Title	[Correspondence of Edwin Booth]
Date	1888-01-15
Creator	Booth, Edwin
Artistic roles	Edwin Booth (Actor)
Theme	Dynasties
Places	Philadelphia (P.A.)
Item description	Correspondence from American tragic actor Edwin Booth (1833-1893) to E. F. Thompson Esq. on January 15, 1888. The letter is written in ink on a thin piece of linen stationery.
Object narrative	Edwin Booth (1833-1893) was born Edwin Thomas Booth, the fourth son of prominent tragic actor, Junius Brutus Booth in Baltimore. 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. Important and known roles in his repertoire included Hamlet, Richard III, Sir Giles Overreach (A New Way to Pay Old Debts), Richelieu, Shylock, and Lear. 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. He would eventually open his own theatre in New York in 1869, which closed in 1883, leading him back to the touring life in his later years, which he detested because of the loneliness and harshness of travel methods. This letter was written by Booth five years before his death to E. F. Thompson, Esq. Booth was then on tour with Lawrence Barrett, another well-known tragedian, and their pairing created much excitement and full houses wherever they played. Additionally, the letter was penned eight days after the establishment of his dream of a first-class social club for actors and other eminent gentlemen of New York City so that nonprofessionals would come to know actors as artists and gentlemen...[it] would be 'a beacon to incite emulation in the poor player to lift himself to a higher social grade than the Bohemian level' (qtd. in Ruggles 334). The club was called The Players, and is still in operation presently, boasting such members as Al Pacino, Morgan Freeman, and Angela Lansbury. This doesn't really have anything to do with the letter, though! The letter reads: Balt. Jan. 15 '88 E. F. Thompson Esq. Dear Sir Thanks for the copy of your arrangement of A Midsummer Night's Dream and for your kindly expressions regarding myself. Truly Yours Edwin Booth Booth was a tragedian and never touched comedy once he was an established actor. It would have been an anomaly for him to perform in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.'
Type	Text
Original format	Correspondence
Original publisher	[Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified]
Language	en
Contributing institution	Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries
Source collection	MSS255 Robert C. Hansen Performing Arts Collection
Series/grouping	6.1: Correspondence and Autographs -- Correspondence
Box	79
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.
Rights statement	http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/
Additional rights information	NO COPYRIGHT - UNITED STATES. This item has been determined to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. The user is responsible for determing actual copyright status for any reuse of the material.
Object ID	MSS255.B79.025
Digital publisher	The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, University Libraries, PO Box 26170, Greensboro NC 27402-6170, 336.334.5304
OCLC number	872280846

[Correspondence of Edwin Booth]

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