FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE (Fanny Kemble) (1809-1893)

This article appears in Volume V15, Page 724 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE (Fanny Kemble) (1809-1893) , the actress and author, was Charles Kemble's elder daughter; she was born in London on the 27th of November 1809, and educated chiefly in France. She first appeared on the stage on the 25th of October 1829 as Juliet at Covent

Garden

GARDEN (from O. Fr. garden, mod. Fr. jardin; this, like our words " garth," a paddock attached to a building, and " yard," comes from a Teutonic word for an enclosure which appears in Gothic as gards and O. H. Ger. gart, cf. Dutch gaarde and Ger. .garten)

. Her attractive personality at once made her a

great

GREAT

favourite, her popularity enabling her father to recoup his losses as a manager. She played all the

principal

PRINCIPAL

women's parts, notably Portia, Beatrice and Lady Teazle, but Julia in Sheridan Knowles's The Hunchback, especially written for her, was perhaps her greatest success. In 1832 she went with her father to America, and in 18J4 she married there a Southern planter, Pierce Butler. They were divorced in 1849. In 1847 she returned to the stage, from which she had retired on her

marriage

MARRIAGE

, and later, following her father's example, appeared with much success as a Shakespearian reader. In 1877 she returned to England, where she livedusing her maiden nametill her death in London on the 15th of January 1893. During this period Fanny Kemble was a prominent and popular figure in the social life of London. Besides her plays, Francis the First, unsuccessfully produced in 1832, The

Star

STAR

Seville

(1837), a volume of Poems (1844), and a book of Italian travel, A Year of

Consolation

CONSOLATION (Fr. consolation, Lat. consolatio, from consolari, to assuage, comfort, console)

(1847), she published a volume of her

Journal

JOURNAL
JOURNAL (through Fr. from late Lat. diurnalis, daily)

in 1835, and in 1863 another (dealing with life on the Georgia plantation), and also a volume of Plays, including translations from Dumas and Schiller. These were followed by Records of a Girlhood (1878), Records of Later Life (1882), Notes on some of Shakespeare's Plays (1882), Far Away and

Long

LONG, GEORGE (1800-1879)
LONG, JOHN DAVIS (1838– )

Ago (1889), and Further Records (1891). Her various volumes. of reminiscences contain much valuable material for the social and dramatic history of the period.

End of Article: FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE (Fanny Kemble) (1809-1893)

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