Joseph O'Connor

Shadowplay Joseph O'Connor

When Henry Irving decides to open the Lyceum, his own London theater, with the goal of making it the greatest playhouse on earth, he hires a young Dublin clerk harboring literary ambitions by the name of Abraham Stoker as his assistant. Together, Irving and Stoker fall under the spell of Ellen Terry, a dazzlingly talented Shakespearean actress, known to all as a proto-feminist, and the lives of all three become intertwined with the Lyceum and each other. Set in the late-Victorian world of the London theater, Shadowplay tells the story of these extraordinary artists: the first superstar thespian--a showman extraordinaire whose impact on popular entertainment invites comparisons to PT Barnum--the era's greatest Shakespearian actor, and the young man who would go on to write the most iconic and bestselling horror novel of all time.