Note E — AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MRS. JOHN DREW WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HER SON

Frances Anne Kemble, authoress, poetess, and actress, beautiful and gifted, was born in London, November 27, 1809. To save her father, Charles Kemble, from bankruptcy, she went on the stage in 1829 and at once took her place on the top of the ladder, disdaining, however (as did an eminent American actress), the steps which led to renown, and made friends, fame, and fortune. For nearly three years she filled Covent Garden and replenished its exhausted treasury with her wonderful impersonation of Juliet (her first part), and in Lady Teazle, Portia, Beatrice, Bianca, as well as her aunt's (Mrs. Siddons) great characters, Isabella, Euphrasia, Calista and Belvidera. Equal to her Juliet was her original part of Julia in the "Hunchback," and when she came with her father to America in September, 1832, her reception and continued support by the best elements of society were unprecedented. In the full tide of triumphant success she left the stage in 1834 to make an unhappy alliance with Pierce Butler of Philadelphia, who took her—an ardent abolitionist—to his plantation in Georgia. In 1845 she became divorced from Mr. Butler. The following year she spent with her talented sister, Adelaide Kemble Sartoris, in Continental travel, and in 1847 commenced her famous readings, with unvarying success both in America and England. The last of these in New York was given to crowded and cultured audiences in Steinway Hall, October, 1868. She died at her daughter's residence in London, January 16, 1893.