Kemble, Frances Anne (1809-1893)

Title

Frances Anne Kemble

Author

Kemble, Frances Anne (1809-1893)

Date

27 November 1809 – 15 January 1893

Place of origin

London

Country of origin

England, United Kingdom

Language

English

Profession

Poet

Actress

Travel writer

Activist

Biographical details

Frances Anne Kemble was a British actress from a theatre family in the early and mid-19th century. She was a well-known and popular writer and abolitionist whose published works included plays, poetry, eleven volumes of memoirs, travel writing, and works about the theatre.
A member of the famous Kemble theatrical family, Fanny was the eldest daughter of the actor Charles Kemble and his Viennese-born wife, the former Marie Therese De Camp. She was a niece of the noted tragedienne Sarah Siddons and of the famous actor John Philip Kemble. Her younger sister was the opera singer Adelaide Kemble. Fanny was born in London and educated chiefly in France. In 1821, Fanny Kemble departed to boarding school in Paris to study art and music as befitted the child of the most celebrated artistic family in England at that time. In addition to literature and society, at Mrs. Lamb's Academy in the Rue d'Angoulême, Champs Elysées, Fanny received her first real personal exposure to the stage performing staged readings for students' parents during her time at school. As an adolescent, Kemble spent time studying literature and poetry, in particular the work of Lord Byron. In 1827, Kemble wrote her first five-act play, Francis the First. It was met with critical acclaim from multiple quarters. On 26 October 1829, at the age of 19, Kemble first appeared on the stage as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet at Covent Garden Theatre. In 1832, Kemble accompanied her father on a theatrical tour of the United States. While in Boston in 1833, she journeyed to Quincy to witness the revolutionary technology of the first commercial railroad in the United States. She had previously accompanied George Stephenson on a test of the Liverpool and Manchester before its opening in England and described this in a letter written in early 1830. The Granite Railway was among many sights she recorded in her journal. On 7 June 1834, Kemble retired from the stage to marry a wealthy Philadelphian, Pierce Mease Butler, grandson of U.S. Senator Pierce Butler, whom she had met on an American acting tour with her father in 1832. Kemble retired from her acting career upon her marriage in 1834, but after her separation, she returned to acting as a solo platform performer, beginning her first American tour in 1849. During her readings, she rose to focus on presenting edited works of Shakespeare, though, unlike others, she insisted on representing his entire canon, ultimately building her repertoire to 25 of his plays. She performed in Britain and the United States, concluding her career as a platform performer in 1868. Kemble wrote two plays, Francis the First (1832) and The Star of Seville (1837). She also published a volume of poems (1844). She published the first volume of her memoirs, Journal, in 1835, shortly after her marriage. She waited until 1863, during the American Civil War, to publish her anti-slavery Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838–1839. After separating from Butler in the 1840s, Kemble travelled in Italy and wrote a two-volume book on this time, A Year of Consolation (1847). In 1863, Kemble also published a volume of plays, including translations from Alexandre Dumas père and Friedrich Schiller. Other memoirs followed these: Records of a Girlhood (1878); Records of Later Life (1882); Far Away and Long Ago (1889); and Further Records (1891). Kemble died in London in 1893.

Selected publications

"On the Picture of Paolo and Francesca"

Link to external sources

Frances Anne Kemble - Wikipedia