(ABRAHAM LINCOLN ASSASSINATION RELATED) TOM TAYLOR (1817-1880) English dramatist best remembered as the Author of ‘Our American Cousin', the performance by John Wilkes Booth of which was attended by President Abraham Lincoln when he was Assassinated at Ford's Theater, the night of April 14th, 1865.
July 31, 1854-Dated Autographed Manuscript Poem Signed, “Tom Taylor” the author of the play “Our American Cousin”, the performance of which was attended by Abraham Lincoln when he was Assassinated at Ford's Theater, Choice Very Fine. Handwritten on fresh clean wove period paper in deep brown ink, 1 page, measuring 7” x 4.5” (8vo.), no place, a 14-line original love poem, signed at conclusion. It reads, in full:

“A King's soon in my quiet nook lit down, And looked & loved & called me there And set me in the jeweled crown That he was used to wear. I thought to love each gem, each sparkling star, As I had loved the tress the stars, the flowers. I knew their brightness passed my own... Their joys & sorrows were not mine, My proferred kiss was bold! For lack of love my heart went dry, And so I drop, until I die. (Signed) Tom Taylot”.
Tom Taylor was an English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of Punch magazine. He was born October 19, 1817, in Bishopwearmouth, Durham, England, and died July 12, 1880, in Wandsworth, England. He was born into a newly wealthy family, the second son of Thomas Taylor and his wife, Maria Josephina, nee Arnold.

Taylor's journalism career began when he first moved to London in the late 1830s, writing for The Morning Chronicle and the Daily News. He was a longtime staff member of Punch and was named its editor in 1874, a post he held until his death. He also had some talent for painting and served for many years as an art critic for The Times and the Graphic.

Taylor became best known as a playwright, with up to 100 plays staged during his career, many adaptations of French plays, but ranging from farce to melodrama. Many were adaptations from the French or collaborations with other playwrights, notably Charles Reade, and some plots were adapted from the novels of Charles Dickens or others. Notable works besides Our American Cousin, include Masks and Faces (1852, with Reade), Plot and Passion (1853), Still Waters Run Deep (1855).

Most of Taylor's plays fell into neglect after his death, but Our American Cousin achieved lasting notoriety because it was the play being performed in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865, when President Abraham Lincoln was shot while attending a performance at Ford's Theatre with Laura Keene, appearing in one of the lead roles, being the one who identified John Wilkes Booth as the assassin.

As a result, though he was one of the most prolific and commercially successful English dramatists of the Victorian stage, Taylor is remembered in the United States almost entirely for this one accidental brush with the nation's history, rather than for his broader body of work or his long editorship of Punch.