From the very beginning, she was a radical. At age nineteen, Charlotte Cushman, America's beloved actress and the country's first true celebrity, left her life, and countless suitors, behind to make it as a Shakespearean actress. After revolutionizing the role of Lady Macbeth in front of many adoring fans, she went on the road, performing in cities across a dividing America and building her fame. She was everywhere. And yet, her name has faded in the shadows of history. . . Now, for the first time in decades, Cushman's story comes to full and brilliant life in this definitive, exhilarating, and enlightening biography of the 19th-century icon.