The Shakespeare Riots: Revenge, Drama, and Death in Nineteenth-Century America
by Nigel CliffSign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of this book.
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 57)
Without NPR I'm nothing. I swear.
There was a discussion of this book with the author one morning, and the idea caught me. With passions still running high after our break from British rule in the late 1700's, two friendly (and illustrious) Shakespearean actors put their friendship aside and fought with each other, publicly and onstage, with such ill consequence that it led to a riot in front of the theater at which one was performing. The personalities were interesting, the circumstance del...more
There was a discussion of this book with the author one morning, and the idea caught me. With passions still running high after our break from British rule in the late 1700's, two friendly (and illustrious) Shakespearean actors put their friendship aside and fought with each other, publicly and onstage, with such ill consequence that it led to a riot in front of the theater at which one was performing. The personalities were interesting, the circumstance del...more
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Read in March, 2008
The theatre was once patronized by the masses, not the elite. Things got pretty exciting sometimes.
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Read in August, 2008
I found the book a little hard to read, but this book covers a period of time and a portion of society I knew nothing about. With the current demands on your time of the Internet, iPods, TV, Movies, etc, it is interesting to read about a time when going to plays was commonplace for people and actors could lead to an all out riot. From today's current elitizing of Shakespeare and academic forcitude of school, I never realized just how much of an impact Shakespeare had on all of society.
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Read in August, 2008
This book has revived my interest in the history of Five Points (ala The Gangs of New York) in 19th Century Manhattan. Here's three books on that subject to be considered:
Five Points, by Tyler Anbinder;
The Gangs of New York, by Herbert Asbury; and
The Five Points, by Rocco Dormarunno
Five Points, by Tyler Anbinder;
The Gangs of New York, by Herbert Asbury; and
The Five Points, by Rocco Dormarunno
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good fun--reading it with educational lens--lots of cool interdisciplinary stuff in there for U.S. history and Shakespeare. Frontier men reciting Shakespeare round the fire at night, etc.
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I wrote about wanting to read this book (after reading an article on it) in my LiveJournal (with link to the article).
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recommended to Joanne by:
NPR
Heard about on NPR - sounds interesting
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