This book, focusing on the final twelve years of Ira Aldridge's life, follows the pattern established in Ira Aldridge: The Early Years, 1807–1833 and Ira Aldridge: The Vagabond Years, 1833–1852, both published in 2011, and Ira Aldridge: Performing Shakespeare in Europe, 1852–1855, published in 2013. Aldridge's subsequent travels as an itinerant actor in Britain and on the Continent are traced in some detail, recording how he was received by audiences and critics who saw him enact roles that had made him a famous and popular performer in a wide range of tragedies, melodramas, and racial farces. He was now a seasoned veteran of the stage, having for thirty years plied his trade in venues large and small as a versatile “African” thespian capable of successfully representing white as well as black characters, especially Shakespearean heroes. His perseverance and talent had enabled him to rise from near invisibility in London to international celebrity throughout Europe.

His first Continental tour, from 1852 to 1855, had been a spectacular success. He had hoped to begin in Paris with a sizable troupe of experienced British actors and actresses he had recruited to support him in a succession of Shakespearean classics, melodramas about slavery, and a farce featuring a comical Negro servant, but when he failed to secure a contract there, he took them all to Brussels, where they performed for four nights in mid-July before very small audiences. Press reviews were favorable, but Aldridge, realizing he could not support so many players on such meager returns, sent half his troupe home and proceeded to Prussia and Germany with the rest. There they met with far greater success, largely because German theatergoers loved Shakespeare and were eager to see a black actor perform as Othello. Aldridge's energy in this and other roles impressed them, and the lavish praise he received led to a string of engagements that kept him and his company busy every week for the rest of the year. In January 1853, he was invited to perform in Berlin, where his spirited portrayals of Othello and Macbeth prompted a dispute among theater critics about the strengths and aesthetic shortcomings of this unusual foreign actor.