Stage, Page, Scandals, and Vandals

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In this first modern book-length biography of native Englander William E. Burton, theatre historian David L. Rinear explores Burton's diary, letters, published reviews, and various reminiscences to reveal the tumultuous personal and professional lives of the mid-nineteenth-century actor/manager and his role in American literary history. "Stage, Page, Scandals, and Vandals: William E. Burton and Nineteenth-Century American Theatre also provides insight into the cultural and artistic climate of an early period in American history when the country was still forming a national identity. Burton fled England in 1834 and came to America in the wake of a public scandal caused by his marriage to a sixteen-year-old orphan. Burton was then already married with a ten-year-old son. Settling in Philadelphia, the thirty-two-year-old actor rapidly established himself in the city's theatrical productions and quickly became an audience favorite. He founded and edited "The Gentleman's Magazine, a monthly literary publication later called "Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, which was coedited by Edgar Allen Poe. Burton sold the journal in 1841 and used the money to build a new theatre, which he managed, although the depression of the early 1840s soon drove his venture out of business. After declaring bankruptcy the following year, Burton worked as a touring actor before returning to theatre management in 1845, and then spent thirteen years managing theatres in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York. Burton's work as a producer of Shakespearean comedies and romances marks him as the first of the intellectual theatre managers to raise the theatrical experience from mere popular culture to high art. Shrewd in hispersonal affairs and in business, Burton also had a violent temper, which led him to viciously attack his competitors. His peculiar domestic relationships marred his brilliant career as an actor, manager, and man of letters, he may have been married to three women at once a