Mrs Jordan's Profession: The Story of a Great Actress And a Future King

by Claire. Tomalin (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1994

  $4.20

  This book looks at 19th-century British actresses, from the regency period to the outbreak of World War I. The book's underlying theme is the extraordinary way in which actresses formed a separate social caste, existing alongside, but differing hugely, from the general run of women in their economic independence, geographical and social mobility, professional status and sexual freedom.

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.76

  Acclaimed as the greatest comic actress of her day, Dora Jordan played a quite different role off-stage as lover to the future king, William IV, third son of George III. In fact, Dora bore no less than ten children and the couple lived happily in a villa on the Thames until William bowed to pressure and abandoned her. Making full use of Dora's letters to William, Claire Tomalin vividly re-creates the royal, political and theatrical worlds of late eighteenth-century England. The story of how Dora moved between stage and home, of how she battled for her family and her career makes a classic tale of royal perfidy and womanly courage. 'Intelligent, finely made and wonderfully readable. As gripping as the best fiction' - Jan Dalley, Independent on Sunday .