"Fawcett's concept of overexpression is both insightful and deserving of further exploration."
--The Drama Review
— Leslie Ritchie, The Drama Review
“This powerfully argued and beautifully written study adds rich historical perspective to celebrity studies.”
—Misty Anderson, University of Tennessee
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"Fawcett astutely observes and analyzes the means by which famous performers managed to present themselves as public property for consumption by audiences and readers who were eager and willing to pay for the privilege of experiencing celebrity self-presentation."
--Eighteenth-Century Fiction
— Brian Cowan, Eighteenth-Century Fiction
“Well-written and packed with interesting information about a coterie of performer/writers whom we don’t typically read as a coterie. Fawcett’s scholarship makes an important contribution to our understanding of the ways in which some of the first public celebrities coped with their fame.”
—Judith Pascoe, University of Iowa
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Finalist, George Freedley Memorial Award, Theatre Library Association
— George Freedley Memorial Award, Theatre Library Association
"Paradoxes, in the hands of unskilled practitioners, often seem to breed more paradoxes, but Fawcett brings a decided clarity to her complex subject. Taken up herself with metaphors of interior and exterior, light and dark, Fawcett encourages her own readers not to dig in so much as to stand back and watch."
--Theatre Survey
— Emily Hodgson Anderson, Theatre Survey