William E. Burton: Actor, Author, and Manager

Keese, William L. (William Linn), 1835-1904Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.4

Word count: 228K words
Chapters: 23

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.William E. Burton: Actor, Author, and Manager by William L. KeeseAuthor: Keese, William L. (William Linn), 1835-1904,Language: English, Class: PN: Language and Literatures: Literature: General, Criticism, Collections, Release Date: Oct 11, 2013

Editor's review

This is a biographical work about William E. Burton, a figure of the nineteenth-century Anglo-American stage. The author, William L. Keese, was himself familiar with literary and theatrical sources, and the writing has the solid feel of Victorian biography. The book's value lies not in manufactured dramatic suspense but in placing a multifaceted figure—actor, author, and theatre manager—back into the professional ecology of his time: how performance management, playwriting, and actor management affected one another, giving readers an outline of how the nineteenth-century theatre operated. For readers studying performance history, publishing history, or Anglo-American cultural exchange, it offers personal threads and a period portrait. The narrative relies mainly on chronological accounts and quotations, with a plain, steady pace; it suits reading as historical material rather than as a leisure biography. Readers may track Burton's three identities separately and note how the author evaluates his managerial decisions and literary attempts, which makes the book's structure easier to grasp. As a public-domain e-book, it suits readers willing to work patiently through original English biographical material.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers and researchers of nineteenth-century Anglo-American theatre history
Those interested in actor biography and theatre management
Readers with good English reading ability who enjoy source-based biography
Advanced students studying English materials on literature and performance

Not a good fit for

General readers expecting light, entertaining celebrity stories
Beginners with weak English who need a Chinese guide
Readers interested only in contemporary theatre and not in historical background

Reading tips

Take reading notes along three separate threads: actor, author, manager
When reading chapters on performance and management, consult a theatre-history timeline for context
Do not read every quotation closely; first grasp the main line of the subject's life, then return to details
After finishing, summarize in one paragraph Burton's multiple identities and their significance for his era

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Who is the subject of this book?

The subject is William E. Burton, described in the materials as combining the roles of actor, author, and theatre manager. The book presents a biographical narrative centered on these experiences.

Who is the author, Keese?

The materials identify the author only as William L. Keese (1835–1904); no further biographical information is provided. What is certain is that the book belongs to literary and theatrical historical material.

Is this book a scholarly monograph?

From the materials, it is a source-based biographical work, classified under general literature and criticism. Whether it follows a strict scholarly format is not stated; readers may treat it as historical biographical material.

Do I need a background in theatre history to read this book?

Some knowledge of the nineteenth-century theatre helps but is not essential. It is advisable to learn first about performance systems and theatre management of the period; the subject's choices will then be easier to follow.

Comments

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About the author

Keese, William L. (William Linn), 1835-1904 Author · 1835–1904

William L. Keese (1835–1904) is the author of William E. Burton: Actor, Author, and Manager. Public information about his life is limited, and his nationality, profession, and educational background cannot be reliably confirmed; only this one work is held in the collection. Judging from the available material, the book focuses on the life and career of William E. Burton, a nineteenth-century American actor, author, and theatre manager. It belongs to the genre of biography, combining historical documentation with personal commentary. Such works generally require the author to be familiar with theatre history and its sources, and are written mainly as narrative accounts of a life and professional career. Keese's book can therefore serve as a reference for understanding Burton and the theatrical environment of his time, and it reflects the biographer's attention to the details of a theatre figure's life.