Adah Isaacs Menken

Accounts of Menken's early life and origins vary considerably. In her autobiographical "Some Notes of Her Life in Her Own Hand," published in The New York Times in 1868, Menken said she was born in Bordeaux, France, and lived in Cuba as a child before her family settled in New Orleans. There are many conflicting reports as to Menken's birth name, but she has been called Marie Rachel Adelaide de Vere Spenser and Adah Bertha Theodore, and Ed James, a journalist friend, wrote after her death: "Her real name was Adelaide McCord, and she was born at Milneburg, near New Orleans, on June 15, 1835." Menken's birth year also varies, with some records stating 1835 and some stating 1832. Elsewhere, in 1865, she wrote that her birth name was Dolores Adios Los Fiertes, and that she was the daughter of a French woman from New Orleans and a Spanish-Jewish man. About 1940, the consensus of scholars was that her parents were Auguste Théodore, a free Black man, and Marie, a mixed-race Creole, and Adah was raised as a Catholic. She had a sister and a brother. likely also a Louisiana Creole. Ada would have been raised as Catholic. However, in 1990, John Cofran, using census records, said that she was born as Ada C. McCord, in Memphis, Tennessee, in late 1830. He said she was the daughter of an Irish merchant, Richard McCord, and his wife Catherine. According to Cofran, her father died when she was young and her mother remarried. The family then moved from Memphis to New Orleans. Menken was said to have been a bright student; she became fluent in French and Spanish, and was described as having a gift for languages. As a child, Menken performed as a dancer in the ballet of the French Opera House in New Orleans. In her later childhood, she performed as a dancer in Havana, Cuba, where she was crowned "Queen of the Plaza." ==American career==

After Cuba, Menken left dance for acting, and began working as an actress in Texas first. According to Gregory Eiselein, she gave Shakespeare readings, and wrote poems and sketches for The Liberty Gazette. She was married for the first time in Galveston County, in February 1855, to G. W. Kneass, a musician. The marriage had ended by sometime in 1856, She also began to be published in the Jewish Messenger of New York. She also became known for her poetry and painting. While none of her art was well received by major critics, she became a celebrity. While in New York, Menken met the poet Walt Whitman and some others of his bohemian circle. She was influenced by his work and began to write in a more confessional style while adhering to common sentimental conventions of the time. In 1860–61, she published 25 poems in the Sunday Mercury, an entertainment newspaper in New York. These were later collected with six more in her only book, Infelicia, published a few months after her death. She identified with the controversial poet, and declared her bohemian identity through her support for him. That year, Menken also wrote an article on the 1860 election, an unusual topic for a woman, which further added to her image. When Menken met Charles Blondin, notable for crossing Niagara Falls on a tightrope, the two were quickly attracted to each other. She suggested she would marry him if they could perform a couple's act above the falls. Blondin refused, saying that he would be "distracted by her beauty." The two had an affair, during which they conducted a vaudeville tour across the United States. ==Mazeppa==

After it ended, she appealed to her business manager Jimmie Murdock to help her become recognized as a great actress. Murdock dissuaded Menken from that goal, as he believed she had little acting talent. The audiences were thrilled with the scene, although the production used a dummy strapped to a horse, which was led away by a handler giving sugar cubes. Menken wanted to perform the stunt herself. She became known across the country for this role, and San Francisco adopted her as its performer. In 1862, she married Robert Henry Newell, a humorist and editor of the Sunday Mercury in New York, who had recently published most of her poetry. They were together about three years. In 1866, she wed James Paul Barkley, a gambler, but soon returned without him to France, where she was performing. There she had their son, whom she named Louis Dudevant Victor Emanuel Barkley. The baby's godmother was the author George Sand (A. F. Lesser). She was so well known that she was referred to as "the Menken," needing no other name.) During this time of her greatest earning, she was generous to friends, theatre people in need, and charities. ==Later life==

Playing in a sold-out run of Les pirates de la savane in Paris in 1866, Menken had an affair with the French novelist Alexandre Dumas, père, considered somewhat scandalous as he was more than twice her age. Returning to England in 1867, she struggled to attract audiences to Mazeppa and attendance fell off. During this time she had an affair with the English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. In 1862, Menken had written about her public and private personae: I have always believed myself to be possessed of two souls, one that lives on the surface of life, pleasing and pleased; the other as deep and as unfathomable as the ocean; a mystery to me and all who know me. Her only book, Infelicia, a collection of 31 poems, was published several days after her death. ==Literary career==

Menken wanted to be known as a writer, but her work was overshadowed by her sensational stage career and private and public life. In total, she published about 20 essays, 100 poems and a book of her collected poems, from 1855 to 1868; the book was published posthumously. Her work was not received well by contemporary critics. George Merriam Hyde, one of the most respected critics of his day, refused to critique Menken's work, saying privately that "it would be an insult to himself and his profession". Van Wyck Brooks publicly joked that "her work is the best example of unintentional wit and accidental humour". Her early work was devoted to family and romance. After her marriage to Menken and her study of Judaism, her poetry and essays for years into the 1860s featured Jewish themes. After her marriage and divorce from Heenan and meeting with writers in New York, she changed her style, adopting some influence from Walt Whitman. She was said to be the "first poet and the only woman poet before the twentieth century" to follow his lead in using free verse. The New York Times reported that Walt Whitman had disassociated himself from Menken's work, implying he thought little of it. Beginning in New York, her poetry expressed a wider range of emotions related to relationships, sexuality, and also about women's struggle to find a place in the world. Her collection Infelicia went through several editions and was in print until 1902. In the late nineteenth century, critics were hard on women writers, and Menken's public notoriety caused even more critical scrutiny of her poems. Later critics (such as A. R. Lloyd in his book, The Great Prize Fight and Graham Gordon in his book Master of the Ring) generally dismiss her work as being devoid of talent. Admirers included Christina Rossetti and Joaquin Miller. ==References==