The University of Iowa Libraries For the scholar of nineteenth century England, the Brewer-Leigh Hunt Collection in The University of Iowa Libraries is indeed a treasure house. In that era, English intellectual and artistic circles were small and overlapping and an editor, poet, and critic as eminent as Leigh Hunt knew almost all the prominent artists, writers, and musicians of his day. At present I am working on a study of the vocalist and author Adelaide Kemble and I find so often the same people I grew to know when working on my biography of Leigh Hunt. The Kembles were the royal family of the British stage.
Every biographer insists upon it.
Before the advent of the great Kembles in the late eighteenth century, actors and particularly actresses were disreputable. Sarah, John Philip, and Charles Kemble followed his example, and by reason of their intelligence, education, and social graces were received in the best drawing rooms in the land. The Kemble family was large. The parents, Roger and Sally Kemble, were strolling players who produced twelve theatrical children, eight of whom reached adulthood, and three of whom achieved extraordinary fame. Sarah was born in 1755, and was married at eighteen to unimpressive Henry Siddons.