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['London, Longman, 1863 concerning paratext: presented per play (1) An English Tragedy {Dedication present} To the reverend William Harness My kind and honoured Friend, It is not without hesitation that I avail myself of your permission to dedicate this Play to you. Written between twenty and thirty years ago, it then challenged the indulgence of my friends, in spite of its many defects, as the possible promise of better things when I should have attained maturer powers. [...] alas! this is the only piece of work I have ever finished since the first essays of my school-girl days; and therefore, most imperfect as it is, I have nothing better to offer you. [...] Yours most truly Fanny Kemble. (2) Mary Stuart {Dedication present} To Henry Greville, Esq. This translation, the completion of which is chiefly due to his kind encouragement, is dedicated by his obliged and attached friend, The Author {Preface present} 197-204 Introduction The pleasure I derived from Mdlle. Rachel\'s performance of the French version of Schiller\'s "Mary Stuart", induced me to undertake a translation of that piece for the English stage. [or rather of the German original, using the ways in which Mercier had reduced length] 204 To conclude, German scholars [...] will probably not read my translation, and will certainly not be satisfied with it, for I am not; and yet I have done as well as I could, and may perhaps venture to recommend my work to those who cannot read the original, as a tolerably faithful and not altogether inadequate rendering of Schiller\'s noble play. [n.s.] (3) Mademoiselle de Belle Isle {Preface present} 427-8 Introduction The refined and fashionable audiences who, some years ago, used to applaud at the St. James\'s Theatre Mademoiselle Plessis, in the play of _Mademoiselle de Belle Isle_, and Mademoiselle Dejazet, in the far more startling parts and pieces which were there represented for the edification of the best London society, would, in all probability, have objected to an _English_ version of Dumas\' clever play, upon the score of its immorality. It is not for me to determine whether the aristocratic audiences at the St. James\'s Theatre did not understand what they heard, or whether the French language has a special charm for rendering inoffensive what plain English fails to recommend. However that may be, I have always thought [MdBI] one of the most interesting and brilliant productions of that great resource of English dramatists, the modern French stage, and regretted extremely the difficulty of so modifying it as to make it acceptable to an English audience in an English theatre. The present translation and alteration of the piece is an attempt to do this, but I do not flatter myself that I have succeeded [...] [n.s.] svdjun10chawton']
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