The liberal, theatrical family of John Wilkes Booth were ‘every bit as interesting’ as the presidential assassin himself – ABC News

You might know the basics when it comes to John Wilkes Booth, America's original three-named assassin.

His acting career. His pro-slavery stance. The gun at the theatre. "Sic semper tyrannis." The outpouring of grief for Abraham Lincoln.

But did you know that John Wilkes Booth came from one of the most prominent acting families in America?

That his dad's acting fame was only rivalled by his bigamy charges?

Or that Booth, one of history's most famous white supremacists, was raised in a home that was anti-slavery, atheist, and vegetarian?

The fascinating story of the Booth family, a wild bunch of actors, charmers, and drunks, is the focus of Booth, a novel by the American author Karen Joy Fowler.

But rather than shine a spotlight on John Wilkes Booth, Fowler focuses her attention on the people that surrounded him his famous dad, brother Edwin and sisters Rosalie and Asia all fascinating historical characters in their own right.

"I feel offended at the idea that a person who kills someone else is instantly an interesting person and more interesting than his brothers and sisters who didn't kill anybody," Fowler tells The Book Show on ABC RN.

"I think I wanted to make the argument that they were every bit as interesting as their notorious brother."

And interesting they were.

The children's father was Junius Brutus Booth, an English-born Shakespearean actor, who was a huge celebrity in 1820s and 1830s America.

The poet Walt Whitman was a fan, describing one of Junius's performances as "one of the grandest revelations of my life, a lesson of artistic expression".

Junius moved in exalted circles. He was friends with Edgar Allen Poe and the American general Sam Houston. He even had a brief friendship with the US president Andrew Jackson until in a twist that seems too strange to be true he sent the president a death threat.

In 1835, Junius wrote a letter to Jackson, demanding that the president pardon two pirates who had been sentenced to death. He wrote: "You damn'd old scoundrel I will cut your throat whilst you are sleeping."

Fowler says it's a strange coincidence, knowing that Junius's son John would go on to kill a president. But the letter wasn't given much attention at the time.

"[Junius] was not only famous as for his acting but also famous for his bouts of insanity, so I don't think anybody took his threats seriously and I'm not sure he intended them seriously," Fowler says.

Indeed, the legends about Junius Booth, and his strange behaviour, are numerous. He drank heavily, and his performances when he turned up could be wild and unpredictable.

There's a surprising story about a pigeon funeral he conducted near his home in Maryland. But the most shocking headline, with implications for his children in America, was his bigamy.

Junius Booth already had another wife and son back in England, Fowler explains.

"And then he fell in love with a pretty young woman named Mary Ann Holmes (John Wilkes Booth's mother) and he persuaded her to run away with him and ran all the way to America," she says.

"And whether Mary Ann knew there was (another) wife or not, is not at all clear."

Twenty-five years after her husband left England, Junius Booth's first wife, a woman called Adelaide, came looking for him. She stayed in Maryland for three years until she could be granted a divorce. Fowler says the scandal caused huge embarrassment for Booth's American children, including John.

"They were all strangely protective of the family name," Fowler says.

"They really wished to bring honour to it in some way, to do something that would make the family name an important one.

"They believed in their father's importance, and they tried their best to curate the stories about him so that his genius was the topic and not his strangeness.

"But I think whatever impulse they had towards trying to protect a family name was enormously heightened by learning that they were not actually his lawful children."

Junius Booth's politics were progressive for the time. He was opposed to slavery though he did hire slaves to work on the family farm. He also raised his children to be atheists, and vegetarians.

"I was surprised that anybody was a vegetarian during that period, and such a committed one as Julius Booth was," Fowler says, although she suspects the family didn't always stick to the diet while their father was travelling away from home.

So how did Junius's son, John Wilkes Booth, who was raised in such a progressive household, become the pro-slavery, confederate sympathiser who killed Abraham Lincoln?

"I think that [John's] politics came out of a period when he was at a boarding school," Fowler says.

"He was there with a lot of wealthy planters' sons, and I think that he wanted to be a part of that cohort.

"These people were wealthier than he was and higher placed than he was I think the family were all very hyper-sensitive on the issue of what it meant to be a Booth and whether they were respected."

Fowler says John was treated better than Edwin, his older brother, who often travelled with his father trying to keep him out of bars.

"His father was often very unkind," she says.

"And yet [Edwin] grew up much better adjusted a more careful, more charitable person then John, who was indulged at every moment."

Karen Joy Fowler's book is told from the perspective of three of John Wilkes Booth's five surviving siblings. (Four other Booth children didn't survive to adulthood.)

Before the assassination, Edwin Booth was by far the most famous.

After his difficult childhood, he went on to become an acclaimed actor in his own right, with some theatrical historians calling him the greatest actor of the 19th century.

He was most acclaimed for his portrayal of Hamlet with his quiet, naturalistic style standing in stark contrast to grand, bombastic performances that made his father a star.

Edwin's politics were vastly different to those of his brother. However, his association with John Wilkes Booth saw his career take a hit in the months after Abraham Lincoln was killed.

He is said to have disowned his brother after the assassination, forbidding the name John Wilkes Booth to be spoken in his house.

Far more forgiving was his sister, Asia Booth, who eventually became a writer of books and poetry. Amongst her works was a book called John Wilkes Booth: A Sister's Memoir.

Fowler says the book reveals Asia's unwavering love for her brother, even after his terrible crime.

"Even as she tries, at the end, to agree that what he did was terrible she can't help but defend him," Fowler says. "You can see her forgiving him."

The third sibling featured in Fowler's book is the eldest Booth daughter, Rosalie. Unlike her famous siblings, Rosalie was a mystery to Fowler.

"Very little about her remains," Fowler says.

"Her brothers and sisters always refer to her as an invalid and as 'Poor Rose'. I can't even find what was actually wrong with her if anything was actually wrong with her."

In Fowler's retelling, Rosalie is a gentle woman who gradually descends into a quiet alcoholism.

"There was just this sort of hushed polite discussion of Rosalie's infirmities, and one source that I read suggested that that that she drank quite a bit.

"Their grandfather was a terrible drunk, their father was a terrible drunk, the brothers were terrible drunks, so it would not surprise me if she had a tipple now and then."

While Booth is a novel, Karen Joy Fowler says she tried at every moment to stick to proven facts. In parts, though, the truth is still hard to pin down.

"The problem is that there is a lot of mythology around the family as well," she says.

"So if you're trying to write a book, and you are trying, as I was trying, not to be inaccurate, it's a struggle to sift what appears to have been truth from stories that people told about them later."

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The liberal, theatrical family of John Wilkes Booth were 'every bit as interesting' as the presidential assassin himself - ABC News