Memoranda of the Life of Jenny Lind

Nathaniel Parker Willis

Jan 1851 · Robert E. Peterson.

Ratings and reviews

Having read this Memoranda of the Life of Jenny Lind by N. Parker Willis, and after viewing the modern movie The Greatest Showman, I am heartened that the truth of Jenny Lind is still available to the general public. As with all human truth, it is obviously skewed by the filter of the mind which presents it and beholds it. But this is a great representation of the truth because it was written AT THE TIME, around 1850. Eyewitness accounts are the stuff of legal argument. It can be argued that this is a true representation of what REALLY happened. Jenny Lind was a human being with faults. But let us read the hyperbole that spews from the eyewitnesses of Jenny Lind on and off the stage from Stockholm to Bonn to Berlin to Prague to London to New York and beyond. Theater and its performers had a terrible reputation in the 19th Century, in spite of (and because of?) the support by monarchies of all stripes. Enter Jenny Lind. Not only was she commonly acclaimed as the greatest tragedian, comedian and singer of her time (all time?), she was equally renowned as the greatest philanthropist, humanitarian and Christian person to grace the stage. She was arguably the most popular performer in Europe and America. She introduced superstardom when there was no such thing before her. This book is the best chronicle I have read about Jenny Lind. It is not just one man's opinion. It is a compiled chronicle written by journalists and important persons of her time. News articles are the major medium of the message. Willis, a journalist contemporary of Ms. Lind, has written many of the articles. His style is often dry wit, and his attention to detail is uniquely incisive. If you want to know the real Jenny Lind, read this book. (The text is cut off at the bottoms of several pages. More's the pity. Help!)