New Edwin Booth Bio from Daniel J. Watermeier

[Carolyn Mitchell]

I was just informed that a new book on the life of Edwin Booth by Daniel J. Watermeier will be out sometime in December.



Pre-order your copy now thru Amazon http://ow.ly/z8Qjb or thru the University of Missouri Press http://ow.ly/z8Qmt

American Tragedian: The Life of Edwin Booth
by Daniel J. Watermeier
.........................................................
“After a lifetime of work, Daniel Watermeier has produced what will
soon emerge as the foremost biography of Edwin Booth; the one that scholars will read first when pursuing the wily Booths.” —Dr. Stephen M. Archer, University of Missouri
........................................................

When John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, his older brother Edwin was devastated. A leading stage star, Edwin Booth thought his career had ended. But with the support of countless theatergoers, over the next thirty years Booth would overcome the shadow of John Wilkes’s infamy and steadily advance a reputation as America’s greatest-ever Shakespearean actor, the American tragedian par excellence.

Daniel J. Watermeier has, through decades of tireless research paired with his own sharp insight, put together the most complete Edwin Booth biography to date. Drawing on a wealth of archival materials and contemporary theatrical scholarship, American Tragedian: The Life of Edwin Booth gives more attention than previous biographies to Booth’s apprentice and journeyman years; his rise in antebellum America to stardom with a new, acclaimed style of acting; his work as an innovative theater builder and theatrical producer; his several foreign
tours; and his nationwide tours in the late 1880s. It also addresses Booth’s critical reception in dozens of cities in America and abroad and situates his professional activities within the events and trends of the time.

As interesting as it is informative, Watermeier’s book offers an in-depth look at the triumphal career and tumultuous life of one of the American stage’s most celebrated figures.

Daniel J. Watermeier is the author of numerous articles and books on Booth and American theater and drama, including Edwin Booth’s Performances and The History of North American Theater (with Felicia Hardison Londré.) In 2003 he was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Theatre for his contributions to the history of the American stage.

December
480 pages, 6 x 9, 25 illustrations, index
ISBN 978-0-8262-2048-6, $55.00s cloth
eISBN 978-0-8262-7341-3

[L Verge]

So glad to hear that this biography has come to fruition. I have been kept informed of it for years via Terry Alford, whose own biography on John Wilkes Booth should be released this fall also.