Fanny Kemble: A Reluctant Celebrity

Writer Rebecca Jenkins wonderful book on the life of 19th century actress and author Fanny Kemble is definative.Her description of this period of theatrical history and background to the journey of Miss Kemble to America is superb.Her fascination for her subject is tangible, as is her admiration of this formidable woman who influenced the anti slavery movement profoundly by the power of her pen.She allows her subject to speak for herself - and what a voice !

Fanny Kemble was the Gwyneth Paltrow of the early 19th century: a beautiful, renowned young actress from a theatrical family whose flamboyant doings filled the newspapers and fed the gossip. Fanny was a hot commodity on both sides of the Atlantic, though she had serious reservations about fame--Princess Diana and Lindsay Lohan weren't the first celebrities to be hounded by the paparazzi and the tabloids. On stage, Fanny was breathtaking, an icon; offstage, she was a bright, funny, sexy woman who--of course--fell in love with all the wrong men. Rebecca Jenkins' sparkling biography tells not just Fanny's life story but conjures up the racy world of London acting, the drawing rooms of Philadelphia, and the steamy outrages of Georgia's plantations. Jenkins brings a novelist's craft to the story of a woman who played Juliet in the theatre and a slave mistress in real life. Her writing is both intelligent and vivacious and her research is impeccable. The book is a great page-turning read, too.