The car comes to a stop. After several years of absence, I am in Poland again. The sun sheds upon the snow myriads of sparks, which glisten like so many precious gems; a purple strip of mist rises above the distant forest of dark, pointed pines, which form a background to white, humble huts, throbbing with lives of patience and toil, under the iron hand of the ruler... I feel a mysterious glow penetrating into the very depth of my heart, tears rise to my eyes; I humbly bow my head and whisper, "Hail, beloved..." "Einsteigen, meine Herrschaften,” shouts the metallic voice of the conductor, waking me from my revery, and by his sudden cry in a foreign language brutally recalling to my mind the misfortunes of my country. As we proceed further through German Poland we look in vain for any outward sign of the nationality of the inhabitants; there is none. No Polish inscriptions, no Polish names of the stations, no railroad employees allowed to speak Polish; yet crowds of peasants and workingmen hurrying to the fourth-class cars speak only the vernacular. Strange to say, there is one thing that all the efforts of the repressive governmental system cannot destroy, and that is the deep-rooted patriotism of the people, nor can they make of no avail their heroic struggle to preserve their mother-tongue.

Excerpt from Memories and Impressions of Helena Modjeska: An Autobiography The car comes to a stop. After several years of absence I am in Poland again. The sun sheds upon the snow myriads of sparks, which glisten like so many precious gems a purple strip of mist rises above the distant forest of dark, pointed pines, which form a background to white, humble huts, throbbing with lives of patience and toil, under the iron hand of the ruler. I feel a mysterious glow penetrating into the very depth of my heart, tears rise to my eyes; I humbly bow my head and whisper, Hail, beloved Einsteigen, meine Herrschaften, shouts the metallic voice of the conductor, waking me from my revery, and by his sudden cry in a foreign language brutally recalling to my mind the misfortunes of my country. 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.

The “important . . . meticulously researched” prize-winning biography of the pre-eminent Polish star of the nineteenth century global stage (CosmopolinReview.com). In reintroducing “a little-remembered actress to a new American audience” biographer Beth Holgram delivers a revelatory portrait of Helena Modjeska—from unparalleled European success to her reign as the most acclaimed, and most recognized female celebrity in the late nineteenth-century United States. In 1876, Poland’s leading actress, Helena Modrzejewska, accompanied by her husband, the self-stylized Count Bozente, emigrated to southern California to give up her career and establish a utopian commune. In light of its failings, it hardly fulfilled the real dreams of Madame Helena. Within a year, she changed her surname to Modjeska, and made her American debut at San Francisco’s California Theatre. Godmother to Ethel Barrymore, and sharing the Shakespearian stage with such luminaries as Otis Skinner, Edwin Booth, and Maurice Barrymore, Helena Modjeska became the leading star in the United States, where she reigned for the next thirty years. In this “Impressive . . . achievement,” Holmgren traces Modjeska’s fabulous life and career from her illegitimate birth in Krakow, to her successive reinventions of herself as a trans-continental diva, and finally to her enduring legacy (Women’s Review of Books). All in all, Starring Madame Modjeska “makes for great drama” (NewPages.com).