Mrs. Jordan's Profession: The Story of a Great Actress and a Future King

I bought this book after a friend recommended it to me, when it first came out in hardback and was unable to put it down.
Claire Tomalin's prose style is so easy and approachable that one forgets the excellence of its research and scholarship.Neither too academic(as some historical biographies tend to be) nor too gossipy, she paints a sympathetic portrait of an amazing woman who held down a successful career and brought up a large and happy family.
Dorothy Jordan's story is ultimately a tragic one and yet she comes across as a woman full of spirit, strength and boundless love for those close to her.
A fantastic treasure of a book about one of Englands forgotten heroins.

a Regency actress - an intelligent, humerous and impressive woman - and a royal mistress (11/12 people found this helpful)

Claire Tomalin, the author of highly acclaimed biographies of Mary Wollstonecraft,
Katherine Mansfield and Jane Austen, presents the reader s with a great biography of the Dorothy Jordan and at the same with a great painting of the regency period.

Dorothea (sometimes Dorothy or Dora) Bland was properly one of the greatest comic actress the British theatre had known. She assumed the name "Mrs Jordan", because it was slightly more respectable for a married woman to be on the stage (there was no "Mr Jordan" and Dorothea Bland never married) She made her stage debut in 1777 at the age of 15 and her first Drury Lane appearance in 1785. She kept her hold on the public for nearly 30 years, mainly in comic tomboy roles.Already the mother of five children, in 1790 she became the mistress of the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William IV. The relationship, which was a very happy one, produced ten children, the Fitzclarences. Seven were born after they settled in Bushy House in 1797.The King had given Bushy House to the always financially strapped Duke. Even so he needed help and Dorothea contributed to the upkeep from her own stage earnings as well as producing a further seven children.As the years went by the Duke came under pressure from the royal family to find a suitable (preferably rich) wife. The Duke ended the relationship in 1811 when he met a young heiress, although he did not find and marry Adelaide of Saxe-Meinengen until 1818. Although the Duke made a generous settlement for the support of her family, Dorothea was completely devastated by the separation. After a son-in-law ran up huge debts in her name she fled to France in 1815. She died alone, in poverty, at St. Cloud, outside Paris in 1816, and was buried there.

The biography paints a vivid picture of this humerous, intelligent and impressive woman. The Duke of Clarence could not match her and only his royal status commaned him. He must have been by far the real lucky one, but of course being a royal prince he was the one who called the shots. The way he discarded his "wife" and that she was in all but name was a disgrace: Royalty at its worse.

This book is highly enjoyable and highly recommended!

Remarkable Life of a Very Visible Woman (27/28 people found this helpful)

Claire Tomalin is perhaps best known for The Invisible Woman, the life of Ellen Ternan whose invisibility secured the respectability of Charles Dickens. Dora Jordan, on the other hand, was the very visible mistress of the Duke of Clarence, later King William IV, for some 20 years of apparently contented domesticity. During that time she managed to be a devoted mother to 10 children (plus three by previous relationships) as well as a noted comic actress at Drury Lane and elsewhere. For all that the 'invisibility factor' intruded when William got nearer to the throne with the installation as Regent of his brother George. In William's hapless pursuit of a rich (ideally royal) bride, Mrs. Jordan was conveniently ignored, dealt with only at second hand. By now rather stout and maternal for roles like Rosalind, she toured doggedly until less than a year before her untimely death.
The quality of Claire Tomalin's research is outstanding and the presentation of her subject remarkably fair-minded, even to the amiably, but disastrously, weak Clarence. The lucidity of style and organisation make this a book it is impossible to lose your way in, even with 10 Fitz-Clarences with an average of two pet names apiece - and an excellent index provides a first-class road map. There is no blazing indignation, but plenty of evidence of the unthinking selfishness of princes to go with fascinating insight into character. Among the supporting cast the playwright R.B. Sheridan, whose career partly parallelled Mrs. Jordan, stands out as an ambitious 18th century Icarus whose flight and burn-out are both sad and entertaining.

An intriguing and satisfying biography (12/14 people found this helpful)

This is a skillful account of the life of an absolutely fascinating but largely forgotten historical figure. Dora Jordan was simulanously the most successful comic stage actress of her age, and the mother of 10 children by the future William IV. The book does her story justice, concentrating on her stage work and her ever increasing family.

Mrs. Jordan's Profession: The Story of a Great Actress and a Future King

Claire Tomalin

Reader Reviews:

an accessible and moving biography (0/0 people found this helpful)

a Regency actress - an intelligent, humerous and impressive woman - and a royal mistress (11/12 people found this helpful)

Remarkable Life of a Very Visible Woman (27/28 people found this helpful)

An intriguing and satisfying biography (12/14 people found this helpful)

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