A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Kemble, Frances Anne
KEMBLE, FRANCES ANNE,
Is the daughter of Mr. Charles Kemble, an actor of high reputation, and for many years a favourite with the public. Dramatic talent appears a natural inheritance in the Kemble family; Mrs. Siddons, her brother John Kemble, and her niece, the subject of this sketch, have occupied by acclamation the very highest places in their profession. Many of the other members have risen above mediocrity as artists, among whom an honourable rank must be assigned to Mrs. Sartoris, who, before her marriage, was very favourably received as a singer, under the name of Adelaide Kemble.
Fanny Kemble was born in London, about the year 1813, and made her first appearance on the London boards in 1829, in the character of Juliet. The highest enthusiasm was excited in her favour. Her extreme youth, which admirably suited the impersonation, rendered her conception of the passion and poetry remarkable. The public at once stamped her by their approval, as an actress of genius, and she became distinguished as a new star in the histrionic art.
In 1832 Miss Kemble went with her father to the United States, where her theatrical career was marked by unbounded success, and her talents were warmly admired. In 1834, she was married to Pierce Butler, Esq., of Philadelphia, a gentleman of large fortune. The unhappy termination of this marriage is well known. After many domestic difficulties, a mutual divorce was granted the husband and wife in 1849, and Mrs. Butler immediately resumed her name of Kemble. We must, in justice, observe here, that Mrs. Kemble's bitterest enemies have never charged her with the slightest deviation from the laws of conjugal fidelity; that her fame is spotless, and her position in society what it ever was. Mrs. Kemble is a woman of varied powers; she has been successful in literature, particularly in poetry; displaying an ardent impassioned fancy, which male critics consider the true fire of genius. Some of her shorter poems are wonderfully impressive; but she often mars what would otherwise be very charming, by epithets a little too Shakesperian, a little too much savouring of the art for which she was educated, and which are, to her, familiar expressions. Such words give a flavour, a taste of the antique, when read in their original places; we consider them inadmissible in the writings of a poet, a lady poet of our day; they appear like affectation or want of resource, and sometimes like want of delicacy.
The drama first claimed the genius of Fanny Kemble. At a very early age she wrote a tragedy, "Francis the First," which has passed through ten editions. Her next work was "The Star of Seville;" both have been acted with success, and evince a maturity of mind and a range of reading very uncommon for a young lady. In 1834, appeared her first work in prose, a "Journal," descriptive, chiefly, of the United States. The youthful petulance and foolish prejudices exhibited in this work have been, we believe, much regretted by the author; at any rate, her strictures have long ago ceased to trouble the people of America, who have left the book to its quiet slumber in the past In 1844, her "Poems" were published, and in 1847 appeared her second prose work, "A Year of Consolation," being a description of her tour through France to Rome, and her residence in that city. In this, as in her former prose work, the strong feelings which Mrs. Kemble possesses, or, more properly speaking, which possess her," find large scope.
In 1849, Mrs. Kemble commenced, in America, a series of "Shakspere Readings," in which her remarkable versatility of powers is exhibited in a manner as striking, and more wonderful, than on the stage. Among her admirers, there are those who, judging from her readings, pronounce her the best Macbeth, and the truest Lear which have ever been applauded; while others deem she is inimitable in Falstaff. In 1850, she returned to England, and has since then been giving her Shaksperian Readings in London and the provinces.