A Strange Eventful History

Henry Irving - a merchant's clerk who became the savior of British theater - and Ellen Terry, who made her first theater appearance as soon as she could walk, were the king and queen of the Victorian stage. Creatively interdependent, they founded a power-house of arts at the Lyceum Theater, with Bram Stoker as business manager, where they recast Shakespeare's plays on an epic scale and took the company on lucrative and exhilarating international tours. In his masterly new biography, award-winning writer Michael Holroyd explores their public and private lives, showing how their artistic legacy and their brilliant but troubled children came to influence the modern world.

ISBN 0099497182   Pages 640 ISBN13 9780099497189 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 732 Publisher Vintage   Published in London Imprint Vintage   Height (mm) 214 Format Paperback   Width (mm) 135 Publication date 03 Sep 2009   Spine width (mm) 48 DEWEY 792.0280922   Academic level General DEWEY edition DC22

This is a fabulous cavalcade of a book, written with infectious verve and deep imaginative sympathy ... a joy to read Sunday Times He writes with eloquence and clarity, sketching the broader context with a light but firm touch and incidentally providing a literary masterclass in the marshalling and sifting of detail Literary Review '[Holroyd's] own uncanny powers of balance, perception and penetration [appear] in a multiple biography that somehow recaptures an ephemeral imaginative reality more intense to its subjects and their public than life itself Observer Holroyd has a wonderful eye for detail...an entirely captivating biography...one of the glories of the form Guardian Magnificent - not just as a fascinating exercise in group biography, but as a masterpiece of comic writing...such joie de vivre New Statesman It has all the tumbling narrative, spicy detail and easy empathy that determine his midas touch... shows Holroyd yet again pushing the biographer's art to new imaginative planes Financial Times Through a rapidly evolving, scene-changing narrative, presented with a range of eye-catching effects Holroyd evokes the mysterious world of the Victorian and Edwardian theatre, the hiss of the gas footlights, the coloured lights and smoke, with all the attention to detail of the star-struck fan seated in the front stalls Independent on Sunday All theatre enthusiasts are indebted to Henry Irving and Ellen Terry: and now also to Michael Holroyd for bringing their families back to dazzling life Holroyd's sweeping biography...proceeds at a furious pace, and, in less expert hands, the detail packed onto the page might bewilder; instead, the effect is of an epic, perfectly balanced by intimacies of setting and character. The New Yorker

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