(Ellen Terry's memoirs, first published in serial form in ...)
Ellen Terry's memoirs, first published in serial form in 1907, have been called. "One of the finest autobiographies in the English Language." The publication in 1931 of the Shaw-Terry Correspondence proved again her fresh and natural literary genius. Ellen Terry lived for twenty years after the first publication of "The Story of My Life." Her daughter, Edith Craig, who was with her constantly until she died, and Christopher St. John, who collaborated with her on the original book, have now completed her fascinating story. Critical opinion of the memoirs of actors and actresses is generally biased by an old tradition that the greatest of them are stupid outside their own art. Surely there was never a more brilliant exception to such a prejudice than Ellen Terry. In the story of her life she writes with a vividness, a grace and above all with a directness and penetration which make it one of the truly great pieces of personal literature in the language. IT has an assured place among the very few autobiographies that will always be read. Her career as an actress ended soon after the date when she ends her autobiography. But because apart from her genius as an actress, she was a remarkable and fascinating woman, her saga is incomplete without the chronicle of her last years, now so accurately supplied by the two women who perhaps knew her best of all. --- from book's dustjacket
The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections
(The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections is p...)
The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Ellen Terry is in the English language, and may not include graphics or images from the original edition. If you enjoy the works of Ellen Terry then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection.
(Excerpt from The Russian Ballet The Russian Ballet was wr...)
Excerpt from The Russian Ballet The Russian Ballet was written by Ellen Terry in 1913 This is a 59 page book containing 5808 words and 24 pictures Search Inside is enabled for this title About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books Find more at www forgottenbooks com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work Forgotten Books uses state of the art technology to digitally reconstruct the work preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy In rare cases an imperfection in the original such as a blemish or missing page may be replicated in our edition We do however repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works
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This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923....)
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: Antony And Cleopatra; Volume 35 Of Works; William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare, Dame Ellen Terry
J. Talfourd Blair
David Bryce and son, 1904
Miniature books
English actress Ellen Terry was among the most famous leading ladies of the Victorian era, who is best remembered for her Shakespearean roles, in particular her interpretation of Portia in The Merchant of Venice.
Background
Terry was born into a theater family, her parents having been actors in a touring company based in Portsmouth.
Successive generations followed in the family tradition, including Terry's own children and Kate Terry's grandson Sir John Gielgud, who became one of the twentieth century's most respected actors.
Education
Under the guidance of her father, Terry began training for an acting career at an early age and made her stage debut as Mamillius the child under the direction of Charles Kean in A Winter's Tale at the Princess Theater in London on April 28, 1856, with Queen Victoria in attendance.
She had irregular education, trained as an actress by Mrs. Charles Kean whose husband managed a theater in London where Terry appeared as a child.
Career
Her favorite roles were the heroines of Shakespeare.
In her long career she appeared in many roles in plays by Reade, Tennyson, Willis, and Sardou, but it is as Shakespeare's Portia that she is best remembered.
The famous image in "Choosing" depicts Terry deciding between earthly vanities represented by the showy camellias that she smells and nobler values represented by the violets held in her hand.
Plagued by mounting debt, Terry returned to the stage in 1874 at the urging of the playwright Charles Reade and appeared in a number of Reade's works, including the roles Philippa Chester in The Wandering Heir, Susan Merton in It's Never Too Late to Mend, and Helen Rolleston in Our Seamen.
Terry later re-created the role in several touring productions and for numerous engagements from 1879 to her final appearance as Portia at London's Old Vic Theatre in 1917.
In late 1878 Terry joined the company managed by Henry Irving who had lately assumed ownership of the Lyceum Theatre.
Her association with Irving was to become the most successful of her career, and over the next two decades she played opposite him as many of the great Shakespearean heroines, including Ophelia, Lady Macbeth, Viola, Queen Katherine, Juliet, Cordelia, and perhaps most notably Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing, a role she first performed at the Lyceum in 1882 and later revived in 1884, 1891, and 1893.
Having spent most of her career appearing in works that were chosen by leading men to showcase their own talents, in 1903 Terry briefly assumed management of the Imperial Theatre in order to have more control over the material in which she appeared.
