Fanny Kemble to Pierce Butler

The Lovers
Frances Anne (Fanny) Kemble (1809-93) was born into a distinguished London theatrical family and had a brief but justly celebrated career as an actress, especially in Shakespearean roles. James Sheridan Knowles wrote the part of Julia for Fanny in his play The Hunchback. On tour in the United States she met and married the plantation owner Pierce Butler. The marriage was a volatile one, and after it ended in divorce, she returned to the stage, giving solo readings of Shakespearean plays. Fanny was also a fine writer, including plays, poetry, memoirs, and two controversial telling of her experiences in the United States--The Journal of a Residence in America (1835) and Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation 1838-39 (1863). Toward the end of her life she was still a well-known figure in literary society. She numbered among her admires the young American writer, Henry James.	Pierce Butler (1808-63) was the son of one of Philadelphia's leading families. He saw Fanny Kemble on stage in 1832 and fell in love with her, marrying her two years later. Heir to the family cotton plantations near Darien in Georgia, Pierce inherited a fortune that owed much to slavery. Though he was probably considered a "good" owner at the time, the slavery issue caused a breach in his marriage when Fanny--shocked by what she saw on the plantations--took up the antislavery cause. Pierce's mixture of stern dignity, pettiness, puzzlement, and real affection provided no answer to their problems. He divorced Fanny in 1848 and died in 1863.

The Lovers

Frances Anne (Fanny) Kemble
(1809-93)
was born into a distinguished London theatrical family and had a brief but justly celebrated career as an actress, especially in Shakespearean roles. James Sheridan Knowles wrote the part of Julia for Fanny in his play The Hunchback. On tour in the United States she met and married the plantation owner Pierce Butler. The marriage was a volatile one, and after it ended in divorce, she returned to the stage, giving solo readings of Shakespearean plays. Fanny was also a fine writer, including plays, poetry, memoirs, and two controversial telling of her experiences in the United States--The Journal of a Residence in America (1835) and Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation 1838-39 (1863). Toward the end of her life she was still a well-known figure in literary society. She numbered among her admires the young American writer, Henry James.

Pierce Butler
(1808-63)
was the son of one of Philadelphia's leading families. He saw Fanny Kemble on stage in 1832 and fell in love with her, marrying her two years later. Heir to the family cotton plantations near Darien in Georgia, Pierce inherited a fortune that owed much to slavery. Though he was probably considered a "good" owner at the time, the slavery issue caused a breach in his marriage when Fanny--shocked by what she saw on the plantations--took up the antislavery cause. Pierce's mixture of stern dignity, pettiness, puzzlement, and real affection provided no answer to their problems. He divorced Fanny in 1848 and died in 1863.

London,
December 1842 or early 1843

Having loved you well enough to give you my life when it was best work giving--having made you the center of all my hopes of earthly happiness--having never loved any human being as I have loved you, you can never be to me like any other human being, and it is utterly impossible that I should ever regard you with indifference. My whole existence having once had you for its sole object, and all its thoughts, hopes, affections having, in their full harvest, been yours, it is utterly impossible that I should ever forget this--that I should ever forget that you were once my lover and are my husband and the father of my children. I cannot behold you without emotion; my heart still answers to your voice, my blood in my veins to your footsteps.

Their Story

Text from
Famous Love Letters
Messages of Intimacy and Passion
Edited by Ronald Tamplin