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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The most tempestuous and possibly the most famous actress of her time, Bernhardt (1844-1923) kept a coffin by her bedroom window in which she lay "to learn my parts." Needless to say, the border between acting and life was tenuous for her. Bernhardt's two-volume memoir was originally published in English in an anonymous translation in 1907; this new translation, gracefully accomplished despite occasional anachronisms ("gofer"), is an abridgment of the first volume. Bernhardt, illegitimate although with some family money on both sides, is presented as both melodramatic and frustratingly discreet. We never learn the identity of her father, nor anything significant about her son Maurice's birth (she doesn't even mention that he was illegitimate). A husband, unnamed, emerges only once from the shadows. Still, Bernhardt writes vividly and with apparent honesty about her "thin and sorrowful visage," her troublesome failures to abide by contracts, and occasions when she "performed very badly." Most memorable is the German siege of Paris in 1870- 1871, when she turned her theater, the Odeon, into a military hospital, scrounged for provisions in the isolated city and burned the seats and props for warmth. Despite her failure to deliver on the teasing promise of her title, Bernhardt can be quite winning. She concludes by remarking, "My life, which I had at first expected to be very short, now seemed likely to be very very long; and it gave me great joy to think of the infernal displeasure that would cause my enemies."
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
Ms. Larson, a professor at Montclair State University, has skillfully abridged Bernhardt's memoir into a single volume, which fairly races along in her able translation. My Double Life offers a fascianting portrait of a unique personality, a woman whose art belonged to the 19th century but who looked to the future with boundless curiosity. -- Forward, May 28, 1999
See all Editorial Reviews
The most tempestuous and possibly the most famous actress of her time, Bernhardt (1844-1923) kept a coffin by her bedroom window in which she lay "to learn my parts." Needless to say, the border between acting and life was tenuous for her. Bernhardt's two-volume memoir was originally published in English in an anonymous translation in 1907; this new translation, gracefully accomplished despite occasional anachronisms ("gofer"), is an abridgment of the first volume. Bernhardt, illegitimate although with some family money on both sides, is presented as both melodramatic and frustratingly discreet. We never learn the identity of her father, nor anything significant about her son Maurice's birth (she doesn't even mention that he was illegitimate). A husband, unnamed, emerges only once from the shadows. Still, Bernhardt writes vividly and with apparent honesty about her "thin and sorrowful visage," her troublesome failures to abide by contracts, and occasions when she "performed very badly." Most memorable is the German siege of Paris in 1870- 1871, when she turned her theater, the Odeon, into a military hospital, scrounged for provisions in the isolated city and burned the seats and props for warmth. Despite her failure to deliver on the teasing promise of her title, Bernhardt can be quite winning. She concludes by remarking, "My life, which I had at first expected to be very short, now seemed likely to be very very long; and it gave me great joy to think of the infernal displeasure that would cause my enemies."
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
Ms. Larson, a professor at Montclair State University, has skillfully abridged Bernhardt's memoir into a single volume, which fairly races along in her able translation. My Double Life offers a fascianting portrait of a unique personality, a woman whose art belonged to the 19th century but who looked to the future with boundless curiosity. -- Forward, May 28, 1999
See all Editorial Reviews
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13
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- Hell Hath No Fury: Women's Letters from the End of the Affair by Anna Holmes in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Actresses on the Victorian Stage: Feminine Performance and the Galatea Myth (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture) by Gail Marshall in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- The Essays of Virginia Woolf, Vol. 1: 1904-1912 by Virginia Woolf on page 170
- Cupid and the King: Five Royal Paramours by Princess Michael of Kent in Back Matter
- No Applause--Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous by Trav S.D. in Back Matter
See all 13 books citing this book
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