Nora Titone

This book which posits sibling rivalry as an assassination motive, as well as "John Wilkes Booth and the Women Who Loved Him" which attributes syphlitic insanity, remind me that if authors accepted the simplest, most obvious explanation then they likely would never be published.

Even the existence of an inconsequential sibling rivalry struck me as specious. Edwin was the older brother and therefore bound to be more accomplished which sets a high threshold to prove resentment by a younger brother. The author ignores what is obvious from a cursory glance at the photographic record, namely that John was handsome and Edwin was not, a weighty determinative factor for career success as a leading man in the theatre. Nor does it appear that the brothers ever competed in auditions for the same role or even in the same play or theatre. And finally rivalry runs counter to the facts of the fraternal relationship.… (meer)

Abraham Lincoln’s assassination was only the culmination of a family rivalry that spanned decades in “My Thoughts Be Bloody,” a book about John Wilkes and Edwin Booth.

It’s fascinating to read a book about an event we all know and see coming, and to realize what a long road it took to get there. The assassination almost feels like an aside, the last great act in a family of actors used to taking the big stage.

The book starts with the paterfamilias, Junius Brutus Booth, the greatest British actor of his era, maybe the greatest actor period. He was an alcoholic who left behind a wife and children and set off for America, there finding a new love and fathering many children.

The family secret was they were all illegitimate, as his wasn’t actually married to his American “wife.”

Booth père left to tour Shakespeare, and had more affairs along the way. Eventually, one of the youngest children, Edwin, went with him to help keep him off the bottle and on point. Doing so, he absorbed the family talent – while little brother John Wilkes stayed home with mother.

Edwin eventually takes father’s place as the leader of the family and the talent, even as older brother Junius Jr. (called June) and John Wilkes tried their hand at acting. Short story, neither was as talented as their brother, and John in particular felt a rivalry that grew increasingly bitter.

The book covers many years in the Booth family story, with a full picture of the psychology and mentality of the players leading up to John’s puzzling affinity for the Rebel cause.

There are plenty of twists and turns here, all of them fascinating, and the family story is good enough without the end we know is coming – which only takes part of a chapter, at that.

Highly recommended.

See more of my reviews at Ralphsbooks.… (meer)

A group biography, dealing with two generations of the Booth family. They were very prominent in the American Theatre of the Nineteenth Century. Junius Brutus Booth was a rising actor in England but ran off to the USA with a flower girl and theatrical costumer leaving a wife and a son behind in London. He rose through the pack in the country he had chosen and soon, and for most of his life, was the most famous actor in the USA. Two of his sons struggled to become the most prominent Booth on the stage in their generation.
Edwin succeeded in the profession. John Wilkes became infamous for one act in a theatre. The book has many interesting details from the theatrical life of the time, and some of the peripheral subjects lead interesting lives as well. A very good piece of anecdotal history.… (meer)