[BOOTH, John Wilkes (1838-1865)]. A broadside playbill for Booth's performance in the title role of Macbeth at the Howard Athenæum. Boston, 7 October 1863.

18 1/2 x 6 1/4 in. printed broadside. (Minor creases.)

"I MUST FIGHT THE COURSE."

One of the most famous of Shakespeare's plays, Macbeth was a particular favorite of Junius Brutus Booth, Sr., who performed the role on multiple occasions in both England and in the United States. John Wilkes is known to have played the Scottish king as well, notably during his second engagement at the New Gayety Theatre in Albany, New York, in March 1861, and a very small handful of times after, having likely decided that he preferred more dramatic and athletic roles.

Macbeth was also one of Abraham Lincoln's favorite plays. On 9 April 1865 President Lincoln journeyed back to Washington from his tour of the former Confederate capital of Richmond aboard the River Queen, accompanied by his son Tad, Senator Charles Sumner (a distant relation of a former girlfriend of Booth's, Isabel), and a young Frenchman by the name of Marquis de Chambrun, who would later recall that during this journey President Lincoln took out a handsomely bound quarto volume of Shakespeare's plays: “Mr. Lincoln read to us for several hours passages taken from Shakespeare. Most of these were from Macbeth, and in particular, the verses that follow Duncan’s assassination. I cannot recall this reading without being awed at the remembrance, when Macbeth became king after the murder of Duncan, he fell a prey to the most horrible torments of mind... Lincoln paused here while reading and began to explain to us how true a description of the murderer that one was, when, the dark deed achieved, its tortured perpetrator came to envy the sleep of his victim; and he read over again the same scene."

In the role of the 3rd Witch during this performance was Harry Hawk, who on 14 April 1865 played the role of Asa Trenchard in Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre. At the moment John Wilkes Booth crept into the presidential box, Hawk was the only actor left onstage, his voice the last to be heard by President Lincoln before Booth fired a single shot into the back of the president's head.

While on the run for two weeks, Booth would write sporadically in a small date book he kept with him. His last entry included a quote from Act 5, scene 7 of Macbeth: "...but 'I must fight the course'." Five days later, Booth would be shot and killed by federal troops at Garrett's farm in Caroline County, Virginia.

This lot is located in Chicago.

[BOOTH, John Wilkes (1838-1865)]. A broadside playbill for Booth's performance in the title role of Macbeth at the Howard Athenæum. Boston, 7 October 1863.