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Home  »  library  »  BIOS  »  Charles Kingsley (1819–1875)

C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875)

Kingsley, Charles. An English novelist, poet, and philanthropist; born at Holne, near Dartmoor, Devonshire, June 12, 1819; died at Eversley, Hampshire, Jan. 23, 1875. He became curate (1842) and vicar (1844) of Eversley, where he spent a large part of his life. His literary career began with the publication of ‘The Saint’s Tragedy’ (1848), a drama in verse on the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. This was followed by a series of novels that caught the attention of the best readers: ‘Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet’ (1849); ‘Yeast’ (1851); ‘Hypatia’ (1853); ‘The Water Babies’ (1853); ‘Westward Ho!’ (1855). Of his verse, ‘Poems’ chiefly lyric, appeared in 1856, again in 1875, and ‘Andromeda and Other Poems’ in 1858. His controversy with John Henry (afterward Cardinal) Newman, in 1864, led to the latter publishing his celebrated ‘Apologia pro Vita Sua.’ Kingsley became professor of modern history at Cambridge in 1859, chaplain to the Queen in 1860, canon of Westminster in 1873. (See Critical and Biographical Introduction).