“I thoroughly enjoyed reading Melanie Gall’s latest offering, Fire Witch. Once again, Gall brings an actress who has faded into the background of theatre history forward into the light of our present day. With Gall’s passion, intelligence, and deft storytelling, Kate Claxton’s life as an indomitable maverick in the theatre world is celebrated and honored in this beautiful rendition of her life. I am so very grateful that I have had the pleasure and privilege of learning about such an important woman in the history of theatre.”

– Jayne Atkinson, actor

“Gall gives life to Kate Claxton, a thespian in a man’s world, a wife and mother, whose life is fraught with tragedies of her own. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. Gall’s research is unparalleled and her storytelling is wonderful.”

– Jahongir “Jhon” Usmanov, director of operations, Green-Wood Cemetery

“The book is a beautifully told narrative. A real achievement! It has been said that Kate Claxton was the most photographed woman of the nineteenth century, yet her story remains largely unknown in the twenty-first. Melanie Gall's Fire Witch remedies that, beautifully capturing what no photographer's lens could: the soul of the actress whose personal and professional life played out more magnificently than any of the stage melodramas she made famous.”

– Gregory Gillette, historian

"Melanie Gall celebrates the life of Kate Claxton, who persevered through barriers that would have defeated lesser women. Gall's informative research leads us on a quest to revive the story of this forgotten actor and businesswoman.”

– Richard Jay Hutto, Gilded Age historian

"Deeply researched and beautifully written, Fire Witch tells the story of an ambitious actress whose life came to be defined by a catastrophic, mostly forgotten fire during Brooklyn's Gilded Age."

– Esther Crain, founder of Ephemeral New York and author of The Gilded Age in New York, 1870–1910

“A story sprung from a late-night tour of the legendary Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, Fire Witch crackles with New York's buried histories and joie de vivre. Drawing upon a treasure trove of letters, autobiographies, newspapers, and archival documents, Gall paints a vivid picture of Kate Claxton, the titular ‘fire witch’—an actress from a long line of posh American theatre types who famously played one of the two orphans in a widely heralded, long-running theatrical smash hit. Luminous photographs pepper Gall’s text and the myriad stories within explode with brightly told details—at one point Kate exchanges a pair of fine new dresses for an apple-selling Irish woman’s rags all the better to import authenticity into her blind, down-at-heel character. Like so many women, Kate Claxton has largely been forgotten by history, but Fire Witch brings her back and, along with her, a history of New York theater, the Green-Wood Cemetery itself, and a vibrant cast of characters—some brave and courageous, others cads and ne’er do wells. It’s a rich brew which Gall’s sparkly prose brings to life, thinning the curtain, as she hints, between past and present.”

– Brett Ashley Kaplan, professor, Comparative Literature and Jewish Studies