The Day after the Wedding; or, A Wife's First Lesson

London: Printed by Brettell for Appleyards, 1808, 1808. First edition. Title-page and final leaf a little stained; very good copy.. 8vo, recent tan wrappers, 32 pages. The first of three plays by Marie Therese Kemble (1774-1838), the Austrian-born English actress and mother of Fanny Kemble. She moved to England at an early age and became a popular child actress. She later married actor Charles Kemble, for whom she wrote this short comedy about marriage ("the lottery of wedlock"), in which they played the starring roles, he as Colonel Freelove and she as his 18-year-old tempestuous wife, Lady Elizabeth Freelove. He attempts to subdue her temper tantrums, but is warned by her brother, Lord Rivers, that "you may break a horse, you may even subdue a lion, but you'll never tame a woman." This and one other short comedy by Kemble were remarkably popular, often preformed and reprinted.