Description

Kemble, a British actress and authoress, was introduced to American slavery with her marriage to Pierce Butler, grandson of one of the largest slaveholders in Georgia. When Butler came into his inheritance, he and his new wife moved to their plantation, where Kemble quickly became appalled at the cruelty of the peculiar institution. In her most popular book, Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation (1863), she chronicles her observations and arguments against slavery and the inhuman treatment of blacks in America. Her journal became a popular work of abolitionist writing, and she donated some of the money from its publication to the cause of ending slavery. Students of history will be intrigued by this firsthand account of life on a plantation in the decades before the American Civil War. British actress and writer FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE (1809-1893), a member of the Kemble theatrical family, was an outspoken abolitionist and later in life became an inspiration to author Henry James. Her most popular books are Records of a Girlhood (1878) and Records of Later Life (1882).