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LIFE AND ART OF EDWIN BOOTH BY WILLIAM WINTER Hes gone, and with him what a world are dead MACMILLAN AND CO. AND LONDON 1893 All rigJtts reserved COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY MACMILLAN AND CO. Set up and clcctiotypcd October, 1893. Reprinted, Novembti, 1893. J. S, Gushing Co Berwick Smith. Boston, Mass., U. S. A. EDWIN BOOTH. IEMEMBERING OLD AND HAPPY TIMES I DEDICATE THIS MEMORIAL OF OUR FRIEND AND COMRADE iEotaut 3500ft FOREVER LOVED AND HONOURED AND FOREVER MOURNED There is a wo Iti elsewhere UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIVERSITY PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA 15213 PREFACE. In writing this memoir of Edwin Booth I have largely expanded my sketch of him that ivas published in 1872, in association with portraits by William J. Hen nessey, under the title of Edivin Booth in Twelve Dramatic Characters That sketchy brief and meagre and now superseded, has long been out of priiit, and it is inaccessible. I have also drawn upon scattered essays of mine, in the Ne v York Tribune since 1865, and in other publications. This biography rests npon intimate personal knowledge of the subject, and upon information furnished to me by Booth himself He zvas aware that I intended to write his Life, and he expressed approval of that intention for he knew that I honoured and loved him that I had folloived his career with sympathy and studious attention, ever since his return from California, in 1856, and that I was acquainted vvith it, and with his vi civs and feelings respecting it The story is that of a dreamer, who, nevertheless, threw himself into the strife of action a simple gentleman, vho was often perplexed and beivildcrcd, among the thorns and dangers of this world The chief ptib lie work of Boot ft slife t was his effort to establish a great theatre, to be conducted in a high and liberal spirit, and to be devoted to all that is grand and fine in dramatic literature and art. In what manner that work was done, and for what reasons it ended in adversity, this narrative could not omit to declare, VU1 PREFACE even though the record contains some censure of persons no longer alive. The duty of the historian is to write the truth, and it is no fault of his if the truth be sometimes unpleasant Upon Booths art and influence as an actor, and upon his clutracter and conduct, I have endeavoured to cast ample light. His importance to the world is the justification of his biography. The commemorative words that it was my privilege to write, in the Tribune, on the morning after his death, will perhaps best express at once the reason for this book, and the conviction ami feeling with which it has been wntten A bloiv that has long been expected has at last fallen, and Edwin Booth is dead. By this death the community loses the foremost and the best of American actors, and one of the greatest tragedians that have ever lived To the sufferer himself the end came as a merciful release from misery Booths illness, obviously from the first, was of a fatal character, and the wasting pain with which it was accompanied not only could not be cured but could scarcely be mitigated...

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