In this compelling memoir, first published in 1957 and now appearing in this updated paperback edition, prima ballerina Ninette de Valois writes about her extraordinary career: the vivid memories of her home in Ireland; her first London engagement at the Lyceum pantomime in 1914; her tour of the Continent with Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes in 1923; her time with the Abbey Theatre in the late 1920s, and the Old Vic and Sadler’s Wells in the 1930s; her travels in Yugoslavia and Turkey, where she established a ballet school in 1947 and her founding of The Royal Ballet in 1956. This story of de Valois’ mythic rise to fame as dancer, choreo-grapher and director is illustrated with over fifty photographs and brought to life by sketches of Yeats, Lennox Robinson, Oliver St John Gogarty, Tyrone Guthrie, Lilian Baylis, Margot Fonteyn, Lydia Lopokova, Frederick Ashton and Constant Lambert, among others. It is a powerful testament to her enduring influence on the world of dance.
