Abstract
The first question to pose of Arthur Bloom's fine new biography of Joseph Jefferson is, Why did it take so long? Not Bloom's work, which has been long awaited for the obvious reason of its exhaustive research, but, rather, why has it taken until the new millennium for any scholarly biography to be written of arguably America's most popular comedian of the nineteenth century? Modern studies of Edwin Booth, Edwin Forrest, and Charlotte Cushman have appeared alongside hosts of books on lesser figures, but, for Jefferson, readers had to be content with appreciations by friends such as William Winter, Francis Wilson, daughter-in-law Eugenie Paul Jefferson, and granddaughter Eleanor Farjeon. And, of course, there was the Autobiography. That most delightful of all theatrical memoirs may explain the absence of biographical treatment. It seemed to be all there, a life retold with more charm than any historian could muster.
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