Madame Tussaud S Apprentice

In 1789, with the starving French people on the brink of revolution, orphaned Celie Rosseau, an amazing artist and a very clever thief, runs wild with her protector, Algernon, trying to join the idealistic freedom fighters of Paris. But when she is caught stealing from none other than the king's brother and the lady from the waxworks, Celie must use her drawing talent to buy her own freedom or die for her crimes. Forced to work for Madame Tussaud inside the opulent walls that surround Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Celie is shocked to find that the very people she imagined to be monsters actually treat her with kindness. But the thunder of revolution still rolls outside the gates, and Celie is torn between the cause of the poor and the safety of the rich. When the moment of truth arrives, will she turn on Madame Tussaud or betray the boy she loves? From the hidden garrets of the starving poor to the jeweled halls of Versailles, Madame Tussaud's Apprentice is a sweeping story of danger, intrigue, and young love, set against one of the most dramatic moments in history.

Celie (15) houdt zich als dievegge staande in Parijs. Na een mislukte beroving kan ze werken voor Madame Tussaud. Zo komt Celie in aanraking met de hoogste kringen. Vanaf ca. 13 jaar.

Tussaud's catered for the public's fascination with monarchy, whether Henry VIII and his wives or Queen Victoria, as well as for their love of history, acting as an accessible and enjoyable museum. This work looks at Madame Tussaud herself and her exhibition as part of the wider history of wax modelling and of popular entertainment.

Madame Tussaud is a name known all over the world. The queue to her exhibition is a landmark. Such is its phenomenal success, it has eclipsed the woman who started it all. But Marie Tussaud led a remarkable life. With grit and audacity she overcame reversals of fortune and built an extraordinary spectacle. Of lowly birth and uncertain paternity, Marie became apprentice to a charismatic showman in Paris who taught her the art of wax modelling. They plied their trade among a colourful cast of 'Italian singers, pastry cooks, restaurant keepers, marionettes, acrobats, giants, dwarves, ferocious beasts'. In her memoir she also claimed friendship with royals and revolutionaries including Marie Antoinette and Voltaire. But, as a born entrepreneur, did Marie's flair for publicity extend to moulding her own story? After the Revolution, she came to England and took her show on the road. She pursued the punishing lifestyle of the travelling show for many years and secured a lasting reputation in the Dickensian world of 19th century popular entertainment. More than a biography, this captivating cultural history plunges the reader into popular culture of the past; the escapist delights of canine cabaret, living skeletons, phantasmagoria and of course waxworks. It reveals a truth that Madame Tussaud understood and harnessed from the outset - the mass-market appeal of glamour and gore is enduring and universal.

A “meticulously researched and deftly written biography” of the woman behind the famed wax museums, and their origins in the era of the French Revolution (Midwest Book Review). Madame Marie Tussaud is known worldwide for the chain of wax museums she started over two hundred years ago. Less known is that her original wax models were often of the famous and infamous people she personally knew during and after the French Revolution. These were people like Voltaire, Robespierre, and Napoleon—people who changed the world. Even more, the wax figures were depicted in scenes drawn from the horrors she experienced during the reign of terror in Paris during her early adult years. This book shows how the traumatic and cataclysmic experiences of Madame Tussaud’s early life became part of her legacy. She created a succession of scenes in wax, telling events as she personally experienced them. Her wax sculptures were visceral. She made them herself, at times from the living person’s head and at other times from the recently guillotined head of a former houseguest. As a result, people were drawn to her wax displays because they were the most intense way of experiencing those events themselves. This is the story not only of a unique artist, but of how one of history’s bloodiest events influenced her life and work.

Kate Berridge’s Madame Tussaud: A Life in Wax “celebrates a great pioneer of mass-market illusion, whose illusions eventually included herself.”* Millions have visited the museums that bear her name, yet few know much about Madame Tussaud. A celebrated artist, she had both a ringside seat at and a cameo role in the French Revolution. A victim and survivor of one of the most tumultuous times in history, this intelligent, pragmatic businesswoman has also had an indelible impact on contemporary culture, planting the seed of our obsession with celebrity. Kate Berridge tells this fascinating woman’s complete story for the first time, drawing upon a wealth of sources, including Tussaud’s memoirs and historical archives. It is a grand-scale success story, revealing how with sheer graft and grit a woman born in 1761 to an eighteen-year-old cook overcame extraordinary reversals of fortune to build the first and most enduring worldwide brand identified simply by reference to its founder’s name: Madame Tussaud’s. “A good story, like Berridge’s biography, is a blessing.” —Miami Herald “A rousing good read . . . [Berridge] presents us with a thorough understanding of the beginnings of popular culture.” —Vancouver Sun “Fascinating. . . . A vividly recreated history of an extreme time and the unusually determined woman who capitalized so effectively on it.” —Globe and Mail “Spectacular and spellbinding. . . . Thoughtful, original, never condescending, erudite, and packed with vivid and sometimes horrifying detail, it is a model of how cultural history should be written.” —*Sunday Times (London)

London, 1896. Madame Tussauds opens to find one of its nightwatchmen decapitated and his colleague nowhere to be found. To the police, the case seems simple: one killed the other and fled, but workers at the museum aren't convinced. Although forbidden contact by his superior officer, Scotland Yard detective John Feather secretly enlists 'The Museum Detectives' Daniel Wilson and Abigail Fenton to aid the police investigation. When the body of the missing nightwatchman is discovered encased within a wax figure, the case suddenly becomes more complex. With questions over rival museums, the dead men's pasts and a series of bank raids plaguing the city, Wilson and Fenton face their most intriguing and dangerous case yet.

Paris, 1788. Marie is a young woman in love with her oldest friend and neighbour, Henri. But she is also a determined businesswoman, eager to see her family's waxwork museum keep them safe and solvent. Her gift for modelling faces in wax brings her to Versailles, where she must teach the king's sister her skill. But the coming revolution will place Marie, her family and all of Paris in grave danger. As the monarchy is overthrown and the guillotine becomes a fixture in French life, Marie is expected to show her patriotism by making death masks from the severed heads of every key figure killed as the Reign of Terror begins and France enters its darkest time. How will Marie survive the Revolution? Who will survive it with her? And just how will this girl come to be known as the woman behind one of the most famous museums in the world?