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Documents of Interest: Fanny Kemble writes of her tour to Canada

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December, 1834: British actor Fanny Kemble describes her recent tour to Canada. In 1833 British diva Fanny Kemble toured Canada with her father Charles Kemble. Miss Kemble went to Montreal and to Quebec City. In an hilarious letter to another actor considering such a tour (Charles Mathews), Miss Kemble vents her spleen.

"We went to Canada, I believe, upon the same terms as everywhere else - a division of profits. Vincent de Camp had the theatres there, and of all the horrible strolling concerns I could ever imagine, his company and scenery and getting-ups were the worst. He has not got those theatres now, I believe, but they are generally open only for a short time, and by persons as little capable of bringing forward decent dramatic representations as he, poor fellow, was. You are, however, so much less dependent upon others than we were for success. Heaven knows the company would have been blackguardly representatives of the gentry in 'Tom and Jerry;' you can fancy they were in heroicals. Our houses were good; so, I think, yours would be; but though I am sure you would not have to complain of want of hospitality, either in Montreal or Quebec, the unspeakable dirt and discomfort of the inns, the scarcity of eatables and the abundance of eaters (fleas, bugs, etc.), together with the wicked (limb) disclocating road from St. Johns to Laprairie would make up a sum of suffering, for which it would be difficult to find adequate compensation. In the summer, the beauty of the scenery going down (?) the St. Lawrence to Montreal, and of the whole country around Quebec, might, in some measure, counterbalance these evils. But unless Mrs. Mathews' and your own health were tolerably good at the time, the hourly inconveniences you would have to endure would render an expedition to the Canadas anything but desirable. The heat while we were in Montreal was intolerable - the filth intolerable - the bugs intolerable - the people intolerable - the jargon they speak intolerable. I lifted my hands in thankfulness when I set foot in these United States. The only inn existing at Montreal was burned down three years ago, and everything you ask for was burnt down in it."

Franklin Graham. Histrionic Montreal. Montreal: John Lovell & Son, Publishers, 1902.

Last updated 2020-07-28