Jenny Lind (1820–87) was one of Europe's most famous opera singers. Known as the 'Swedish Nightingale', she first rose to prominence in an 1838 performance of Weber's Freischütz. Despite her immense success over the next ten years, she retired from the stage at the age of twenty-nine. Seeking financial security to pursue her charitable interests, in 1850 she accepted the invitation of impresario P. T. Barnum to undertake a tour of the United States; this was another succession of triumphs. Henry Scott Holland (1847–1918), the theologian and social reformer, and music writer William Smith Rockstro (1823–95) used Lind's own documents, letters and diaries as the basis of this two-volume memoir, published in 1891, which focuses on the first thirty-one years of her life. Volume 1 covers Lind's Swedish childhood and early singing career, and a brief but critical period when she suffered damage to her vocal cords.
