The Last Romantic: The Authorised Biography of Sir John Martin-Harvey

This biography presents a portrait of the "last romantic" and one of the last of the great English actor-managers. A chance visit to a London theatre while he was apprenticed in his father's shipwright business persuaded Harvey to train as an actor. He joined Irving's Lyceum Theatre in 1882 and stayed for fourteen years. After a period as a freelance actor, he ventured into management in February 1899 with The Only Way, an adaptation of Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities that proved a phenomenal success, registering over 5000 performances over forty years and guaranteeing Harvey's financial security. During his career he managed the Lyceum, the Prince of Wales's, the Court, the Royalty, and the Apollo theaters, and Covent Garden. Although costumed romance and melodrama were the bedrock of Harvey's repertoire, one of his finest performances was in 1912 as the protagonist in Max Reinhardt's London production of Oedipus Rex, and he frequently produced Shakespeare, including Hamlet (1904), Richard III (1910), and The Taming of the Shrew (1913). An early supporter of a scheme for establishment of a national theatre, he was knighted in 1921.