Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894 edition. Excerpt: ... MRS. KEMBLE My father was a very young man when he first knew the Kemble family. In 1832 he himself was twenty-one, a couple of years younger than Mrs. Fanny Kemble, who was born in 1809. The mentions of the Kemble family in a diary which he kept about that time are very constant. "Called at Kemble's. Walked with Kemble in the Park." (Kemble was John Mitchell Kemble, Mrs. Fanny Kemble's brother.) "We met the Duke looking like an old hero," he continues. "Breakfasted with Kemble. Went to see the rehearsal of the Easter piece at Covent Garden, with Farley in his glory." Again: "Called at Kemble's. He read me some very beautiful verses by Tennyson." On another occasion my father speaks of seeing a " Miss Tot, a very nice girl. Madam not visible;" and again of "Miss Fanny still in Paris...." It was in the year 1851, or thereabouts, that my own scraps of recollections begin, and that I remember walking with my father along the high street at Southampton, and somewhere near the archway he turned, taking us with him into the old Assembly Rooms, where I heard for the first and only time in all my life a Shakesperean reading by Mrs. Fanny Kemble. I think it was the first time I ever saw her. She came in with a stiff and stately genuflection to the audience, took her seat at the little table prepared for her, upon which she laid her open book, and immediately began to read. My sister and I sat on either side of our father. He followed every word with attention; I cannot even make sure of the play after all these years, but Falstaff was in it, and with a rout and a shout a jolly company burst in. Was it Falstaff and his companions, or were they "Fairies, black, gray, green, and white, You moonshine revellers--"? Suddenly the lady's voice rose, with...