MADAME TUSSAUD: A LIFE IN WAX. by Berridge, Kate - 2006

Toronto: HarperCollins, 2006. 352 pp, 9 1/4" H. B&w illustrations. "When she died in London at the age of ninety, a survivor of one of the most tumultuous epochs in history, Madame Tussaud had travelled far from her inauspicious beginnings in Strasbourg as the daughter of a common soldier and a housekeeper. Moving to Paris as a child, Marie climbed through the ranks of French society as the protegee of charmismatic showman artist Philippe Curtius, and witnessed the French Revolution in all its grisly detail. She survived the Terror and moved to London, where she struggled to find a foothold amidst the desperate competition of showmen from all over Europe. Her touring years were studded with drama and danger, and twice she nearly lost her life and livelihood - first in a shipwreck and then at the hands of a rampaging mob in the Reform riots of 1831. The core of her exhibition was Revolutionary relics given extra potency by her victim survivor status and the famous claims that she was forced to cast the death masks of Marie Antoinette and other members of the royal family, whom she had known personally when employed to teach modelling at Versailles. But did her desire to make a compelling and commercial spectacle of the events unfolding around her extend to moulding her own dramatic story? The story of a business empire sculpted out of the ashes of one of history's most turbulent periods reveal a woman who - in exploiting the human fascination with the rich, the famous and the infamous - was far ahead of her time." Very small bump at bottom corner of both boards, wrinkling at top/bottom of spine. Dust jacket has minor edge wear, light wrinkling at top/bottom of spine and flap-folds, very light rubbing.. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good.