[(Giles Overreach).jpg|thumbnail|right|250 px|Edmund Kean as Sir Giles Overreach in [[Philip Massinger|Massinger's] A New Way to Pay Old Debts]], b. 1816
Edmund Kean (17 March 1789 – 15 May 1833) was an English actor, regarded in his time as the greatest ever. For many years he lived at Keydell House, Horndean.

Early life

Kean was born in London. His father was probably Edmund Kean, an architect’s clerk, and his mother was an actress, Anne Carey, daughter of the 18th century composer and playwright Henry Carey. Kean made his first appearance on the stage, aged four, as Cupid in Jean-Georges Noverre’s ballet of Cymon. As a child his vivacity, cleverness and ready affection made him a universal favourite, but his harsh circumstances and lack of discipline, both helped develop self-reliance and fostered wayward tendencies. About 1794 a few benevolent persons paid for him to go to school, where he did well; but finding the restraint intolerable, he shipped as a cabin boy at Portsmouth. Finding life at sea even more restricting, he pretended to be both deaf and lame so skillfully that he deceived the doctors at Madeira.