Violent Fans--of Shakespeare!

Nigel Cliff,
taken from his website

I'm now reading a book by Nigel Cliff entitled The Shakespeare Riots, which chronicles events of the mid-nineteenth century focusing on the rivalry between England and U.S. with respect to the world of the theater and its Shakespearean actors. While such a fight might seem intellectual and pretty tame, it was actually quite physical with real anger and outrage bubbling into terrible riots where people were injured and even killed. Who knew such things occurred? It's a fascinating story.

I'm half-way through the book now and the writer is still setting up the background of this particular conflict. I guess he thought it was necessary since it's a pretty unbelievable story on the face of it. I'm learning a lot about the 19th century, in both England and the United States, that makes me appreciate the fullness of the era more than I ever have before. In fact, it has always been my least favorite century, but now I want to read more about it.

Reading about Nigel Cliff (click on link above), I see he's quite smart and talented. He certainly is a good writer. I'm enjoying the book so far, and there's apparently a movie based on it that will be coming out sometime in the future. I'm looking forward to that.