KEMBLE (Frances Anne, Mrs Pierce Butler, 1809-1893, Shakespearean Actress)

Autograph Letter Signed to an unnamed correspondent, thanking him for the “notice of my friend Mrs Edward Rouilly & of the kind note enclosed with it. She was a charming and amiable woman & it was impossible to be even slightly acquainted with her without feeling that the genuine & graceful... of her manner sprang from a root of very real goodness. Her husband was... an intimate friend of my brother’s & from a very early period of my life I have known Mr & Mrs Rouilly well... for a number of years of my residence in America - your name... appeals also to friendly associations of mine with Mr & Mrs Robert McIntosh - with both of whom I was for many years very intimate. I am glad that you found anything in my book to assume or interest you...”, 4 sides 8vo., Queen Anne’s Mansions, Westminster, Friday 9th, no date

Fanny Kemble, daughter of Charles and niece of Mrs Siddons, first appeared on the stage in 1829 as Juliet, when her father was threatened with bankruptcy, never having acted before. In 1834 when touring America with her father, she married Pierce Butler, 1807-1867, but disliking her husband’s ownership of slaves, spent time away acting and giving readings in America and England, leading to their divorce. In 1877-1878 she returned permanently to London to live alternately with her two daughters and their families.
Kemble's "lasting historical importance...derives from the private journal she kept during her time in the Sea Islands" on her husband's plantations, where she wrote a journal documenting the conditions of the slaves on the plantation and her growing abolitionist feelings.

Item Date:  0

Stock No:  43251      £125

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