Description:


John Wilkes Booth & Edwin Booth Playbills, Both in Stunning Displays

 

A pair of original playbills, both in a spectacular framed display:

 

  1. John Wilkes Booth playbill, 5" x 13" (sight), matted in a faux green suede mat, framed and glazed with 4 modern black and white portrait prints of him. Completed display size of 28.5" x 22.5". Minor wrinkles to playbill, not examined outside of frame.

 

 

A fantastic playbill for "J. Wilkes Booth," during his period as an actor, and before his later notorious status as an assassin. Here John Wilkes appears in Apostate on Wednesday, January 21st, 1863 at the Boston Museum. The following night he would appear in "Money" (by Bulwer). The handbill warns/advertises: "Densely Crowded Houses! Composed of the Fashion and Intelligence of Boston."

 

 

  1. Edwin Booth playbill, 4.5" x 13" (sight), matted in a faux green suede mat, framed and glazed with 4 modern black and white portrait prints of him. Completed display size of 28.5" x 22.5". Minor wrinkles to playbill, not examined outside of frame.

 

 

Playbill for Edwin Booth in Othello, Saturday, September 22 through September 29, 1860 at the Howard Athenaeum. On September 24, he was to appear in "Fool's Revenge."

 

The Booth family excelled at acting having been steered to this profession by their father, a brilliant but mentally unstable actor whose best known roles were in Shakespearean tragedies. Although Edwin, became the most famous actor, John Wilkes Booth performed extensively on stage and at one point the three brothers even had one performance together for Julius Caesar.

Edwin Booth may have been the most "famous" of the Booth brothers for acting, but in the end it would be John Wilkes Booth whose fame would surpass that of his brother Edwin, when he transitioned from an actor to an assassin. The lives of all the Booth brothers would change forever on that fateful night, when on April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth entered the Presidential Box at Ford's theater and fired a single shot into the back of Lincoln’s head. The news of the assassination shocked and devastated the Booth family, changing it forever. Many received death threats. Family members and friends were questioned. Junius Booth Jr. was performing in a play in Cincinnati and was arrested. In Philadelphia, Asia Booth Clarke was questioned and placed under surveillance for a time. Asia’s husband John Clarke, who was himself an actor (and had gotten in arguments with John Wilkes over the war in the past), was arrested. In 1868, Asia and John Clarke moved to England; Asia never returned to the U.S. Edwin Booth, who was questioned by Federal authorities but not arrested, thought his career was over. He quit acting until friends convinced him to come back. On January 3, 1866, Edwin again took to the stage at the Winter Garden Theatre as Hamlet. It was a nervous time for the actor; police were on hand due to rumored death threats, and Booth had no idea how the public would react. But as he stepped onto the stage for the first time since the assassination, the crowd rose to its feet and gave him a tremendous ovation.

A superb set of matching displays. Presents beautifully.

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December 5, 2018 10:30 AM EST
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