Items related to Fanny Kemble's Journals
Henry James called Fanny Kemble's autobiography "one of the most animated autobiographies in the language." Born into the first family of the British stage, Fanny Kemble was one of the most famous woman writers of the English-speaking world, a best-selling author on both sides of the Atlantic. In addition to her essays, poetry, plays, and a novel, Kemble published six works of memoir, eleven volumes in all, covering her life, which began in the first decade of the nineteenth century and ended in the last. Her autobiographical writings are compelling evidence of Kemble's wit and talent, and they also offer a dazzling overview of her transatlantic world.
Kemble kept up a running commentary in letters and diaries on the great issues of her day. The selections here provide a narrative thread tracing her intellectual development—especially her views on women and slavery. She is famous for her identification with abolitionism, and many excerpts reveal her passionate views on the subject. The selections show a life full of personal tragedy as well as professional achievements. An elegant introduction provides a context for appreciating Kemble's remarkable life and achievements, and the excerpts from her journals allow her, once again, to speak for herself.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Catherine Clinton is Weissman Visiting Chair of History, Baruch College, and the author of a new biography of Fanny Kemble.
Review:
"[From] six books of memoirs, Clinton has extracted an anthology...of consistent interest. Kemble is forthright throughout, and never boring...she writes candidly about acting, social and economic contracts between England and America, slavery, politics, religion, the status of women, her reading and herself."
--Stanley Weintraub (Wall Street Journal)
"A work of withering detail and explosive passion."
--Jonathan Yardley (Washington Post Book World)
"Parting the curtains obscuring a nineteenth-century celebrity, historian Clinton offers...journal excerpts by a woman who was an actress, author, and abolitionst...Composed over her 80-plus years, Kemble's journals convey a variety of nineteenth-century experiences, from the discomforts of travel to the wonders of Rome...Clinton has admirably restored to interest a multifaceted figure pertinent to Civil War and women's studies."
--Gilbert Taylor (Booklist)
"In Fanny Kemble's Journals, Clinton has edited down the journals and letters from a voluminous collection into a compendium of excerpts that gives the reader Kemble in her own voice."
--Stephanie Harvin (Post and Courier)
"A remarkable story...supplying color and atmosphere and Kemble's distinctive voice...Her journal, begun when she was 18 and kept regularly into her 70's, records her sharp observations of roads and accommodations and social behavior in the young American democracy [and her] blunt indictment of racial hypocrisy and sexual exploitation...The voice that 'reanimated the old drawing rooms, relighted the old lamps, retuned the old pianos,' is captured again."
--David Walton (New York Times Book Review)
"Kemble's writing rings with passion, liveliness and wit. It is almost shocking in its clarity, precision and logic, its audacity and relevance. I marked dozens of passages in Fanny Kemble's Journals to read to friends."
--Julie Brickman (San Diego Union-Tribune)
"Kemble's journal entries on slavery are both poignant and horrifying. She writes passionately against the use of slave women for sex by plantation owners, as well as the demands of backbreaking physical labor they performed."
--Robin Dougherty (Boston Globe)
"One of the most moving and edifying personal accounts I have ever read of how oppression of slaves--and, incidentally, of women, both black and white--resulted in a war that tore apart not just one family, but a whole nation."
--Ann Morrissett Davidon (Philadelphia Inquirer)
"Clinton's edition of Fanny Kemble's Journals offers fascinating selections from her heart-rending account of slavery and from earlier and later journals as well. Whether as a young girl weighing the pros and cons of marriage or as an older woman considering the question of women's suffrage, Kemble's keen mind and forthright style of expression are a constant delight."
--Merle Rubin (Los Angeles Times)
"Kemble's life wasn't entirely devoted to the rights of women and the wrongs of slavery: she acted and wrote, had triumphs, pleasures, and friends, and she often feels like our contemporary. Clinton doesn't insist that her subject was flawless, but she finds her irresistible." (New Yorker)
--Stanley Weintraub (Wall Street Journal)
"A work of withering detail and explosive passion."
--Jonathan Yardley (Washington Post Book World)
"Parting the curtains obscuring a nineteenth-century celebrity, historian Clinton offers...journal excerpts by a woman who was an actress, author, and abolitionst...Composed over her 80-plus years, Kemble's journals convey a variety of nineteenth-century experiences, from the discomforts of travel to the wonders of Rome...Clinton has admirably restored to interest a multifaceted figure pertinent to Civil War and women's studies."
--Gilbert Taylor (Booklist)
"In Fanny Kemble's Journals, Clinton has edited down the journals and letters from a voluminous collection into a compendium of excerpts that gives the reader Kemble in her own voice."
--Stephanie Harvin (Post and Courier)
"A remarkable story...supplying color and atmosphere and Kemble's distinctive voice...Her journal, begun when she was 18 and kept regularly into her 70's, records her sharp observations of roads and accommodations and social behavior in the young American democracy [and her] blunt indictment of racial hypocrisy and sexual exploitation...The voice that 'reanimated the old drawing rooms, relighted the old lamps, retuned the old pianos,' is captured again."
--David Walton (New York Times Book Review)
"Kemble's writing rings with passion, liveliness and wit. It is almost shocking in its clarity, precision and logic, its audacity and relevance. I marked dozens of passages in Fanny Kemble's Journals to read to friends."
--Julie Brickman (San Diego Union-Tribune)
"Kemble's journal entries on slavery are both poignant and horrifying. She writes passionately against the use of slave women for sex by plantation owners, as well as the demands of backbreaking physical labor they performed."
--Robin Dougherty (Boston Globe)
"One of the most moving and edifying personal accounts I have ever read of how oppression of slaves--and, incidentally, of women, both black and white--resulted in a war that tore apart not just one family, but a whole nation."
--Ann Morrissett Davidon (Philadelphia Inquirer)
"Clinton's edition of Fanny Kemble's Journals offers fascinating selections from her heart-rending account of slavery and from earlier and later journals as well. Whether as a young girl weighing the pros and cons of marriage or as an older woman considering the question of women's suffrage, Kemble's keen mind and forthright style of expression are a constant delight."
--Merle Rubin (Los Angeles Times)
"Kemble's life wasn't entirely devoted to the rights of women and the wrongs of slavery: she acted and wrote, had triumphs, pleasures, and friends, and she often feels like our contemporary. Clinton doesn't insist that her subject was flawless, but she finds her irresistible." (New Yorker)
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherHarvard University Press
- Publication date2000
- ISBN 10 0674003055
- ISBN 13 9780674003057
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages240
- EditorClinton Catherine
- Rating
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FANNY KEMBLE'S JOURNALS
Published by
Harvard Univ Press, Cambridge MA
(2000)
ISBN 10: 0674003055
ISBN 13: 9780674003057
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. First Edition. First edition, probable first printing. 210pp, Fanny Kemble's Published Works, index. 11 illustrations. Near fine, small mark on front cover, else perfect. No jacket. This remarkable book tells us more than just events in Fanny Kemble's life. She recounts her life in the South, the horrors of slaverty, revealing duribng a tumultuous time the truth behind Southern gentility. Seller Inventory # 4819
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Fanny Kemble's Journals
Published by
Harvard University Press
(2000)
ISBN 10: 0674003055
ISBN 13: 9780674003057
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