Fanny Kemble

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Standard Name: Kemble, Fanny
Birth Name: Frances Anne Kemble
Married Name: Frances Anne Butler
FK was a prolific nineteenth-century writer best known for her journals, which covered her life in the theatre and her residence in the American south. Her first-hand documentation of the institution of slavery was particularly controversial. Apart from her journals she experimented with drama, poetry, and autobiography, and—late in life—wrote her very first and only novel.
Black and white photograph of a painting of Fanny Kemble by Sir Thomas Lawrence, She is seated in a chair draped with a fur-trimmed blanket, with a column visible in the background. She is wearing a white gown, low on her shoulders, with wasp waist, puffed sleeves, and ruffled trim. Her dark, shining hair, smooth and middle-parted, is pulled back in a bun.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Travel Anna Brownell Jameson
ABJ returned to the United States via Montreal and Quebec City. In the USA she visited Fanny Kemble in Philadelphia, developed a friendship with Catherine Sedgwick , and was received in Massachusetts by...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Naomi Royde-Smith
NRS says she has often found that my own selection of relevant detail has lighted on facts passed over as insignificant by other writers.
Royde-Smith, Naomi. The Private Life of Mrs. Siddons. V. Gollancz.
11
She hopes to place her subject in a light, possibly...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Jane Welsh Carlyle
Nor was she entirely charmed by her husband's lady admirers,
Carlyle, Jane Welsh. Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle. Editors Carlyle, Thomas and James Anthony Froude, Longmans, Green.
1: 66
though they make perfect fodder for her caricatures. To her close friend John Sterling , Jane writes: You cannot fancy what a way...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
The volume includes literary criticism on works by Richard Watson Dixon and William Butler Yeats . The memoir The Drawing-Room recalls Robert Browning 's visit to MEC 's childhood home. Recollections of Mrs. Fanny Kemble
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 Barbarina Brand, Baroness Dacre
Another play by BBBD , called Isaure and having as protagonist a refined patrician beauty,
Kemble, Fanny. Records of a Girlhood. Henry Holt.
383
was intended to be performed at Covent Garden as a benefit piece for Fanny Kemble , but it...
Textual Production Eleanor Farjeon
EF linked her novel Humming Bird with the journals of Fanny Kemble , since it is titled from a hummingbird musical box modelled on one that Kemble describes.
Farjeon, Annabel. Morning has Broken: A Biography of Eleanor Farjeon. Julia MacRae.
229, 304
Textual Production Mary Russell Mitford
Mitford was planning this tragedy by March 1827, though she said she had not yet drafted as much as ten lines.
Mitford, Mary Russell. The Life of Mary Russell Mitford: Told by Herself in Letters To Her Friends. Editor L’Estrange, Alfred Guy Kingham, Harper and Brothers.
2: 68-70
Charles Kemble expressed interest in it in 1828, but she turned him...
Textual Production Isa Craig
IC compiled and edited for the Ladies' London Emancipation Society a work entitled The Essence of Slavery, extracted from Fanny Kemble 's recent Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation.
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.
Textual Features Margaret Emily Shore
The diary provides a full and vivid account of girlhood in the years leading up to Victoria 's reign, in addition to musings on familial and personal topics. It contains substantial literary criticism, such as...
Textual Features Julia Pardoe
JP 's aspirations for this biography were to revise the official accounts of Francis the First's life (which relied originally on reports bound by censorship) with materials derived from confidential records and correspondence.
Pardoe, Julia. The Court and Reign of Francis the First, King of France. R. Bentley and Son.
I: viii
Residence Frances Power Cobbe
A number of deaths among her close friends and relatives, together with her gruelling anti-Vivisection work, made London an increasingly stressful home for FPC . For several years she and Lloyd led a nomadic lifestyle...
Reception Anna Brownell Jameson
An early review from the Westminster Review mentions its dislike of mixing a guide-book and a romance
Johnston, Judith. Anna Jameson: Victorian, Feminist, Woman of Letters. Scolar Press.
101
before going on to censure the author for her inadmissable lie about the authenticity of the diary....
Reception Frances Arabella Rowden
Rowden's poem was reviewed by the Critical (3rd series 20 (May 1810): 112). Mary Russell Mitford read the first canto with high appreciation and admiration that increase[d] with every perusal. She expected it to rank...
Publishing Georgiana Chatterton
She had signed the agreement with her publisher, Richard Bentley , on 4 December 1861.
“The Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton”. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
She says that she set out here rather to give the value of the words than their scholastic or critically...

Timeline

15 September 1830: The Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the...

National or international item

15 September 1830

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the first large-scale passenger steam railway, was officially opened; public timetabled service began on 17 September.

1 April 1857: Herman Melville's last novel, The Confidence-Man:...

Writing climate item

1 April 1857

Herman Melville 's last novel, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, appeared.

20 March 1863: The executive of the Ladies' London Emancipation...

Building item

20 March 1863

The executive of the Ladies' London Emancipation Society first convened at the home of Mentia Taylor ; the Society aimed to enlist British sympathy for the North in the US Civil War.

Texts

Kemble, Fanny. A Year of Consolation. E. Moxon, 1847.
Kemble, Fanny. Fanny Kemble: The American Journals. Editor Mavor, Elizabeth, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1990.
Kemble, Fanny. Far Away and Long Ago. Richard Bentley and Son, 1889.
Kemble, Fanny. Further Records, 1848-1883. Richard Bentley, 1890.
Kemble, Fanny, and J. G. Stodart. Further Records, 1848-1883. B. Blom, 1972.
Kemble, Fanny. Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839. Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1863.
Kemble, Fanny. Journal of F.A. Butler. J. Murray, 1835.
Kemble, Fanny. Notes upon Some of Shakespeare’s Plays. Richard Bentley and Son, 1882.
Kemble, Fanny et al. Plays. Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1863.
Kemble, Fanny. Poems. H. G. Clarke, 1844.
Kemble, Fanny. Poems. Richard Bentley and Son, 1883.
Kemble, Fanny. Record of a Girlhood. Richard Bentley and Son, 1878.
Kemble, Fanny. Records of a Girlhood. Henry Holt, 1879.
Kemble, Fanny. Records of Later Life. Richard Bentley and Son, 1882.
Kemble, Fanny. The Adventures of Mr. John Timothy Homespun in Switzerland. Richard Bentley and Son, 1889.
Kemble, Fanny. “The Answer of Frances Anne Butler to the libel of Pierce Butler”. Pierce Butler vs. Frances Anne Butler, 1848, pp. 3-26.
Kemble, Fanny. The Essence of Slavery. Editor Craig, Isa, Emily Faithfull, 1863.
Kemble, Fanny. The Star of Seville. Saunders and Otley, 1837.