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In 1837, 16-year-old Eliza Rosanna Gilbert eloped with a young soldier to Ireland, scandalizing her strict Christian family. Her grandparents wrote her out of the will and her mother took to wearing all black to mourn the “death” of her “queer, wayward” daughter.
Just five years later, the “Spanish Dancer Lola Montez” was dancing on stages around the world. But as Lola toured theaters across the globe, she deliberately skipped stops in the United Kingdom. Someone there, she feared, could potentially have put the puzzle together: that the rebellious Eliza Rosanna Gilbert and the “exotic” Lola Montez were, in fact, the same person.
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