Browsing: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 6

Sarah Siddons (1755–1831), considered to be Britain's finest tragic actress, enraptured the public and critics in London and smaller cities through the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Abigail Adams, though initially unimpressed with English theater, became an enthusiastic fan. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson (12 August 1785, below), she wrote, “after having been accustomed to [the theater] {p. R15} of France, one can have little realish for the cold, heavy action, and uncouth appearence of the English stage. . . . I know not how a Siddons may reconcile me to English action but as yet I have seen nothing that equals Parissian ease and grace.” The Adamses saw Sarah Siddons play Desdemona in Othello on 17 September 1785, and the following day Adams wrote to William Stephens Smith (below), quoting Milton: “I was last Evening . . . at Drury Lane and Saw for the first time Mrs. Siddons. Grace was in all her steps heaven in her Eye/ And every Gesture dignity and love.” Abigail Adams 2d was equally enthusiastic: “Altho I saw her under many disadvantages, the part not being such as I shold have chosen, and her present situation [Siddons was six months pregnant] renders it impossible for her to Play so well, as formerly, yet I think She answered my expectations. I did not go into fits, nor swoon, but I never was so much pleased with any person I ever saw upon any theatre” (to John Quincy Adams, 24 September 1785, below; see also Abigail Adams 2d, Journal and Correspondence , [3]:198).

The engraving, by C. Sherwin, was done in 1785 for the publisher John Bell. It appeared in the 1788 edition of Bell's Edition of Shakspere, London, 20 vols. John Bell (1745–1831) produced inexpensive, attractive volumes of broad appeal. Abigail Adams 2d owned Bell's Edition: The Poets of Great Britain complete from Chaucer to Churchill, London, 1777–1782, 109 vols. (see Abigail Adams 2d to John Quincy Adams, 4 July 1785, below).

On Sarah Siddons and John Bell, see DNB .