The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Kennedy, Charles Rann

KENNEDY, Charles Rann, Anglo-American dramatist: b. Derby, England, 14 Feb. 1871. He began life as an office boy, largely educated himself and early began lecturing and writing. He later became an actor and press agent and theatrical business manager. This led to the production of dramas for the stage with which he combined the writing of short stories, critical articles and poems. Among his dramas are ‘The Servant in the House’ (1908); ‘The Winter Feast’ (1908); ‘The Terrible Meek’ (1911); ‘The Necessary Evil’ (1913); ‘The Idol-Breaker’ (1914); ‘The Rib of the Man’ (1916); ‘The Army with Banners’ (1917). In the composition of these dramas, all of which deal with problems of society and are of a serious, reforming tendency he has had the advice of his wife, the actress, Edith Wynne Matthison, whom he married in 1898.