In good condition. Original leather boards are scuffed at edges & worn at corners. Modern re-backed spine tight and intact. Marbled end-papers clean and bright. Butler Place bookplate found on front paste-down. Inscription found on plate guard of engraved title page: "To Jones Coleman in token of the affectionate esteem of many years from Fanny Kemble." Fanny Kemble's signature is also found at top of engraved title page. Toning and light foxing throughout text-block, especially to preliminary pages. Modern re-backed binding tight and intact. Colors bright and clean. Please see photos. 

   Frances Anne "Fanny" Kemble (1809-1893) was a British actress from a theatre family in the early and mid-19th century. She was a well-known and popular writer and abolitionist whose published works included plays, poetry, eleven volumes of memoirs, travel writing, and works about the theatre. She came to America from London in 1832 with her father, Charles Kemble. The Kemble's toured the eastern seaboard, acting together, and it was in Philadelphia, PA where Fanny was introduced to Pierce Mease Butler (1810-1867), grandson of Pierce Butler (1744-1822) - a United States Senator, member of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and one of South Carolina's largest plantation owners. Pierce Butler purchased the farm (that would eventually be come to known as Butler Place) in 1810. According to Butler's great-great grand-daughter, Frances Kemble Wister Stokes, it had "a rather unimpressive, middle-sized, owner's dwelling, but with splendid barns and outbuildings." The property stood between North 17th and North 16th Streets somewhere along West Grange Avenue, east of La Salle's campus, and north of Olney Avenue. The house was torn down in the mid-1920s. Today the block is populated with row homes, but just below these homes, the legacy of the estate's history exists through Fanny Kemble Abolitionist Memorial Park. Fanny and Pierce eventually divorced, largely because Pierce was an enslaver and would not repent. After having divorced her husband, Fanny published her journal, "Journal of A Residence on a Georgian Plantation," which is written as a series of of letters to a friend. Fanny and Pierce had two daughters together, Sarah and Frances, and they lived at Butler Place. Sarah Butler eventually married Owen Jones Wister, M.D. & they had a child named Owen Wister (1860-1938) who also spent part of his childhood living at Butler Place. Owen Wister the younger is credited with writing the very first American Cowboy novel: "The Virginian: A Horseman on the Plains" (1902). Wister kept an extensive library at Butler Place which is now, for the most part, kept at La Salle's Connelly Library of Philadelphia, PA. 

   The actual book presents beautifully and include lovely verse and prose. The pages of the "Life" are surrounded by decorated borders cut on wood and printed in colors, and the Books of Poems are prefaced by eight chromolithographed title-pages in a roman or classical style, of which the color schemes are unusual and attractive. Owen Jones (1809-1874) was a British architect who helped pioneer modern color theory. He was able to disseminate his theories on pattern and ornament through his work for several of the key manufacturers of the period, thus facilitating public consumption of his decorative visions in a number of diverse contexts. During the 1840s, having been inspired by the tile-work at the Alhambra, Jones became known for his designs on mosaics and tessellated pavements.  

Fanny signed this particular edition as her own copy, then, assumedly later in her life, she gifted the book to a "Jones Coleman." A beautiful book, with amazing provenance, and American history. An amazing addition for any book collector. 

RAREB1849FUUX

12/23 - HK982