About The Authors

Michael and Barbara Foster are authors of the definitive biography of America’s first superstar Adah Isaacs Menken called A DANGEROUS WOMAN. The 19th century actress, poet and original Superstar, Adah Isaacs Menken, was known as “The Naked Lady.” Michael Foster wrote the novel based on her life that is excerpted at this website. They are the authors of many print and Net articles on Adah Menken, including a cover story for Nineteenth Century and another for the very popular PopMatters.com. The Fosters have written the widely translated THE SECRET LIVES OF ALEXANDRA DAVID-NEEL: A Biography of the Explorer of Tibet and Its Forbidden Practices with a foreword by Lawrence Durrell (Overlook Press, third edition 2008). It was chosen as “one of the best all-time books” by The New York Review of Books. Other Joint publications of the Fosters include Forbidden Journey (Harper, 1989), a classic of adventure travel; THREE IN LOVE (Harper, 1997), the history of the romantic triangle. Praised by Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, and Bookwoman, Three In Love has been published in German, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean.

Michael Foster, born in Coney Island, Brooklyn, is a novelist, biographer, and historian who graduated from Cornell with honors in philosophy. He took time out to fight in the Cuban revolution. Later, he received an MFA from the Writer’s Workshop, Iowa. His novel Freedom’s Thunder (Avon, 1980), was praised by Nobel laureate Isaac B. Singer. His writing style in Three in Love was described by Entertainment Weekly as “racy and engaging.”

Barbara Foster, retired librarian and Assoc. Prof. at CUNY, has published many articles on travel and over 200 poems in journals in various countries. Barbara has presented dozens of slide shows on the life of Alexandra David-Neel from Washington’s Smithsonian to Cal Tech, Sidney, Buenos Aires, and Prague. She has been selected as a Speaker (on Menken) by the NY State Council on the Humanities. Barbara appears on TV, radio, and in print/Net interviews. Her pen name for erotic writing is Belladonna, the “wife with a double life.”