In his new biography of Dame Nellie Melba, Nellie Melba: The Legend Lives, author Richard Davis sets out to fill a void. While previous narratives have focused on Melba’s life rather than her art, Davis aims to “provide more detail about Melba’s voice, singing style and the musical milieu in which her career was conducted”.

He draws on two primary sources – the 1909 publication Melba: A Biography, written by journalist and Melba’s secretary Agnes G. Murphy, and Melba’s autobiography Melodies and Memories from 1925, ghostwritten by her confidante Beverley Nichols. These two accounts are elaborated with content from an extensive bibliography of professional and personal material, including subsequent biographies of Melba, her granddaughter Pamela Vestey’s 1996 book Melba: a family memoir and anecdotes from luminaries like Sir Eugene Goossens and Sir Henry Wood. There are excerpts from reviews and stories from newspapers, letters, conversations, descriptions of recently discovered film and the way she sounded on her recordings. Absent from Davis’s bibliography is Robert Wainwright’s 2021 biography Nellie: The Life and Loves of Dame Nellie Melba.

Along with a timeline of Melba’s career, her discography and a list of her roles,...