An interesting collection of ephemera relating to Sir Henry ...

Hammer

£85

An interesting collection of ephemera relating to Sir Henry Irving (1838-1905) to include a collection of theatre programmes from The Royal Lyceum Theatre
1890 Ravenswood; 1891 Much Ado About Nothing and The Corsican Brothers; 1892 King Henry VIII; 1893 King Lear and Becket; 1894 Faust; 1896 (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) The Merchant of Venice, with Ellen Terry (1847-1928)
Two biographical volumes by Austin Brereton (1883 and 1903).
Irving (born Brodribb) was raised by an aunt in Cornwall before discovering the theatre in his teens. He began acting in the late 1850s/early 1860s but his career took off in 1871 following his performance in The Bells at the Lyceum in London, the theatre he took over in 1878. He married briefly in 1869, fathering two sons but found creative (and possibly romantic) union with Ellen Terry, a leading actress of her era. He was knighted in 1895, the first ever actor to receive such recognition, and in 1905, suffering a stroke just after quitting the stage a Becket, he died aged 67. He was the first person to be cremated before interment in Westminster Abbey.
Further newspaper cuttings relating to the Irving family, other theatrical history and correspondence between a Miss Sutherland and M Barry, stage door keeper at the Lyceum.
This collection of ephemera includes further theatre programmes and musical scores, together with an 1874 apprenticeship indenture (Margerrison and Oliver)