Acteurs

1871 — 590 p. + Portrait plates + Added chromolithographed title page. Thick 8vo. 22 cm. Original deeply embossed cloth binding, somewhat worn at extremities. Some foxing and age stain. Private library labels. Olive Logan was the daughter of a famous actor, dramatist, and theater manager who was most active in Ohio and the mid-West. She was a child actress who went on to a long stage career. She suppleme nted her income by working as a journalist, and later as a lecturer. Some of her accounts of the stage were sensational. As she unfolds her memoirs she gives a great many little details about the art of stage craft and the state of the American theater in the latter half of the 19th century. Much of this is accomplished by her portrayals of the great stage personalities of the age. She also tries to redeem the actors' profession from the still wide-held belief that it was immoral and dishonorable. "If (my work) strips off some of the 'gauze and vanity' from the 'show world' I hope it a l so e xhibits that world in a fairer and juster light to many who have hitherto looked on it with ungenerous and unenlightened eyes" -- From the Preface. LOC :W140-148