With panache worthy of his subject, Gottlieb lays out the players as if Bernhardt's life were a stage drama. His charismatic prose captures the spell of the consummate mythmaker.Carol Ockman, coauthor of "Sarah Bernhardt: The Art of High Drama"

Robert Gottlieb is the author of Lives and Letters, George Balanchine, and Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens. His career in publishing--as editor-in-chief of Simon and Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf, and The New Yorker--is legendary.