II. Shakespeare

"Poets wish either to serve or to delight / Or to speak what is both enjoyable and suitable for living." - Horace, Ars Poetica (trans. me)

_{William Shakespeare}

The Cast

John Wilkes Booth was from a family of actors. His father, Junius Brutus Booth was inspired to act by a production of Shakespeare's Othello, and he acted in plays such as Richard III and Hamlet. John Wilkes' brother Edwin went on to find immense success in acting, notably starring as Hamlet.^[1]

_{[1]For more on Edwin Booth's theatre career, see Erdman, Harley. “TWO BOOTHS AND A BARD: ‘JULIUS CAESAR’ AND NINETEENTH-CENTURY THEATRICAL IDEALS.” The Centennial Review, vol. 36, no. 3, 1992, pp. 517–29.}