Stephen Kemble - Writer

Writer

He also published a dramatic play The Northern Inn (1791). The play was also known as The northern lass, or, Days of good Queen Bess, The good times of Queen Bess. The play was first produced 16 August 1791, as The northern inn, or, The good times of Queen Bess, at the Haymarket Theatre (i.e. Little Theatre or Theatre Royal, Haymarket).

Kemble also published a collection of his writings Ods, Lyrical Ballads and Poems (1809). About Kemble's poetry, John Wilson (Scottish writer) stated, "Stephen Kemble was a man of excellent talents, and taste too; and we have a volume of his poems... in which there is considerable powers of language, and no deficiency either of feeling or of fancy. He had humour if not wit, and was a pleasant companion and worthy man." Of particular interest is Kemble's writing is his reflections on contemporaneous events such as the Battle of Trafalgar, the death of Lord Nelson, the death of Robert Burns, his conversion to the abolitionist movement and support of the Slave Trade Act 1807, the death of his brother-in-law William Siddons.

Stephen published a play with his son Henry Kemble (1789–1836) entitled Flodden Field (1819) based on the Battle of Flodden (1513). The text is based on Sir Walter Scott's Marmion: a tale of Flodden field. In six cantos. The play was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on Thursday evening, 31 December 1818. The European Magazine, and London Review reported that at its debut "the whole went off without opposition, and its repetition, was received with applause."

An essay of his entitled "In the Character of Touchstone, Riding on an Ass" was published by William Oxberry in his book The Actor's Budget (1820).