[1][2][3] Peggy and her sisters Josephine, Rosalind and Lucy were precocious at performing amateur theatricals in London, and gained the acquaintance of actress Ellen Terry, and authors Lewis Carroll and John Ruskin.
After touring in repertory with Dracula for two years, and some revisions by Webling, it opened in London in February 1930, where it played 72 performances.
[12] The Times of London wrote, "Miss Webling, translating into terms of the theatre Mary Shelley's one lasting and original composition, has unquestionably succeeded in bringing the monster to life; but the play in which she exhibits this wild beast is as flimsy as a bird cage."
In April 1931, Universal Pictures bought the film rights to an unproduced American adaptation of Webling's play by John L. Balderston (who had similarly adapted Deane's Dracula for the New York stage), and gave Webling and Balderston $20,000 plus one per cent of the gross earnings on all showings of any films based on their dramatic work.
[13] Balderston had a low regard for Webling's play, calling it "illiterate" and "inconceivably crude".