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Title	Stereoview Photo Card of Edwin Booth, ' Hamlet';
Date	n.d.
Date era	1850-1900
Creator	J. Gurney & Son
Production	Hamlet
Character roles	Edwin Booth (Hamlet)
Artistic roles	Edwin Booth (Actor)
Genre	Shakespeare tragedy
Theme	Dynasties Shakespeare
Places	New York (N.Y.)
Item description	Stereoview photo card of Edwin Booth (1833-1893) in the role of Hamlet. The card was produced by J. Gurney &; Son in New York and was copyrighted in 1870. The two almost identical pictures of Booth are mounted side by side on a thin yellow piece of cardboard.
Object narrative	Edwin Booth (1833-1893) was born Edwin Thomas Booth, the fourth son of prominent tragic actor, Junius Brutus Booth. He was named after another great tragic actor in Booth'; s circle, Edwin Forrest. The next son to be born to Booth would be John Wilkes. All his life Edwin had an observant, thoughtful, melancholy disposition (Winter, Biographical Sketch 9), according to William Winter, critic and biographer of the time. In 1846, Edwin'; s education came to a standstill as he was called upon to act as his father'; s companion while he was touring. The elder Booth was not capable of staying sober or taking care of himself while away from Edwin'; s mother; Edwin became a soothing and loyal chaperon to his father, and also gained his father'; s skill in playing great tragic roles. In 1849 at the age of sixteen, he first stepped on stage to relieve the stage manager of the role of Tressel in Richard III. He continued after this to play in other small and large roles alongside his father. In 1852, Junius Brutus Booth Sr. died and Edwin continued to perform in the Western states and even toured to Australia and Hawaii with Laura Keene, but his father'; s penchant for hard drinking and carousing rubbed off on him. Returning East in 1856, his experience building both farcical and tragic roles over the preceding years brought him almost immediate fame and recognition. He toured extensively and married Mary Devlin in 1860, a lady with whom he was very much in love, but his drinking strained not only their marriage but also his acting career on many occasions. Only her death in 1863 brought Edwin to the bottom of the pit and the end of his drinking addiction. He returned to the stage a changed man and created his now lasting portrayal of Hamlet for which he was most known. In late 1864, he began a one hundred night run of Hamlet, setting a record which would not be surpassed until 1922 when John Barrymore performed the role for 101 performances. He was considered to be the best Hamlet of the 19th century by many critics. On April 14, 1865, he had just finished a performance of Hamlet in Boston when word reached him that his brother, John Wilkes, also an actor, had shot President Lincoln in Ford'; s Theatre in Washington D.C. Edwin retired from the stage in mortification and grief, but returned in January 1866, reviving Hamlet and continuing his successful acting career despite the public suspicion and malice that had been leveled at him and his family the preceding year. This stereoview is of Booth in the role of Hamlet. It was produced by J. Gurney &; Son in New York and copyrighted in 1870. Stereoview images were created to be viewed through a stereo-opticon device and created a 3-D image for the viewer. The precursor to the Viewmaster toy of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, stereoviews were a popular entertainment for Victorian families, often taking turns looking through the device at their collections of stereoview cards of famous people and scenery.
Original format	Portrait photo
Repository	Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries (http://library.uncg.edu/info/depts/scua/)
Collection	MSS255 Robert C. Hansen Performing Arts Collection
Series	10.1.1 Photographs, Cards, Caricatures/Satire and Other Pictoral Materials -- Photographs -- People
Finding aid link	http://library.uncg.edu/info/depts/scua/collections/manuscripts/ead/mss255.xml
Preferred citation	[Identification of item], Robert C. Hansen Performing Arts Collection, 1753-2006 (MSS255), Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives and Manuscripts, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC, USA.
Copyright	http://libcdm1.uncg.edu/cdm/copyright
Object ID	MSS255_B88_012
Digital publisher	The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, University Libraries, PO Box 26170, Greensboro NC 27402-6170, 336.334.5304
Digital collection homepage	http://libcdm1.uncg.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/Hansen

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Stereoview Photo Card of Edwin Booth, 'Hamlet'

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