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Irish actress Harriet Smithson, inspiration
for Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, is also the muse
for this mesmerizing novel.
Christine Balint reimagines the bittersweet life of Harriet
Smithson, the tragedienne who brought Shakespeare to the
French. Born in County Clare, Ireland, in 1800, Harriet is
left in the care of the elderly priest Father Barrett, and
is brought up on Lamb's Shakespeare, lime-sherbet sweets,
and prayer. A child of traveling players, her ultimate inheritance
is Covent Garden, London, the green room, and the theater's
rough magic.
With the arrival of Charles Kemble's
English Theatre troupe in Paris in 1827, the Odéon
Theatre is awash with the drama and music of Shakespeare.
Harriet is Ophelia. The
French Romantics swoon, traffic stops, and the high-society
women plait straw in their hair in honor of her mad Ophelia.
The fiery composer Hector Berlioz falls in love.
In Ophelia's Fan, Balint re-creates
the texture and breadth of the nineteenth century and brings
alive Harriet Smithson—the
actress and the woman, her roles and her loves.
"A fascinating look at the theatre world of London
and Paris in the early 19th century, and of one of its stars,
Harriet Smithson. Ophelia's Fan is original and daring, telling
the story of Berlioz's muse with passion, sensitivity, and
grace. Enchanting."—Helen Humphreys, author of
The Lost Garden
Christine Balint is the author of the highly praised The
Salt Letters. Born in 1975 in Melbourne, Australia, she
is working on her Ph.D. there.
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