Frances Anne Kemble (27 November 1809 – 15 January 1893) was a British actress from a theatre family in the early and mid-nineteenth century.

In 1821, Fanny Kemble departed to boarding school in Paris to study art and music as befitted the child of the most celebrated artistic family in England at that time.

She was not only a poet but according to Mary Russell Mitford, "she had a knack of making poetesses of her pupils"[5] In 1827, Kemble wrote her first five-act play, Francis the First.

Nineteenth-century critics wrote that the script "displays so much spirit and originality, so much of the true qualities which are required in dramatic composition, that it may fairly stand upon its own intrinsic worth, and that the author may fearlessly challenge a comparison with any other modern dramatist.

Her attractive personality immediately made her a great favourite, and her popularity enabled her father to recoup his losses as a manager.

She played all the principal women's roles of the time, notably Shakespeare's Portia and Beatrice (Much Ado about Nothing), and Lady Teazle in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal.

[7][8][9] Kemble disliked the artificiality of stardom in general but appreciated the salary which she accepted to help her family in their frequent financial troubles.

She had previously accompanied George Stephenson on a test of the Liverpool and Manchester before its opening in England and described this in a letter written in early 1830.

During her readings, she rose to focus on presenting edited works of Shakespeare, though, unlike others, she insisted on representing his entire canon, ultimately building her repertoire to 25 of his plays.

She tried to improve matters,[clarification needed] complaining to her husband about slavery and about the mixed-race slave children attributed to the overseer, Roswell King Jr. Butler disapproved of Kemble's outspokenness, forbidding her to publish.

During this period, she was a prominent and popular figure in London society[9] and became a great friend of the American writer Henry James during her later years.

Kemble gave these, in turn, to the Shakespearean scholar and abolitionist Horace Howard Furness (1833-1912) who donated them to the University of Pennsylvania library which holds an important Shakespeareana collection.

[22][23] After separating from Butler in the 1840s, Kemble travelled in Italy and wrote a two-volume book on this time, A Year of Consolation (1847).

Based on her experience, Leigh published Ten Years on a Georgian Plantation since the War (1883), a rebuttal to her mother's account.

"[28] According to Encyclopedia.com, Kemble's "lasting historical importance...derives from the private journal she kept during her time in the Sea Islands", documenting the conditions of the slaves on the plantation and her growing abolitionist feelings.

[29] While Kemble's account of the plantations has been criticised, it is seen as notable for voicing the slaves, especially enslaved black women, and has been drawn on by many historians.

In the early 21st century, historians Catherine Clinton[need quotation to verify] and Deirdre David studied Kemble's Journal and raised questions[need quotation to verify] about her portrayal of Roswell King, father, and son, who successively managed Pierce Butler's plantations, and about Kemble's racial sentiments.

[32] There is little evidence in Kemble's Journal that she encountered Roswell King Jr. on more than a few occasions, and none that she knew his wife, the former Julia Rebecca Maxwell.

But she criticized Maxwell as "a female fiend" because a slave named Sophy told her that Mrs. King had ordered the flogging of Judy and Scylla, "of whose children Mr. K[ing] was the father.

"[33] Roswell King Jr. was no longer employed by her husband when Pierce Butler and Kemble began their short residency in Georgia.

"[34] Before arriving in Georgia, Kemble had written, "It is notorious that almost every Southern planter has a family more or less numerous of illegitimate coloured children.

"[36] John Couper, the Scottish-born owner of a rival plantation adjacent to Pierce Butler's Hampton Point on St. Simon's Island, had marked disagreements with the Roswell Kings.

Available through Harvard University Library's Open Collections Program: Women Working 1800–1930: Other publications:[41][9] Several editions of her journals have been published in the twenty-first century: