Appendix 4: John Mitchell Kemble to Fanny Kemble: Letters in the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, W.b. 596

Abstract

John and Fanny were the second and third-born of this eminent theatrical family, the first-born of which, Philip, died at age 5 in 1811. Two years apart in age, the brother and sister were well-educated though after different fashions. John studied at Bury St Edmunds school, the seedbed of so many eminent Cantabrigians, while Fanny was taught music, dancing and languages in Boulogne and Paris, and later geography, grammar, history, arithmetic, and mythology. Both benefited from the eminent theatrical celebrities who visited their family home in Covent Garden and from extensive travel on the continent. Fanny never planned to be an actress, yet she had successfully charmed virtually all the Cambridge Apostles before she turned 20. Her literary judgment and powers of conversation made her irresistible. John was clearly very proud of her and respected her greatly. During her family’s financial crises her talent and wit helped keep them solvent. In 1827 the family took a house on James Street in Westminster, and she was nearing completion of her play Frances I. She did not share her brother’s political ambitions, but she did share his deep piety. In his first letter to her, written a couple months before his departure for Gibraltar, he appeals for help finding a post in the church. This frame of mind is never forgotten during his subsequent adventure, though it often haunts him as he feels himself increasingly degraded by the revolution. During his residence in Gibraltar he appears to have tried to write Fanny about the middle of each month after the imminent secrecy of the mission had ceased to matter.