Fair Ophelia: A Life of Harriet Smithson Berlioz

This book presents a complete account of the remarkable life and career of Harriet Smithson Berlioz. Peter Raby's success in this book is to bring fully and sympathetically to life the vulnerable woman and the working actress who is so generally submerged beneath the myth that was created about her. At the same time he provides a continually fascinating commentary on the theatrical and cultural history of her time: on touring troupes in Ireland; on the late Georgian theatre in London; on th...