Charles Kingsley - Life, Character, Legacy, Bibliography

Writer, born in Holne, Devon, SW England, UK. He studied at Cambridge, was ordained in 1842, and lived as curate and rector of Eversley, Hampshire. A ‘Christian Socialist’, he was much involved in schemes for the improvement of working-class life, and his social novels, such as Alton Locke (1850), had great influence at the time. His best-known works are Westward Ho! (1855), Hereward the Wake (1866), and his children's book, The Water Babies (1863). In 1860 he was appointed professor of modern history at Cambridge, and in 1873 chaplain to the queen.

Charles Kingsley (June 12, 1819 – January 23, 1875) was an English novelist, particularly associated with the West Country and North East Hampshire.

Life

Kingsley was born in Holne (Devon), the son of a vicar.

Kingsley's interest in history spilled over into his writings, which include The Heroes (1856), a children's book about Greek mythology, and several historical novels, of which the best known are Hypatia (1853), Hereward the Wake (1865), and Westward Ho! (1855).

Kingsley's concern for social reform is illustrated in his great classic, The Water-Babies (1863), a kind of fairytale about a boy chimney-sweep, which retained its popularity well into the 20th century.

In 1872 Kingsley accepted the Presidency of the Birmingham and Midland Institute and became its 19th President.

Kingsley also wrote poetry and political articles, as well as several volumes of sermons.

Kingsley was influenced by Frederick Denison Maurice, and was close to many Victorian thinkers and writers, e.g.

Kingsley died in 1875 and was buried in St Mary's Churchyard in Eversley.

Character

In person Charles Kingsley was tall and spare, sinewy rather than powerful, and of a restless excitable temperament.

Kingsley's life was written by his widow in 1877, entitled Charles Kingsley, his Letters and Memories of his Life, and presents a very touching and beautiful picture of her husband, but perhaps hardly does justice to his humour, his wit, his overflowing vitality and boyish fun.

John Henry Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua shows the distress that Kingsley's invective could induce.

Legacy

Charles Kingsley's novel Westward Ho! led to the founding of a town by the same name and even inspired the construction of a a railway, the Bideford, Westward Ho!

Bibliography

Saint's Tragedy, a drama (1848) Alton Locke, a novel (1849) Yeast, a novel (1849) Twenty-five Village Sermons (1849) Phaeton, or Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers (1852) Sermons on National Subjects (1st series, 1852) Hypatia, a novel (1853) Glaucus, or the Wonders of the Shore (1855) Sermons on National Subjects (2nd series, 1854) Alexandria and her Schools (I854) Westward Ho!, a novel (1855) Sermons for the Times (1855) The Heroes, Greek fairy tales (1856) Two Years Ago, a novel (1857) Andromeda and other Poems (1858) The Good News of God, sermons (1859) Miscellanies (1859) Limits of Exact Science applied to History (Inaugural Lectures, 1860) Town and Country Sermons (1861) Sermons on the Pentateuch (1863) The Water-Babies (1863) The Roman and the Teuton (1864) David and other Sermons (1866) Hereward the Wake, a novel (1866) The Ancient Régime (Lectures at the Royal Institution, 1867) Water of Life and other Sermons (1867) The Hermits (1869) Madam How and Lady Why (1869) At Last: A Christmas in the West Indies (1871) Town Geology (1872) Discipline and other Sermons (1872) Prose Idylls (1873) Plays and Puritans (1873) Health and Education (1874) Westminster Sermons (1874) Lectures delivered in America (1875)