The Life of Mrs Jordan
Including Original Private Correspondence, and Numerous Anecdotes of her Contemporaries

A playwright-turned-biographer's 1831 account of the extraordinary life of Dorothy Jordan, celebrated actress and mistress of William, Duke of Clarence.

James Boaden (Author)

9781108054591, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 August 2012

388 pages, 1 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 2.2 cm, 0.49 kg

The actress Dorothy Jordan (1761–1816), contemporary of Sarah Siddons, was born in London, one of nine children. Her reputation as the greatest comic actress of her time was secured upon joining Sheridan's company at Drury Lane in 1785. Remembered particularly for cross-dressing roles such as Rosalind in As You Like It and Viola in Twelfth Night, she brought great charm and spontaneity to her interpretations. Her life off-stage was equally colourful, and she was for over twenty years the lover of William, Duke of Clarence, with whom she had ten children. This two-volume biography, first published in 1831, was written by her friend James Boaden (1762–1839), a playwright who later turned to theatrical biography. In it, he relates the extraordinary and poignant story of her life from acclaim to obscurity. Volume 2 covers her many provincial tours, her enforced separation from Clarence, retirement and self-imposed exile in France.

15. Benefits for the family of John Palmer, at Liverpool, and in London
16. The summer theatre
17. Season of 1800–1
18. Decided hostilities of 1801–2
19. Bannister's administration, or all the talents he could get
20. The reservoirs of some use at Drury Lane
21. The young Roscius acts Norval to great houses
22. The classical season at Drury
23. Domestic arrangements of Mrs Jordan
24. Attachments of the Princes
25. Three distinct sources of calumny
26. Sir Jonah Barrington's allusion to a distressing event, which he declines to relate
27. Some reflections on the explanation preceding
28. The administration to Mrs Jordan's effects.

Subject Areas: British & Irish history [HBJD1]