The Murray Edwards Duse Collection is the best record of Eleonora Duse's literary background. So advanced was her artistic and literary emancipation that she was considered one of the foremost Italian aesthetes. The discovery and reconstruction of The Collection change in many ways the reception of her acting and of her intellectual profile, shedding new light on her art. The Murray Edwards Duse Collection includes several books that Eleonora Duse read: a fundamental resource in understanding the roots of her artistic profile. It could now be said there are two aspects to Duse's acting. She is first and foremost one of the greatest actress in the history of theatre; but she is also an incomparable intellectual of her time. The Murray Edwards Duse Collection may be considered metaphorically as Duse's gold, previously considered to be lost for ever. This book has been published with the sustain of the Murray Edwards College.