• Name: Kean, Edmund
• Gender: Male
• Birth Date: 4  November  1787
• Death Date: 15  May  1833
• Occupation: actor

See DNB.

There is no doubt about the presence of the actor in the diary - the first ref is to seeing him perform: 'Theatre, Kean in Richard; w. M J.' However, Godwin does not appear to have known Edmund Kean very well. They seem to have met in 1817 through the auspices of James Kenney, but there is no evidence of intimacy. There are a couple of calls in 1830 and Godwin writes to him on a few occasions but the spate of calls to Kean in 1824 seem more likely to relate to the solicitor Edward Keane. Godwin appears to have been undecided for some time on whether to denote this man as Kean or Keane but finally settles on the latter. In any case, the intense contact over a couple of months is concerned with Godwin's legal difficulties at the time (being evicted from the Strand and owing back rent on Skinner Street). He was declared bankrupt in March 1825 and the contact ends.

According to the DNB - Edmund Kean sets sail for America 7.10.1820 and left to return to Britain on 7.6.1821; he was in Brighton and France in the summer of 1824, sailed for America again in September 1825, and set out for Britain on 6.12.1826. None of Kean's appearances in the diary are during these periods when he is in America.

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This table lists the people this person is most frequently noted with in the diary.