S. E. D. Shortt. Victorian Lunacy: Richard M. Bucke and the practice of late nineteenth-century psychiatry. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986. 207 pp. $29.95 (cloth) (Reviewed by Edward Grant)

1988 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-302
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New York ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Performing Menken: Adah Isaacs Menken and the Birth of American Celebrity. By Renée M. Sentilles. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003; pp. 313. $45 cloth.; Sarah Bernhardt's First American Theatrical Tour, 1880–1881. By Patricia Marks. Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland, 2003; pp. 222. $35 paper.

2005 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-142
Author(s):  
Kim Marra
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New York ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Entire Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Public Personae

In two compelling new books, each analyzing a sensational female star whose career peaked in the late nineteenth century, the multifaceted celebrity image becomes the historical prism refracting the social, political, and cultural dynamics of various performance contexts. Neither study purports to chronicle the star's entire life and document truths about “who she really was.” Rather, each focuses on a relatively brief, temporally circumscribed period of the performer's career and examines her complex public personae and their meanings to her American audiences. Ultimately, more is revealed about the values of those who consumed and exploited the star than about the star herself. The two celebrities at issue here, Adah Isaacs Menken and Sarah Bernhardt, separated in time by a generation, compare in intriguing ways, both as historical agents and as subjects of historiographical analysis.

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