The life of actress Charlotte Charke transports us through the splendors and scandals of eighteenth-century London and its wicked theatrical world. Her father, Colley Cibber, was one of the eighteenth century's great actor/playwrights-the toast of the British aristocracy, a favorite of the king. When his high-spirited, often rebellious daughter, Charlotte, revealed a fondness for things theatrical, it was thought that the young actress would follow in his footsteps at the legendary Drury Lane, creating a brilliant career on the London stage. But this was not to be. And it was not that Charlotte lacked talent-she was gifted, particularly at comedy. Troublesome, however, was her habit of dressing in men's clothes-a preference first revealed onstage but adopted elsewhere after her disastrous marriage to an actor, who became the last man she ever loved. Kathryn Shevelow, an expert on the sophisticated world of eighteenth-century London, re-creates Charlotte's downfall from the heights of London's theatrical world to its lascivious lows (the domain of fire-eaters, puppeteers, wastrels, gender-bending cross-dressers, wenches, and scandalous sorts of every variety) and her comeback as the author of one of the first autobiographies ever written by a woman. Beyond the appealingly unorthodox Charlotte, Shevelow masterfully recalls for us a historical era of extraordinary stylishness, artifice, character, interest, and intrigue. "Precocious, gifted, charismatic, and eccentric, Charlotte Charke illuminated the Eighteenth Century with the fleeting brightness of a shooting star. An actress both on stage and off, she lived her life as though it were a comic tragedy fit only for villains and heroes. Kathryn Shevelow has written a remarkable book which admirably captures this most elusive of social rebels." Amanda Foreman, author of "Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire "A fascinating account of this eccentric dynamo's adventures in eighteenth-century trade, theatre and love, Shevelow's book should win Charlotte Cibber Charke the multitudes of admirers she deserves." Emma Donoghue, author of Slammerkin and Life Mask