Biography covering 83 years of Fanny Kemble's life. Though reared in a theatrical atmosphere, it was only her father's failure with Covent Garden that precipitated her going on the stage. Her first role was Juliet, when she was seventeen; at nineteen she was the toast of England, repeated her success in America, and then married disastrously, Pierce Butler, vacillating, unfaithful slave owner. Her divorce -- her fame as a Shakespearean reader -- and the sensation caused by her writings kept her a storm center for years. Interesting material, skillfully handled, and mirroring the theatre in England and America in the '30's and '40's, against a social and economic background of the period, and giving a new angle on the slave question and the Civil War and so on. Varied in interests and good reading. (Kirkus Review)
€10
Biography covering 83 years of Fanny Kemble's life. Though reared in a theatrical atmosphere, it was only her father's failure with Covent Garden that precipitated her going on the stage. Her first role was Juliet, when she was seventeen; at nineteen she was the toast of England, repeated her success in America, and then married disastrously, Pierce Butler, vacillating, unfaithful slave owner. Her divorce -- her fame as a Shakespearean reader -- and the sensation caused by her writings kept her a storm center for years. Interesting material, skillfully handled, and mirroring the theatre in England and America in the '30's and '40's, against a social and economic background of the period, and giving a new angle on the slave question and the Civil War and so on. Varied in interests and good reading. (Kirkus Review)
