'Female performers at the turn of the 20th century found both joy and frustration in theatre, writes Helen Elliott n a book crammed with photographs, one is notably arresting. Languid in a chair, her hand up to her frizzy hair, a woman looks straight into the camera. She’s amused, eternally amused. It is a publicity shot for Sarah Bernhardt taken in Sydney in 1891. Bernhardt, always in need of money, was on a world tour and Australians, like the rest of the world, fawned. She was the most famous actress in the world and, scandalously, lived unconventionally both on and off stage. Other women might aspire to be her but there was only one Bernhardt.' (Introduction)
' One of the beauties of historical fiction lies in its ability to peel back layers of accepted “facts” in order to dramatise events as they might have been. Robert Drewe is a master of this technique, and something of a magician who delights in delivering the jolt of the reveal. Fascinated by an 1866 faded sepia portrait of a small 10-year-old Australian boy, Johnny Day, displayed in the National Library of Australia, the author began researching the boy’s history. The photograph is reproduced in his novel, Nimblefoot.' (Introduction)
