Sarah Bernhardt and Doctor Pozzi – Letters of love and friendship

From their first meeting in the Latin Quarter of Paris in 1868 until Pozzi’s tragic death in 1918, Sarah Bernhardt and Samuel Pozzi continued to exchange letters and messages, initially words of love and later as testimony of a deep and sincere friendship.

While Sarah became the first international superstar of theatre, Samuel, a founder of modern surgery and gynecology, distinguished himself also as a writer, collector and politician.

In researching their lives, Caroline de Costa and Francesca Miller have had access to more than one hundred letters from Bernhardt to Pozzi. Around these letters, the authors have woven the histories of two amazing people, richly endowed by Nature, but developing their gifts to the full, hardworking, and, in their own spheres, perfectionists. 

“My Doctor God… No being is dearer to me than you…do I then need, dear friend, to open the box of memories that we share, to let you breathe the perfume of those flowers we gathered together in the garden of Life? I love you tenderly, infinitely…Sarah. April 1915.”

The authors

Caroline de Costa is a gynecologist and ­obstetrician and professor at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia. She has published numerous books and articles on the history of gynecology and obstetrics.
Francesca Miller is a Los Angeles based journalist and film critic with strong interests in the Belle Époque in France and in Black American history.

Front cover image: Photo of Sarah Bernhardt dedicated to Samuel Pozzi (Archives of Nicolas Bourdet, Paris)
Back cover: Dr Pozzi At Home, John Singer Sargent (1881).Oil on canvas. Armand Hammer Collection.