Plates from "Sketches supposed to have been intended for Fanny Kemble's journal"
Title
[Plates from "Sketches supposed to have been intended for Fanny Kemble's journal"]
Description
Series of eight prints satirizing journal entries published in 1835 that were written 1832-1833 by the British-born actress during her American tour. Includes citations to the lampooned "Journal" entries from the two-volume Philadelphia edition published by Carey, Lea & Blanchard in 1835. Plates 1 and 2 depict scenes from her sea voyage. The first shows her "embroidering one of [her] old nightcaps" in "sea sickness" surrounded by a "Bible Cover," Dante's "Opera," a journal page, and a basin as she is a "Dear Good Little Me" and an "Angel." The second shows Kemble being served dinner by a caricatured African American servant as she is "lying on [her] back" surrounded by "[her] dinner followed [her] thither" above quotes comparing her appetite to "Danaides' tale of credilable [sic] memory" and her being as fat as an "overstuffed pin cushion." The African American figure is portrayed with exagerrated features.[Plate 3?] satirizes a poem "To bed - to sleep - To sleep -perchance to be bitten!" she wrote about the onslaught of insects at night in her New York hotel room. Shows Kemble aghast as she raises her blanket inscribed with the names of New York newspapers in her attempt to get into a bed swarmed by bed bugs, ants, and mosquitoes. [Plate 4?] caricaturizes her actor father, Charles Kemble, as a stumbling drunk "who a little elated made me sing to him" while muttering "To be or not to be that is the q-q-qu-question" in a parlor near his consternate daughter beside a piano above her quote about his "gallant, graceful, courteous, deportment.", [Plate 5?] shows a small-framed "interesting youth" delivering "a nosegay as big as himself" to Ms. Kemble who reflects "How they do rejoice my spirit." [Plate 6?] depicts the death scene from a December 1832 performance of Romeo & Juliet when the prop dagger was misplaced and Kemble improvised 'Why were the devil is your dagger.." as she rummages the body of the prostrate Romeo in front of the Capulet mausoleum. [Plate] 7 " A Funny Idea of My Father's" shows another caricature of Charles Kemble as a drunk satirizing her entry about a playful moment during a walk past kegs on Market Street in Philadelphia when her father joked 'How I do wish I had a gimlet. What fun it would be to pierce every one..." An illusion of a gimlet floats in front of her father as she cowers behind him beside the kegs. [Plate] 8 mocks the horsemanship of Kemble who criticized Americans' abilities and wrote of an impromptu jaunt on a cart horse in Lockport, NY Niagara where she 'got upon the amazed quadruped and took a gallop..' Shows she and her mount in a barnyard being chased by a dog and trampling ducks as she exclaims "Go it, old fellow" in front of her "father and good old D." in the background., Title supplied by cataloger., Published as Sketches supposed to have been intended for Fanny Kemble's journal (New York: Endicott, 1835). [LCP *Am 1835 7196.F]., Four of the eight prints contain plate numbers: 1, 2, 7, and 8., [Plate 5?] inscribed: G.H.B. [P.2006.17.3], Gift of Michael Zinman, 2006., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014., Access points revised 2021., Description revised 2021.
Date
[ca. 1835]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department GC - Kemble [P.2006.17.1-8]