Russell’s adulatory Irving as Hamlet concluded its description of Irving’s interpretation of the role: ‘To present this matchless figure worthily and vividly has been the highest ambition of every great actor, and that ambition Henry Irving has abundantly fulfilled … To Irving belongs the merit of snatching – with a hand feverish, perhaps, but sure – graces which were not, and can hardly become, in a stage sense, traditional. However, it was his performances of Hamlet at the Lyceum Theatre in London in 1874 under H.L. He first played Hamlet in 1864, at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, and was to do so regularly, as a member of various touring companies, in the next few years. He first gained recognition in the role of Digby Grant in the comedy The Two Roses, in 1870, and was rapturously acclaimed the following year when he played Mathias in the melodrama The Bells. Sir Henry Irving (1838-1905) whose career spanned four decades of the nineteenth century and the first five years of the twentieth was one of the greatest all English actors. 122, illustrated from an engraving, and with detail, catalogue no. Mark Bills, Edwin Longsden Long RA, London, 1998, p. Richard Quick, The Life and Works of Edwin Long, R.A., Bournemouth, 1931, pp.

Austin Brereton, Henry Irving – A Biographical Sketch, London 1883, in which a detail of the portrait is used as a frontispiece Īustin Chester, ‘The Art of Edwin Long, R.A.’, Windsor Magazine, February 1908, pp.

Edwin Longsden Long RA by Mark Bills