Ira Aldridge's Early Years, 1807-1833 is a detailed, carefully-researched biography of this black classical actor covering the first forty-five years of his life (1807-1852), when he rose from
an impoverished childhood in New York City to a successful career as one of the most celebrated thespians on the British stage. Aldridge played upon low audience expectations by billing himself
Ira Aldridge's Early Years, 1807-1833 is a detailed, carefully-researched biography of this black classical actor covering the first forty-five years of his life (1807-1852), when he rose from
an impoverished childhood in New York City to a successful career as one of the most celebrated thespians on the British stage. Aldridge played upon low audience expectations by billing himself
grandiloquently as the "African Roscius," and performing under the pseudonym of Mr. Keene, a homonym calling up an image of Edmund Kean, England's most famous Shakespearean actor. He gradually
gained a reputation under his own name throughout the United Kingdom, attracting large crowds and winning accolades not only as an interpreter of black roles but also eventually as an actor of
classic white Shakespearean parts-Shylock, Macbeth, Richard III, even Iago. In dealing with Aldridge's emergence as a professional actor in the United Kingdom, Lindfors here records in detail
the ups and downs of his itinerant existence in a world where no theatergoer had ever seen anyone like him on stage before. Aldridge was genuinely a unique phenomenon in Britain at a pivotal
point in history. Bernth Lindfors is professor emeritus of English and African Literatures, University of Texas at Austin, and editor of Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius (University of
Rochester Press, 2007).
