-- The Women's Review of Books

An appealing and intelligent eighteen-year-old girl to whom Freud gives the pseudonym "Dora" is the subject of a case history that has all the intrigue and unexpected twists of a first-rate detective novel. Freud pursues the secrets of Dora's psyche by using as clues her nervous mannerisms, her own reports on the peculiarities of her family, and the content of her dreams. The personalities involved in Dora's disturbed emotional life were, in their own ways, as complex as she: an obsessive mother, an adulterous father, her father's mistress, Frau K., and Frau K.'s husband, who had made amorous advances toward Dora. Faced with the odd behavior of her family and friends, and unable to confront her own forbidden sexual desires, Dora falls into the destructive pattern of a powerful hysteria. in this influential and provocative case history, Freud uses all his analytic genius and literary skill to reveal Dora's inner life and explain the motives behind her fixation on her father's mistress. -- from back cover.

A brilliantly original exploration of the interface between feminism, psychoanalysis, semiotics and film theory.

“An interesting story set in interesting times, a powerful combination.” Julian Fellowes This is an extraordinary account of a young Jewish girl whose childhood was torn apart by the Nazis, who made her way as a dancer, as an actress, as a designer, from Sofia to Vienna to London to Hollywood. Dora Reisser was highly successful in her three careers, and here she tells her heartrending, exciting story with humour and honesty – the little-known story of how Bulgaria’s Jews survived the Holocaust, her life in post-war Vienna, and her rise to become one of the leading dancers in the Vienna Opera. A refugee from the Nazi regime as a child, Dora trained and danced with the Vienna Opera as their youngest solo dancer until an accidental fall in her late teens ended her dancing career. She then moved to London and studied theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. After a career on British television, in a few Hollywood films and on the stage, she gave up her acting career to raise a family and, beginning in the 1980s, she became one of Britain’s leading fashion designers. Dora went from wealth to poverty, heartbreak and danger, and bounced back again and again, with all the vigour and determination of a Jewish Scarlett O’Hara. She knew the world of Harry Lime and Bernie Cornfeld, the KGB and the early days of Israel, and had lovers along the way. She uniquely describes the hard and painful world of ballet, the exaltation of success, and the despair of a career tragically curtailed. We sometimes forget about the generation whose parents’ lives were destroyed by Hitler and who had to reconstruct their souls amid the rubble and ruins that were all that was left of Old Europe. Dora’s Story is a tale of triumph over every possible adversity, a story of terror and hunger and persistence. Above all, it is the tale of a survivor. “The most moving and straightforward self-appraisal I have ever read.” Robert Hardy “A marvellous book.” Michael Billington, The Guardian

In Brixton, Nora and Dora Chance – twin chorus girls born and bred south of the river – are celebrating their 75th birthday. Over the river in Chelsea, their father and greatest actor of his generation Melchior Hazard turns 100 on the same day. As does his twin brother Peregrine. If, in fact, he's still alive. And if, in truth, Melchior is their real father after all... Wise Children is adapted for the stage from Angela Carter's last novel about a theatrical family living in South London. It centres around twin chorus girls, Nora and Dora Chance, whose lives are brimming with mystery, illegitimacy and scandal. Dora narrates the story as her older self, looking back on a tumultuous life, throughout which she and her sister have loved to sing and dance. A big, bawdy tangle of theatrical joy and heartbreak, Wise Children is a celebration of show business, family, forgiveness and hope. Expect show girls and Shakespeare, sex and scandal, music, mischief and mistaken identity – and butterflies by the thousand.

Join Dora and Boots as they go on exciting adventures before they go to sleep! Preschoolers will love this bedtime book with soft cover that includes two favorite stories: Good Night, Dora! Dora's Bedtime Wishes