Fanny Kemble: A Reluctant Celebrity [Hardcover]

...well researched and gripping...Fanny comes alive as an intelligent, strong-minded woman...an enjoyable biography

as lively, engaging and opinionated as its subject...written with poise and a generous dose of wit

It's a vivacious account of one of the most exciting periods in English theatrical life

'Fanny comes alive as an intelligent, strong-minded woman . . . an enjoyable biography of a fascinating woman'

'A vivacious account of one of the most exciting periods in English theatrical life'

'Informative . . . [Jenkins] uses excerpts from Fanny's letters and journals to bring the actress gloriously alive. . . Engaging'

'FANNY KEMBLE poignantly catches its subject's complex desire . . . to conform and rebel, and to be cosseted and free'

Born into a theatrical dynasty, Fanny Kemble lacked the rest of her family's desire to perform. But when their theatre at Covent Garden was threatened with closure in 1829, Fanny reluctantly volunteered to take to the stage. The young actress's debut was a huge success and her life as a nineteenth-century celebrity had begun. Soon Fanny found herself a slave to the stage, paraded around the country by her avaricious father. On a tour of the US she saw a chance to escape in the form of the charming Pierce Butler. However, in marrying him, Fanny had merely cast aside one set of chains for another: Pierce would not tolerate her independence. Fanny was to discover another abhorrent side of her husband -- his money came from plantations in America's South maintained by the slavery system she had grown to loathe. In protest, she set about writing the book that made her the scandal of American society, JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE ON A GEORGIAN PLANTATION, and her marriage collapsed in the midst of Civil War. Fanny had once again found herself in the cold glare of the public eye. Intimate and engrossing, Rebecca Jenkins' biography brings one of the nineteenth century's most interesting figures back to life.

Rebecca Jenkins was born in Oxford and spent her childhood in England and Switzerland. After studying History at Somerville College, Oxford, she took up journalism and now freelances. She has previously written a historical detective novel, THE DUKE'S AGENT, based in Regency England, and is the co-writer of FREE TO BELIEVE. This is her first biography.