Stage Mothers: Women, Work, and the Theater, 1660–1830 Reprint Edition

“This collection offers readers a fascinating study of English actresses during the long eighteenth century and the motherly roles they played on and off stage. . . . While some readers may be familiar with the actresses or the plays featured in this collection, they will surely learn a great deal about these eighteenth-century celebrities and the subject of motherhood as it was understood between 1660 and 1830. This book should be useful to readers interested in eighteenth-century studies, theater studies, performance history, women’s studies, drama as literature, and even art history, for portraiture and drawings are included and analyzed in a number of essays. In addition, this volume is important for its subtle-but-present reminder that a study of theatrical performers is also a study of class due to the vital connection between theater and social standing. All in all, Stage Mothers has a wonderful way of giving actress-mothers credit for their attempts to balance domestic and theatrical life, the (re)negotiation of their place in private and public spheres, and their painstaking fashioning of their selves and careers.” ―Early Modern Women

“The essays here have implications not only for the history of the sex/gender system, but also for contemporary debates regarding women’s experience in the workplace. . . .There are outstanding essays here.” ―SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500-1900

“Stage Mothers presents fascinating new research on the dramatic representation of maternity and (more unusually) the private and public experiences and cultural significance of mothers who acted through the long eighteenth century.” ―Bridget E. Orr, Vanderbilt University