Frances Anne Kemble Biography

Dromo's Den

KEMBLE, Frances Anne (Mrs. Fanny Kemble) (1809-93) . An English actress and author, born in London, Nov. 27, 1809, daughter of Charles Kemble. Her daughter, Sarah (Butler) Wister (Mrs. Owen Wister), was the mother of Owen Wister (q.v.). She was educated largely in France and made her first appearance on the stage Oct. 5, 1829, in the character of Juliet, reviving the fortunes of the Covent Garden Theatre under her father's management. This was followed by a series of brilliant successes in Portia, Beatrice, Lady Teazle, and other parts, till she was compared with Mrs. Siddons, her famous aunt. Her crowning triumph was as Julia in Sheridan Knowles's masterpiece, The Hunchback, written expressly for her. In 1832 she came to New York with her father, making her American début as Bianca in Fazio and exciting great enthusiasm. Two years later she married Pierce Butler, of Philadelphia, and retired, living in that city and on the Butler estate in Georgia. In 1847 she had left her husband and reappeared on the English stage. She returned in 1849 to the United States and, having been divorced from Mr. Butler, resumed her maiden name and went to reside in Lenox, Mass. Later she gave public readings from Shakespeare and other dramatic authors in the principal cities of the United States and Great Britain, an occupation she much preferred to regular acting. She had a magnificent presence, her voice was flexible, ample, and harmonious, and her self-possession remarkable. During the War of the Rebellion she resided in England and contributed valuable articles to the London Tines on the evils of slavery. Among her other works are: Francis the First: An Historical, Drama (1832); Journal of Frances Anne Butler (1835); Poems (1844); A Year of Consolation (1847), descriptive of a tour to Italy; Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-39 (1863); Record of a Girlhood (1878-79); Records of Later Life (1882); Notes upon Some of Shakespeare's Plays (1882); Poems (1883); Far Away and Long Ago (1889), a story; Further Records (1891). Her death occurred in London, Jan. 15, 1893. Consult, besides the autobiographical works mentioned above, Parton, in Eminent Women of the Age (Hartford, Conn., 1869), and The Letters of Edward Fitzgerald to Fanny Kemble (London, 1895).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XIII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 160.