SOURCE: A review of Memories of My Life by Sarah Bernhardt, in The Nation, Vol. 85, No. 2209, October 31, 1907, pp. 403-4.

In the following essay, the anonymous reviewer praises Bernhardt's Memories of My Life, noting that it deftly portrays the actress, but adds that the memoir adds little to common knowledge of Bernhardt's life.

If it be the main object of an autobiography to make a complete and merciless exposure of the character of the writer … [Memories of My Life by] Sarah Bernhardt constitute[s] one of the most successful books ever written—and the revelation is so utterly unconscious, so vivid and so consistent in all its elaborate complexity as to leave no room for doubt or speculation. Herein lies the value of this rhapsodical but interesting apologia pro vita sua that it exhibits the true woman in clearer relief than it does the largely mythical superwoman whom it...