Fortune's Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth

by Terry Alford

Overview

With a single shot from a pistol small enough to conceal in his hand, John Wilkes Booth catapulted into history on the night of April 14, 1865. The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln stunned a nation that was just emerging from the chaos and calamity of the Civil War, and the president's untimely death altered the trajectory of postwar history. But to those who knew Booth, the event was even more shocking--for no one could have imagined that this fantastically gifted actor and well-liked man could commit such an atrocity. In Fortune's Fool, Terry Alford provides the first comprehensive look at the life of an enigmatic figure whose life has been overshadowed by his final, infamous act. Tracing Booth's story from his uncertain childhood in Maryland, characterized by a difficult relationship with his famous actor father, to his successful acting career on stages across the country, Alford offers a nuanced picture of Booth as a public figure, performer, and deeply troubled man. Despite the fame and success that attended Booth's career--he was billed at one point as "the youngest star in the world"--he found himself consumed by the Confederate cause and the desire to help the South win its independence. Alford reveals the tormented path that led Booth to conclude, as the Confederacy collapsed in April 1865, that the only way to revive the South and punish the North for the war would be to murder Lincoln--whatever the cost to himself or others. The textured and compelling narrative gives new depth to the familiar events at Ford's Theatre and the aftermath that followed, culminating in Booth's capture and death at the hands of Union soldiers 150 years ago. Based on original research into government archives, historical libraries, and family records, Fortune's Fool offers the definitive portrait of John Wilkes Booth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190232559
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	03/17/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	700,591
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Terry Alford is Professor of History Emeritus at Northern Virginia Community College. He is the author of Prince Among Slaves, which was made into a PBS documentary in 2007.

Table of Contents

Introduction Chapter One: Bright Boy Absalom Chapter Two: The Muffin Chapter Three: Lions and Foxes Chapter Four: The Union as It Was Chapter Five: Shining in the Rough Chapter Six: Life's Fitful Fever Chapter Seven: Mischief, Thou Art Afoot Chapter Eight: The Fiery Furnace Chapter Nine: Come Weal or Woe Chapter Ten: This One Mad Act Chapter Eleven: Exit Booth Chapter Twelve: The Last Ditch Epilogue: A Green and Narrow Bed Acknowledgments Notes Notes on Sources Index

Editorial Reviews

"Alford has produced a deeply and exhaustively researched monograph that offers a complex portrait of Booth drawn from those who knew him or at least thought they knew him. At the same time, the book contains a wealth of anecdotes and amusing notes that simply make it a wonderfully written biography of one of the most notorious figures in American history."—Brian C. Miller, H-SAWH

"Terry Alford's superb biography of John Wilkes Booth succeeds on multiple levels. Certainly, Fortune's Fool fills a significant lacuna in our knowledge about Booth and his role in Lincoln's assassination....But Alford's biography does more than merely fill a gap by synthesizing information on Booth from a variety of heretofore underutilized sources, providing a fresh perspective on a puzzling and often misunderstood figure, and integrating seamlessly the story of one life into larger historiographic concerns about race, ideology, and sectionalism in Civil War America."—Scott C. Martin, Journal of the Early Republic

"Terry Alford's Fortune's Fool is a stunning achievement—it more than fills this decades-old lacuna Fortune's Fool is highly recommended to all audiences with an interest in Lincoln, the Civil War era, or biography in general It is difficult to imagine this not being the definitive biography of John Wilkes Booth for decades to come."—The North Carolina Historical Review

"As Alford's excellent book makes clear, Booth was a celebrity in his own right, and his high profile heightened the drama of the deed: imagine if Elvis Presley had assassinated President John F. Kennedy."—Foreign Affairs

"Fortune's Fool is so deeply researched and persuasively argued that it should stand as the standard portrait for years...Readers will know how this story ended, but Mr. Alford's recounting of Booth's flight and the Army's manhunt is a tour de force of sustained drama, never losing its breakneck pace and offering startling revelations."—Harold Holzer, The Wall Street Journal

"A vivid, gripping portrait of the charming, impetuous, and troubled Booth, whose ill-fated and ultimately murderous path often seems to strangely echo the doomed Shakespearean characters he played on stage."—Library Journal

"The 'first full-length biography' of Abraham Lincoln's assassin offers much nuance and complexity to the killer...Alford sifts through the more balanced, credible sources of those who knew Booth before the assassination to flesh out a surprisingly engaging portrait of the brilliant young actor and deeply riven sympathizer to the Southern cause...Alford paints some intriguing shades of gray in this elucidating portrait."—Kirkus Reviews

