The tumultuous life of the legendary French star Sarah Bernhardt--the world's first modern actress and international celebrity--dazzles in this stunning novel for readers of Love and Ruin and Mistress of the Ritz.
C. W. Gortner is the internationally acclaimed and bestselling author of The Romanov Empress, Mademoiselle Chanel, The Queen's Vow, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici, The Last Queen, The Vatican Princess, and Marlene, among other books. He holds an MFA in writing, with an emphasis on historical studies, from the New College of California. He lives in Northern California.
"Sarah Bernhardt was a woman of fearless strength and awe-inspiring
talent, both a living icon in her day and an unapologetic
iconoclast. In his beautiful The First Actress, C. W.
Gortner gives readers an intimate and rich portrait of Bernhardt's
stunning career and tumultuous personal life. The Divine Sarah was
a singular leading lady ahead of her time, winning devotees and
breaking rules in order to demand more for artists and for
women."-Allison Pataki, New York Times bestselling author
of The Queen's Fortune
"C. W. Gortner has made his mark illuminating the private lives and
untold stories of the world's greatest women. In The First Actress,
he turns his talent to Sarah Bernhardt, the daughter of a Dutch
Jewish courtesan who would rise over the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries to become an icon of stage and screen. Readers
will revel in the gloriously heady mix of love and war, and art and
society. Combining immaculate research with scintillating prose and
an unforgettable cast of larger-than-life characters, The First
Actress stands tall among Gortner's remarkable body of
work."-Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author of
The Lost Girls of Paris
"Gortner's fluid first-person prose paints a vivid portrait in an
immersive, hard-to-put-down drama. . . . Highly
recommended."-Historical Novels Review (Editor's
Choice)
"A literal drama queen, the historical Bernhardt provides a great
wealth of material-sleeping in a coffin, keeping pumas as pets, the
circles in which she moved with the likes of Victor Hugo and Oscar
Wilde-for the creation of a colorful melodrama, equal parts
flamboyancy and pathos. Since Bernhardt loved to extravagantly
mythologize her own story, she would doubtless delight in Gortner's
first-person fictionalization of her extraordinary
life."-Booklist
"A compelling portrait that will certainly whet readers' appetites
to learn more about this charismatic figure . . .
recommended for fans of Melanie Benjamin and Allison
Pataki."-Library Journal
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