SHADOWPLAY

‘Three famous Victorians carry this sparkling historical novel: Sir Henry Irving, the great actor-manager; Ellen Terry, his leading lady; and Bram Stoker, the young Irishman who worked for Irving as a theatre manager before writing Dracula. From their entangled lives Joseph O'Connor weaves a story of love and loyalty, rich in wit and imagination.' Read more...

Sia Kitap

‘Subtly drawn and intensely affecting, this portrayal of accidental friendship, enduring love, frustrated ambition and, dare we say it, the alchemy of acting, recalls, in its effortless grace, those 19th-century novels that made readers of us all. And Mr. O'Connor's main characters—Stoker, Irving and the beloved actress Ellen Terry—are so forcefully brought to life that when, close to tears, you reach this drama's final page, you will return to the beginning just to remain in their company.' – Anna Mundow

‘Gorgeously written O'Connor dazzles his magnificent novel does even more than fly, it soars.' – Michael Dirda Read more...

Natur och Kultur (two-book offer)

Fraktura

Film rights offer under negotiation with a major Hollywood producer

Helikon

Shanghai Elegant People

‘O'Connor's characters are magnificently realized and colorfully depicted by the virtues that define them.' — Publisher's Weekly, starred review

'A hugely entertaining book about the grand scope of friendship and love, it is also, movingly — at times, astonishingly — a story of transience, loss and true loyalty' — Sadie Jones, Guardian Read more...

Europa

Editions Rivages

WF Howes/ Dreamscape Media

Guanda (ET Herbst 2019)

‘Resurrecting Victorian theatre in all its gaudy wizardry, this novel throws the limelight on three figures: Ellen Terry, the best-loved actress of the age; Henry Irving, its charismatic actor-impresario; and Bram Stoker, friend of both and author of the vampire classic Dracula. O'Connor's panache and subtlety wonderfully match the gusto and creative finesse of the High Victorian world he dazzlingly evokes.' — Peter Kemp, Sunday Times, Best Novels of 2019 Read more...

Karobna

‘There are novels that conjure theatre's magic. Shadowplay by Joseph O'Connor is a richly detailed work, set in Victorian London. It imagines Dracula author Bram Stoker's years as theatre manager to the legendary actor and impresario Henry Irving and leading lady Ellen Terry at London's Lyceum theatre (where The Lion King usually roars).' – Patricia Nichol, ‘Best Books on Theatre', Daily Mail

‘An affectionate, tender story about everyday heroism, secret selves, and triumphs and tragedies on stage and in life and the many kinds of love that bind us together.' — Library Journal, starred review

‘Subtly drawn and intensely affecting, this portrayal of accidental friendship, enduring love, frustrated ambition and, dare we say it, the alchemy of acting, recalls, in its effortless grace, those 19th-century novels that made readers of us all. And Mr. O'Connor's main characters—Stoker, Irving and the beloved actress Ellen Terry—are so forcefully brought to life that when, close to tears, you reach this drama's final page, you will return to the beginning just to remain in their company.' —Anna Mundow, Wall Street Journal

"The theme running through Shadowplay is that of the secret self, the occult wellspring where art and creativity and possibly murder rise from. “In every being who lives, there is a second self very little known to anyone. You who read this have a real person hidden under your better-known personality” runs the epigraph, taken from a biography of Ellen Terry. Where exactly the writer's self is located within the man of business is the central question of this marvellous novel. Who is the real Stoker, the much-loved theatrical fixer or the lonely man up in the eaves, writing for nobody but a ghost?"

‘The best novel that I've read in the last twenty years Probably the best of all the Book Club choices we've made since 2004. It's fantastic Amazing'. - Richard Madeley

‘Joseph O'Connor explores the likely source of Irving's fury — his temper was notorious — in his novel “Shadowplay,” a vibrantly imaginative narrative of passion, intrigue and literary ambition set in the garish heyday of a theater presided over by a tyrannical Irving and an exquisitely vulgar Ellen Terry, Britain's answer to Sarah Bernhardt Artfully splicing truth with fantasy, O'Connor has a glorious time turning a ramshackle and haunted London playhouse into a primary source for Stoker's Gothic imaginings It is in its exploration of Stoker's shadowland that “Shadowplay” becomes most imaginative Throughout this vivid re-creation of one of the most fascinating and neglected episodes in the enticingly murky history of the Gothic novel, the storyteller keeps his reader deliciously in the dark.' — Miranda Seymour, New York Times

‘Joseph O'Connor explores the likely source of Irving's fury — his temper was notorious — in his novel “Shadowplay,” a vibrantly imaginative narrative of passion, intrigue and literary ambition set in the garish heyday of a theater presided over by a tyrannical Irving and an exquisitely vulgar Ellen Terry, Britain's answer to Sarah Bernhardt Artfully splicing truth with fantasy, O'Connor has a glorious time turning a ramshackle and haunted London playhouse into a primary source for Stoker's Gothic imaginings It is in its exploration of Stoker's shadowland that “Shadowplay” becomes most imaginative Throughout this vivid re-creation of one of the most fascinating and neglected episodes in the enticingly murky history of the Gothic novel, the storyteller keeps his reader deliciously in the dark.' — Miranda Seymour