At the Grolier Club last week, Texas A&M University professor Steven Escar Smith spoke about two New York theatrical figures, Williams Evan Burton and Edwin Forrest, who both collected Shakespeare. During the early 19th century, serious American bibliophiles collected Shakespeare more prominently than any other author, Mr. Smith said. The bard was iconic: P.T. Barnum, he said, even tried to buy Shakespeare’s family home in 1847 and bring it to America.

Mr. Smith said Forrest and Burton were self-made men who built collections “to entertain and educate themselves and others as well as to mark their status as gentlemen of consequence and influence.”

Mr. Smith described how fans of Forrest, arguably the most important Shakespearean actor of the 1800s, gathered outside the Astor Place Theater in 1849 at the last performance of English actor and rival William Macready’s tour. Tension rose in the crowd and New York’s seventh militia killed 23 people that night, in what is now popularly known as the Astor Place Riot. “Who says Americans don’t care about serious drama?” Mr. Smith asked to audience laughter. Although he was not charged or directly inculpated, the incident left a blot on Forrest’s reputation, Mr. Smith said.

Burton, the owner of the Chambers Street Theatre, did not treat his rivals well, either. Mr. Smith said Burton was not above opening a performance of a play 24 hours before that same play debuted at a rival theater in order to hurt the other’s box office.

Forrest and Burton also both had marriage troubles. Forrest claimed his wife was adulterous and pursued a divorce appeal for 18 years. But just before the couple officially separated, Forrest gave her a volume of Shakespeare inscribed: “Mrs. Edwin Forrest from Edwin Forrest, 27th April 1849.” He also presented her with a portrait of himself that was 4 feet high and 4 feet wide.

Burton’s domestic life was complicated, and his library was sold after his death to provide his family with money. As Mr. Smith explained, “Unfortunately, he married the second Mrs. Burton without divorcing the first, and appears to have committed himself to the third without dissolving his union to the second.” There was enough potential trouble that the date and place of Burton’s funeral purposely was misprinted in the newspapers to avoid a public scene. Still, Mr. Smith said, one broke out anyway and police had to intervene to disperse the crowd.

Interestingly, both Forrest and Burton lived at various times in New York and Philadelphia. The London-born Burton immigrated to America in 1834, living first in Philadelphia before moving to New York in 1850.

Between 1839 and 1850, Forrest lived in New York, where he had his library on West 22nd Street. He built Fonthill Castle, named for eccentric British author William Beckford’s Fonthill Abbey, in Riverdale. In laying the cornerstone to the building, Mr. Smith said, Forrest set into it a few coins and a volume of Shakespeare. After Forrest’s divorce, the College of Mount St. Vincent bought the Fonthill Castle and used it as its own library for many years. Forrest moved to Philadelphia in 1855, and the library he built there had a special stand for his Shakespeare Folio, published in 1623.

Mr. Smith also pointed out differences between Burton and Forrest. For example, Burton was a better scholar and had a larger book collection. Besides owning a theater, he started the Gentleman’s Magazine, which Edgar Allan Poe edited. Forrest, on the other hand, was so demanding of himself that he was said to be satisfied with only one of his “King Lear” performances over a stretch of 40 years.

To contain his growing library and art collection, Burton renovated a three-story building behind his house on Hudson Street and bridged the two with a glass roof. He later purchased an estate in Glen Cove, Long Island. The sale of Burton’s book collection in 1860 greatly enhanced Forrest’s collection, for it was there that Forrest acquired four Shakespeare folios.

Forrest outlined in his will that his library be “precisely” preserved at a home endowed for indigent actors. The Edwin Forrest Home for Decayed Actors opened in Philadelphia in 1876 but eventually closed its doors in 1987. An unknown number of books were sold when the place closed, and approximately 3,000 were transferred to the University of Pennsylvania.

***

What is theater’s relationship to the printed book? Columbia English and comparative literature professor Julie Stone Peters explored this topic at the 12th annual book arts lecture hosted by Columbia’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

After the talk, the audience descended the steps of Low Library and headed across the courtyard to Butler Library to view an exhibition on “The Brander Matthews Dramatic Museum at Columbia University.”