Fanny Kemble's Journals - Softcover

Kemble, Fanny

Softcover

ISBN 10: 067400440X ISBN 13: 9780674004405

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2000

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author:

Catherine Clinton is Weissman Visiting Chair of History, Baruch College, and author of the biography Fanny Kemble’s Civil Wars.

Review:

“The fascination of a modern reader, I think, is partially rooted in the way Kemble braids a modernist sensibility (freedom, women's rights) with conventional prejudices (class, ethnicity). Like Henry James, I find Kemble's journals absorbing, and also like him, I presume, I find her beguiling.”―James L. Roark, Emory University

“I enthusiastically recommend Fanny Kemble's Journals. Fanny Kemble has always been one of those mysterious fugitive characters about whom we would like to know more. With this new edition by Kemble's modern biographer, these writings will take their place in college classrooms and on the shelves of readers interested in the theater, the South, the Civil War, and women's studies. To shrink eleven volumes to one manageable one and to include the critical outlines of Kemble's life as well as her observations on aspects of American life such as politics and slavery is quite a triumph. Kemble writings afford readers a fascinating retelling of the outlines of an unusual life. It is not exaggerating to say that the Clinton selections created a new autobiography that in the past was obscured by the sheer mass of Kemble's memoirs. She is a terrific writer. Clinton has placed her emphasis on areas such as race, class, and women's issues, including the story of the marriage. Clinton's introduction locates the Journals within the context of Kemble's life, and as every editor must do, she makes a strong case for their relevance and historical significance.”―Jean H. Baker, author of Mary Todd Lincoln

“[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

“Fanny Kemble has finally found a historian worthy of her remarkable career.”―Eric Foner, author of Reconstruction and the Story of American Freedom

“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

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 067400440X
• ISBN 13: 9780674004405
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240
• Editor: Clinton Catherine