times summarizes the critical reception of Colonel Sellers
. . . we continue to express our regrets that America, while she does so much for us in histrionic [acting] respects, does so little for us in dramatic. The plays of home manufacture, in which successive Americans have appeared have been of the flimsiest description and of the least possible value. When the announcement was made that Mr. John T. Raymond was about to appear in a drama by Mark Twain, some pleasant anticipations were, of course, inspired. Among American humorists Mark Twain stands pleasantly conspicuous, and his descent into the dramatic arena might be regarded as holding out promise of better and brighter days. So far as these hopes are concerned we are sorry to state that the result is failure. The merit of Colonel Sellers is almost exclusively due to the actor, and the author's share in the triumph seems confined to supplying an outline which Mr. Raymond has filled up. As a play Colonel Sellers is pitiable. All weight which attaches to the name of its author and all the interest inspired in Mr. Raymond were necessary to save it from absolute condemnation. Had the piece, indeed, been of English workmanship, or had the principal character been supported by an Englishman, the whole would have ended in failure. It must be taken as a proof of our politeness to strangers that a performance was allowed to go to the end which at an early point commenced to inspire weariness and at a later provoked derision.
In Colonel Sellers Mark Twain has produced not a drama with interludes of farce such as many works belong[ing] to the romantic school, but a farce with interludes of drama, or perhaps, it might be said, a melodrama farcical in treatment. . .The Times critic apparently was in wont of English or European dramatic form which, to be sure, is lacking in Colonel Sellers. Another sticking point for the English critic was the character of Laura Hawkins, who is, in actuality, the central dramatic character of the piece. She is a strong, ambitious, willful woman, born of the American frontier. In Act II of Colonel Sellers, she voices her desires to her adopted sister, Emily. She says that she want to go "out into that great mysterious world I dream of, where there is action! Action! I want to do something. I want to be something. I won't be a silly, trashy, village inanity, to simper my useless life out and then pass away like the weeds—only enriching the earth by becoming a part of it." It is Laura's character, as much as her beauty, that beguiles the men inhabiting the play's landscape.
Laura Hawkins' personality traits might have been much admired in the Colonies, but not so in England:
. . . As Laura Hawkins Miss [Katherine] Rogers had to play one of the most disagreeable parts ever undertaken by a woman. That she could not succeed was a foregone conclusion. So unsympathetic a part has seldom been handed to a woman.
