Carrying All Before Her: Celebrity Pregnancy and the London Stage, 1689-1800

by Chelsea Phillips

The rise of celebrity stage actresses in the long eighteenth century created a class of women who worked in the public sphere while facing considerable scrutiny about their offstage lives. Such powerful celebrity women used the cultural and affective significance of their reproductive bodies to leverage audience support and interest to advance their careers, and eighteenth-century London patent theatres even capitalized on their pregnancies. Carrying...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1644532492
• ISBN13: 9781644532492
• Release Date: January 2022
• Publisher: University of Delaware Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher