With his new edition of The Sylph, Jonathan Gross recovered the work of novelist and biopic subject Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. With Belmour, Gross introduces the only novel of the English sculptress Anne Damer, another powerful eighteenth-century woman, to a modern audience. --

The first academic and interdisciplinary volume exploring bluestocking portraiture, performance and patronage in eighteenth-century Britain, opening vistas for future scholarship.

Featuring a range of large-scale, public and more intimate portraits of actresses, The First Actresses provides a vivid spectacle of femininity, fashion and theatricality from Nell Gwyn to Sarah Siddons. Ranging from oil paint to porcelain, these portraits illustrate the enduring popularity of portraits of women performers. Crucially the book seeks to reassess the traditional association between actress and'prostitute', and the moral ambiguity of women playing male roles. Portraiture became an important vehicle for the expression of concerns about female sexuality, social status, decorum, gender and celebrity. The authors also chart the commercialisation of the spectacle of the actress, as well as the connections between the eighteenth-century 'star system' and modern celebrity culture. Organised thematically, sections include: 'Painting Acresses' Lives', 'Nell Gwyn and Covent Garden Goddesses', 'Divas, Dancing and the Rage for Music: Painting Women in Musical Performance', 'Beauty, Ageing and the Body Politic of the Eighteenth-Century Actress' and 'Star Systems'. Illustrated with remarkable paintings by major artists of the period, a fascinating and lucid text reveals the many ways in which women performers enabled artistic innovation and creativity, provoked intellectual debate and contributed to the popularity and visibility of the theatre. Accompanies an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, 20 October 2011 - 8 January 2012

Excerpt from Anne Seymour Damer: A Woman of Art and Fashion, 1748-1828 Anne seymour conway, or as she is better known, Anne Seymour Damer, has more than ordinary claims to live in History; during her long and eventful life, she was the centre of a circle in which rank, wealth, fashion and science were all gathered together. She was not only the friend of artistic and literary people, but was a sculptor of no mean repute, and, although she has left no literary record, she was a well read woman, a student of Herodotus, Pliny, and Virgil, and possessed one of the finest libraries in London. Her life is a pleasant one to look back on. Irreproachable in moral character, she was of a fascinating and amiable disposition showing an exemplary patience during the short period of her unhappy married life. From the date of her husband's tragic death, her life seems to have been unclouded by any troubles except the death of her beloved parents. 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.