Mr Macready

Macready did more for the nineteenth-century stage than any other actor of his time, both for the contemporary drama and for many Shakespearean texts which have been mutilated and misinterpreted. In this complete biography, J. C. Trewin has set the tragedian against a turbulent theatrical background. Macready is shown as an exciting, complex character through whose life moved many major literary and artistic figures. Outside the theatre the "eminent tragedian" was an affectionate husband, a loved and generous friend. But in the theatre he was despotic, intolerant and snobbish.