WINTER, WILLIAM.
Born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1836; died in New York City,
June 30, 1917. Mr. Winter was through most of his long life,
a dramatic critic, although he started public life as a lawyer.
The lure of literature, however, was too strong for him and in
1859 he came to New York and cast in his lot with a struggling
little band of writers who afterward became the prominent men
of letters of their day. After a period of work for the "Saturday
Press" and other papers, he became the dramatic critic of
the "New York Tribune," a position which he continued
to hold for forty years. He had a particular passion for Shakespearean
drama and numbered among his close friends all the great Shakespearean
actors of his day. Mr. Winter was a voluminous writer both in
dramatic criticism and poetry, varying these occupations with
charming books of English travel and brief personal studies of
his friends. The Jeffersons, Henry
Irving, Mary Anderson, Edwin
Booth, and others were among the subjects of his delightful
memoirs. |
|