The Natural Stage: Fanny Kemble's Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838–1839.

Hopkins, Chandra Owenby

Noted British actress Fanny Kemble lived eighty-four years on and off the theatrical and political stages of the nineteenth century. Kemble was an active writer who authored her first five-act play, Francis the First, at the age of eighteen. She would go on to write at least ten other published works, including a second full-length play, multiple journals recording her personal observations, notes on Shakespeare, and poetry collections. While Kemble remained devoted to writing as personal practice throughout her life, her most well-known piece of writing is her 1863 Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838–1839. Kemble's journal documents her outrage and disgust at the living conditions, harsh daily existence, and enslaved individuals she encountered while living on the two Sea Island plantations that her husband, Pierce Butler, inherited off the coast of Georgia.

PLANTATIONS; POETRY collections; LIVING conditions; NINETEENTH century; DWELLINGS

Theatre Survey, 2021, Vol 62, Issue 2, p201

0040-5574

Academic Journal

10.1017/S0040557421000077