"Exemplary...Alford's book examines Booth's movements and interactions in greater depth than any of its predecessors, drawing a clear picture of the psychological spiral that led to his plot to kidnap—and, when that failed, to kill—the president."—The Boston Globe

"Based on meticulous and exhaustive research, written in vivid prose spiced with wry humor, Terry Alford's Fortune's Fool is a tour de force by a masterful historian. This eagerly awaited biography exceeds the high expectations so long entertained by Civil War buffs, Lincolnians, and lovers of American history in general."—Michael Burlingame, author of Abraham Lincoln: A Life

"Alford's masterful biography charts the psychological space in which Booth seems to have zigzagged for most of his life, between artistic sensitivity and delusional self-inflation."—Peter Birkenhead, Los Angeles Review of Books

"Fortune's Fool is a better, more comprehensive, and more consistently fascinating attempt at explaining John Wilkes Booth than any yet written."—Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly

"Fortune's Fool takes its place as the essential Booth biography, which is indispensable reading for anyone wanting to fully understand the assassination and the actor who committed it."—Thomas R. Turner, Civil War Monitor

"The first full-length biography on the subject, Alford's work definitely measures up in quality. His appraisal of Booth is neither judgmental nor quixotic, while his portrayal of him is rich in intimate details that add dimension to the man long known simply as a crazed killer."—Michael G. Williams, America's Civil War Magazine

"Alford's biography...paints a variegated portrait of one of the most infamous figures in the history of the United States...Reflecting painstaking research, Alford's work is an immersive experience into Booth's life on both sides of the stage curtain...Alford also provides readers with a penetrating look into the assassin's psyche...Booth emerges as a tortured and conflicted soul, an actor on history's stage who never fully understood his role as hero or as villain."—Christopher C. Moore, Journal of Southern History

From the Publisher

04/01/2015
Alford (history, Northern Virginia Community Coll.; Prince Among Slaves) presents a nuanced, in-depth biography of John Wilkes Booth (1838–65), the well-known stage actor and frustrated Confederate sympathizer who assassinated Abraham Lincoln in 1865. While many books have described Booth's role in Lincoln's assassination, Alford's goal is a wider inquiry into Booth's life as a whole. As a celebrated dramatic actor, Booth was a notable public figure of the day whose prodigious talents often hid a darker side of erratic behavior and political obsessions. Utilizing a wide range of research materials to thoroughly examine and re-create Booth's childhood, personality, family relationships, courtships, acting career, and anti-abolitionist views, Alford seeks to provide a holistic portrait of a previously mysterious or caricatured man. This well-researched and clearly written work provides a vivid, gripping portrait of the charming, impetuous, and troubled Booth, whose ill-fated and ultimately murderous path often seems to strangely echo the doomed Shakespearean characters he played on stage. Although occasionally slowed by excess detail, Alford's narrative excels in illuminating the complicated road that led Booth to become an assassin and in elucidating the human complexity of a reviled historical figure. VERDICT Best suited to history fans or researchers interested in the history of the theatre, Lincoln's assassination, or the Civil War. Those readers may also like Michael W. Kauffman's American Brutus.—Ingrid Levin, Salve Regina Univ. Lib., Newport, RI

Library Journal

2014-12-29
The "first full-length biography" of Abraham Lincoln's assassin offers much nuance and complexity to the killer, bordering on the downright sympathetic.Reams have been written about John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865), who was shot in the ensuing manhunt on April 26, 1865, at the age of 26, yet much of the anecdotal claims have been tempered by hysteria over the assassination and don't hold up to the light. Alford (History/Northern Virginia Community Coll.; Prince Among Slaves, 1976) sifts through the more balanced, credible sources of those who knew Booth before the assassination to flesh out a surprisingly engaging portrait of the brilliant young actor and deeply riven sympathizer to the Southern cause. The product of a British-born actor father (and bigamist) who settled his family in Virginia and grew alcoholic and erratic, young Booth was, by all accounts, a winning personality and a favorite of his mother and his numerous siblings. Agreeing early on not to bring her grief by enlisting in the Army when the war broke out, Booth worked at various stages in Northern cities during the conflict at the behest of his older, more seasoned actor brother, Edwin. He essentially stifled his true anti-abolitionist feelings, which had been radicalized with John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. (A clue to Booth's increasingly obsessive behavior was the fact that he attended Brown's hanging.) Alford portrays a young man who was delighted by the applause, riches and fame he gained in his brief, meteoric rise as a dramatic actor yet alarmed by the national disintegration and tormented by his uselessness: Did his obsessive plotting about Lincoln grow out of his sense of duty to his beleaguered South, or was it a fantastic "self-conscious performance with himself as star"? Alford paints some intriguing shades of gray in this elucidating portrait.

Kirkus Reviews