A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and Their Remarkable Families

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.