Adelaide Kemble

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Standard Name: Kemble, Adelaide
Birth Name: Adelaide Kemble
Married Name: Adelaide Sartoris
Indexed Name: A. Sartoris
After her mid-nineteenth-century career as an opera singer ended at her marriage, AK published a novel and a collection of stories. She left for posthumous publication another incomplete novel, two biographical memoirs, and some poetry. She also wrote letters, diaries, and many unpublished or uncollected songs.
Photograph of a painting of Adelaide Kemble, painted with loose brushstrokes that give the painting the impression of softness. She is shown from the shoulders up, wearing a soft pink dress and holding flowers of a similar shade. She has a light, gauzy bonnet or scarf atop her dark, curly hair, which is pulled up and appears to be tied underneath the bonnet.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Family and Intimate relationships Fanny Kemble
FK 's sister Adelaide became a celebrated opera singer, who once toured through Germany with Franz Liszt . She was also an author, publishing under her married name of Adelaide Sartoris .
Clinton, Catherine. Fanny Kemble’s Civil Wars. Simon and Schuster, 2000.
130
Family and Intimate relationships Maria Theresa Kemble
MTK 's youngest child, Adelaide Kemble (another writer), was born in November 1815.
Highfill, Philip H. et al. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1973–1993.
316
She became a singer as well as an author.
Friends, Associates Harriet Martineau
HM 's social circle vastly expanded at this time until she knew virtually all the prominent people, particularly the political men, of her day. As she recorded in her Autobiography, however, she refused to...
Friends, Associates Rhoda Broughton
RB 's vitality, sincerity, and pungent wit gained her the friendship of some of the most notable people of her day.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.
Her wide circle of friends and acquaintances included Henry James (the two became extremely...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Rigby
ER appeared in public as Mrs Eastlake for the first time at the house of Lady Davy , where she was introduced to Augusta Ada Byron (Byron's daughter) and to Thackeray . At London parties...
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Barrett Browning
American poet Emily Dickinson loved EBB 's poetry. The language of Aurora Leigh crops up throughout her oeuvre, and she recalls the transformative experience, sanctifying the soul, of her early reading in one poem: I...
Material Conditions of Writing Rhoda Broughton
Her friend Ethel Arnold reported that Second Thoughts was RB 's own favourite among her works. She wrote it while another friend, Adelaide Kemble , was dying, and would read Kemble chapters at her bedside...
Material Conditions of Writing Fanny Kemble
After separating from Pierce Butler , FK borrowed money to travel to Italy, where she lived for a year with her sister, Adelaide (Kemble) Sartoris , and penned a travel journal.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
Marshall, Dorothy. Fanny Kemble. Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1977.
200-1
Having written...
Textual Production Mary Berry
Anne Damer had been encouraging MB to keep working on her play as early as December 1793. In December 1795 it was complete enough for her to show it to a friend, the mathematician John Playfair
Textual Production Anne Thackeray Ritchie
Much of the letters and reminiscences here concern her friends the sisters Fanny Kemble and Adelaide Kemble, later Sartoris .
Textual Production Adelaide Procter
Her mother encouraged her love of poetry, before AP could write, by making for her daughter a little album into which she copied her favourite passages. Dickens commented: It looks as if she had carried...
Travel Anne Thackeray Ritchie
The Thackerays visited Rome, Genoa, Leghorn and Pisa. Their friends in Rome included the BrowningsElizabeth Barrett Browning , the American sculptor William Wetmore Story , and Adelaide (Kemble) Sartoris (whose home rehearsals for concerts...
Travel Fanny Kemble
It was eleven years before she left the USA after signing a separation agreement. She frequently visited Catharine Sedgwick and her family in Lenox, Massachusetts, during these years; she helped out in various ways...

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Kemble, Adelaide. A Week in a French Country-House. Smith, Elder, 1867.
Kemble, Adelaide et al. A Week in a French Country-House. A New Edition, Smith, Elder, 1903.
Kemble, Adelaide. Medusa, and Other Tales. Smith, Elder, 1868.
Kemble, Adelaide. Past Hours. Editor Gordon, May E., Richard Bentley and Son, 1880, 2 vols.
Gordon, May E., and Adelaide Kemble. “Preface”. Past Hours, Richard Bentley, 1880, p. v - viii.
Ritchie, Anne Thackeray et al. “Preface”. A Week in a French Country-House, Smith, Elder, 1903, p. i - xlv.