WINNER: NOVEL OF THE YEAR, An Irish Post Book Awards
A Five Books Best Historical Fiction Book of 2020
Shadowplay by New York Times best-selling author, Joseph
O'Connor, is set during the golden age of West End theater in a London
shaken by the crimes of Jack the Ripper.
Henry Irving is Victorian London's most celebrated actor and theater
impresario. He has introduced groundbreaking ideas to the theater,
bringing to the stage performances that are spectacular, shocking, and
always entertaining. When Irving decides to open his own London theater
with the goal of making it the greatest playhouse on earth, he hires a
young Dublin clerk harboring literary ambitions by the name of Bram
Stoker to manage it. As Irving's theater grows in reputation and
financial solvency, he lures to his company of mummers the century's
most beloved actress, the dazzlingly talented leading lady Ellen Terry,
who nightly casts a spell not only on her audiences but also on Stoker
and Irving both.
Bram Stoker's extraordinary experiences at the Lyceum Theatre, his
early morning walks on the streets of a London terrorized by a serial
killer, his long, tempestuous relationship with Irving, and the
closeness he finds with Ellen Terry, inspire him to write DRACULA,
the most iconic and best-selling supernatural tale ever published.
A magnificent portrait both of lamp-lit London and of lives and loves
enacted on the stage, Shadowplay's rich prose, incomparable
storytelling, and vivid characters will linger in readers' hearts and
minds for many years.
"Funny, smart, tender, wise."--Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon
"Joseph O'Connor's magnificent novel does even more than fly, it
soars."--Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
FINALIST 2019 COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR,
FINALIST 2020 DALKEY LITERARY AWARD, 2020 WALTER SCOTT PRIZE