She mounted a production of Henrik Ibsen's The Vikings in 1903 with herself as Hiordis, but the venture was a financial failure.
She performed throughout England, including engagements in Nottingham, Liverpool, and Wolverhampton, and appeared in 1905 in J. M. Barrie's Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire, with considerable success.
In 1906 a tribute was produced at the Drury Lane Theatre in celebration of her golden jubilee.
At the time of the jubilee Terry was appearing at the Court Theatre as Lady Cicely Wayneflete in Captain Brassbound's Conversion by Bernard Shaw, one of her most ardent professional and personal admirers.
She continued in the part during American and British tours in 1907.
Shaw later assessed her interpretation of Lady Cicely in a letter to Terry written after their return to England and quoted by Prideaux, "At the Court, you were always merely trying to remember your part. But now you have realized you are Lady Cicely.
It is really a very wonderful performance. "
Terry continued to work throughout her sixties and seventies, appearing as Nance Oldfield in a Pageant of Famous Women written by her daughter, Edith Craig, and C. Hamilton in 1909.
She separated from Carew in 1910.
Other notable theatrical engagements of this period include Nell Gwynne in The First Actress by Christopher St. John (Christabel Marshall; 1911), and Darling in Barrie's The Admirable Crichton (1916).
She also developed a successful career on the international lecture circuit, discussing Shakespearean heroines and interspersing her discussion with recitation.
During World War I she performed many war benefits. Although Terry is most associated with the Victorian stage, she remained active into the motion picture era and appeared in several films, including her debut as Julia Lovelace in Her Greatest Performance (1917) as well as The Invasion of Britain (1918), Pillars of Society (1918), Potter's Clay (1922), and The Bohemian Girl (1922).
She won legions of admirers with her grace and golden-haired beauty and is particularly remembered for her interpretations of Shakespearean heroines, including Portia and Beatrice, opposite Henry Irving.
Quotes from others about the person
At the time of her death a Times commentator concluded, "She was a woman of genius; but her genius was not that of the brain so much as of the spirit and of the heart.
She was a poem in herself—a being of exquisite and mobile beauty.
On the stage or off she was like the daffodils that set the poet's heart dancing. "
Wilde, an Oxford undergraduate at the time, wrote a sonnet describing Terry: "For in that gorgeous dress of beaten gold, / Which is more golden than the golden sun, / No woman Veronese looked upon / Was half so fair as thou whom I behold. "
According to a contemporary account in the Times, "Some thousands of Londoners devoted what was virtually the whole of a working day to a theatrical debauch.
From shortly after noon to six o'clock they filled Drury Lane with a riot of enthusiasm, a torrent of emotion, a hurly-burly of excitement, 'thunders of applause. '
They cheered 'til they were hoarse, laughed to the verge of hysteria, and sang 'Auld Lang Syne' in chorus, not without tears. "
The Times commentator noted, "For half a century Ellen Terry has been appealing to our hearts. Whatever the anti-sentimentalists might say, that is the simple truth.
…A creature of the full-blooded, naïve emotions she excites those emotions in us. "
According to biographer Tom Prideaux, "Her peculiar gift for Shakespeare was evident both in her husky but consummately clear diction and in what appeared to be a temperamental affinity with the poet himself, something akin to his lyric verve and humanity, which made his lines seem to originate in her own mind. "
According to a favorable review in Times, "She is to English audiences what she is, not merely because she has played nearly all the great Shakespeare heroines, but because she reflects them in her own self and personality.
… It is a happy thing for England as well as for Miss Terry, now that her acting days are nearly over, that she has found so effective a way of bringing home to Shakespeare's countrymen the inner meaning of his plays and the charm of her own art. "
"In the history of the English stage no other actress has ever made herself so abiding a place in the affections of the nation. "
Connections
She had three husbands: George Federick Watts, the painter; Charles Claverine Wardell, an actor known professionally as Charles Kelly; and James Carew, an American actor. In 1864, the sixteen-year-old Terry married the wellknown painter George Frederick Watts, thirty years her senior, and she retired from the stage.
However, she ceased performing in 1868 when, separated but not divorced from Watts, Terry eloped with architect and designer Edward William Godwin.
While in Pittsburgh she married her co-star, the American actor James Carew.