An epic yet intimate portrait of two theatrical dynasties, which takes us from the Victorian stage to the modern age. Ellen Terry was a natural actress who filled the theatre with a magical radiance. The Times called her the “uncrowned queen of England,” but behind her public success lay a darker story. The child bride of G.F. Watts, she eloped with a friend of Oscar Wilde’s at the age of twenty-one and gave birth to two illegitimate children. But her greatest partnership was on stage with Henry Irving. At the Lyceum Theatre in London, the two of them created a grand Cathedral of the Arts. Their intimately involved lives exceeded in plot the Shakespearean dramas they performed on stage — and indeed were curiously affected by them. They also influenced the life and work of their remarkable children, Ellen’s children in particular. Edy Craig founded a feminist theatre group, The Pioneer Players. Her brother, Edward Gordon Craig, the revolutionary stage designer who collaborated with Stanislavski is revealed by this book to be the forgotten man of modernism. He had thirteen children by eight women. He is, perhaps, the most extraordinary man Michael Holroyd has ever written about.

Biography of one of the central figures in the cultural life and tastes of his time. 

John Lehmann (1907-1987) was, for 50 years, at the centre of literary life in England. In this biography, his professional and private lives are brought together and re-evaluated.

The life of Rosamond Lehmann (1901-1990) was as romantic and harrowing as that of any of her fictional heroines. She enjoyed an idyllic childhood in the Thames valley, and she was much pursued while at Cambridge, but an early marriage to Leslie Runciman was wretchedly unhappy. The phenomenal success of her shocking, first novel, Dusty Answer gave her the means to run off with and eventually marry the glamorous maverick, Wogan Philipps. They lived an apparently charmed existence in Oxfordshire, the golden couple at the very heart of Bloomsbury society. But as Rosamond's novels (Invitation to the Waltz, the notorious The Weather in the Streets) became ever more successful, Wogan started on a series of affairs, finally disappearing to the Spanish Civil War, while Rosamond embarked on a tempestuous relationship with Goronwy Rees. When Rees left her she began the most important love affair of her life with the poet, Cecil Day Lewis. Nine years later, he abandoned her for the young actress, Jill Balcon - a betrayal from which Rosamond never recovered. A few years later her daughter, Sally, died at the age of 24, an unendurable loss which led Rosamond into spiritualism in an attempt to find her. The Biography of Rosamond Lehmann conjures up with warmth and wit the intimate world of a woman whose dramatic life, work and relationships criss-crossed the cultural, literary and political landscape of England in the middle of the twentieth century.

This book traces the dance career and artistic development of one of the founders of American modern dance. In this biography of dance pioneer Doris Humphrey, Marcia B. Siegel follows Humphrey's career from her days with the Denishawn Company (among fellos students like Martha Graham) to her creative partnership with Charles Weidman to her tenure as artistic director of protégé José Limon's dance company. Siegel's reconsideration and description of Humphrey's dances, including many that are no longer performed, sheds important light on this pathbreaking dancer/choreographer.

Rosa Raisa (1893-1963) was legendary for her imposing, powerful, and wide-ranging voice as well as for her highly dramatic and emotionally stirring stage presence. A renowned star of the Chicago Opera, Raisa sang over 1,000 opera performances and concerts around the world. Held in high esteem by composers, conductors, and colleagues, she was Puccini's choice to create the lead roles in La rondine and Turandot. In this first biography of Raisa, Charles Mintzer provides a captivating and revealing portrait of a warm-hearted, generous artist whose career and complex personality were shaped by a life that crossed Jewish, Italian, and American cultural boundaries. Mintzer masterfully blends together his narrative with selections from Raisa's unpublished memoir and excerpts from contemporary critical reviews to present a well-rounded picture of this extraordinary woman and to trace her incredible journey to operatic fame. Born Raitza Burchstein in the Polish ghetto of Bialystok, she fled the 1906 pogroms and settled in Italy, where she studied under Barbara Marchisio at the Conservatory of Naples. After her operatic debut in 1913 as Leonora in Oberto during the Verdi centenary celebrations at Parma, she immediately joined Cleofonte Campanini's Chicago Opera and, renamed Rosa Raisa, achieved instant acclaim. Mintzer recounts her great successes in Chicago and on the company's national tours, as well as several seasons in South America, Mexico, and Italy. He discusses Raisa's most famous roles, describes the La Scala premiere of Turandot with Arturo Toscanini conducting, and offers fresh insights into her controversial Berlin engagement in a Tosca performance with Adolf Hitler in the audience. Mintzer also chronicles her marriage to baritone Giacomo Rimini, her illnesses and miscarriages, her financial collapse, her lifelong commitment to Jewish organizations and causes, and her puzzling burial in a Catholic cemetery. Lavishly illustrated with over fifty photographs, many of them previously unpublished, the book includes an authoritative chronology of all of Raisa's performances, her concert repertoire, and an annotated discography.