Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving

An engaging 1906 two-volume tribute to the most famous actor-manager of the nineteenth century by his closest friend and business manager.

Bram Stoker (Author)

9781108057448, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 February 2013

434 pages, 18 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.63 kg

The greatest actor of his day, Sir Henry Irving (1838–1905) thrilled audiences with his tragedy and melodrama, his Hamlet and Richard III, most famously at the Lyceum Theatre in London. Born John Henry Brodribb, he took the name Irving for his first professional stage appearance in 1856. A long and exhausting apprenticeship followed, during which he played some 700 roles in theatres up and down the country before establishing his reputation in 1871 in the psychological thriller The Bells. In 1878, he took over the Lyceum and here, with his business manager Bram Stoker (1847–1912) and actress Ellen Terry (rumoured to be his mistress), he became the theatrical icon of his age. This engaging two-volume tribute by Stoker, his closest friend, was first published in 1906. Volume 2 includes a fascinating account of Irving's acting techniques and his receipt of a knighthood - the first actor to be thus honoured.

43. Irving's philosophy of his art
44. The Right Hon. William Ewart Gladstone
45. The earl of Beaconsfield
46. Sir William Pearce, Bart.
47. Stepniak
48. E. Onslow Ford, R.A.
49. Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema, R.A.
50. Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Bart.
51. Edwin A. Abbey, R.A.
52. J. Bernard Partridge
53. Robert Browning
54. Walt Whitman
55. James Whitcomb Riley
56. Ernest Renan
57. Hall Caine
58. Irving and dramatists
59. Musicians
60. Ludwig Barnay
61. Constant Coquelin
62. Sarah Bernhardt
63. Geneviève Ward
64. John Lawrence Toole
65. Ellen Terry
66. Fresh honours in Dublin
67. Performances at Sandringham and Windsor
68. Presidents of the United States
69. Knighthood
70. Henry Irving and universities
71. Adventures
72. Burning of the Lyceum storage
73. Finance
74. The turn of the tide
Index.

Subject Areas: Theatre studies [AN]