The Economist’s recent review of Fanny Kemble: A Performed Life begins:
A friend of Fanny Kemble once apologised for declining a visit by
explaining: “I could not see so many people as you are when I had a
headache.” It is somehow fitting therefore that so many biographies
continue to be written about her. Deirdre David’s is the fourth in
seven years. It is lively and thorough, both fuller and more balanced
across the whole of a long life than its recent predecessors, which
tended to concentrate more on the crises.
The reviewer observes that "real competition for any biographer of Kemble is Kemble herself," but it goes on to praise David’s book for doing full justice to the formidable and flamboyant Fanny Kemble and her writings.
The complete review is available online to Economist.com subscribers.
