Kingsley's carte-de-visite, from the 1860s, by Mason & Co. © National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG x19154, by kind permission).
Born in 1830, the younger brother by eleven years of Charles Kingsley, the writer of GEOFFRY HAMLYN left Oxford in 1853, in an attack of the prevalent gold-fever, to go to the gold-fields with some kindred spirits. The following five years, in which he did not gain fortune, procured him the inestimable dear-bought human stuff, which he turned to account in his romance pages. In them we have a hearty and spirited reflection of the days when there was a special cult, as seen in Charles Dickens, the pages of Punch, and Henry Kingsley’s more famous brother, of English heartiness and good-fellowship, associated in Charles Kingsley’s gospel with the proverbial symptoms of "muscular Christianity". He was still in his mid-career when his last illness (cancer in the tongue) seized him. He died (just sixteen months after Charles), at the Attrees, Cuckfield, Sussex, May 24, 1876. — Ernest Rhys, n.p.
The secret of Henry Kingsley's attraction is the possession of the one quality that in the long run outweighs all others: he has the saving grace of charm. He is so human, too, so like a big rollicking schoolboy, that no one out of whose life has gone the joy of youth should take up his volumes. He holds out to the reader the right hand of good-fellowship, while through every page shines a delightful personality. — Lewis Melville 240-41
Biographical Material and Discussions
Works
Related Material
Bibliography
Ellis, S.M. Henry Kingsley, 1830-1876: Towards a Vindication. London: Grant Richards, 1931.
Kingsley, Henry. The Novels of Henry Kingsley. Edited by C. K. Shorter. London: British Library (Historical Print Editions), 2011.
_____. Portable Henry Kingsley. Edited by J.S.D. Mellick. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1982. (Internet Archive, but only available to borrow on an hourly basis).
_____. Valentin: A French Boy's Story of Sedan. London: Routledge, 1874. Internet Archive, from a copy in Oxford University Library.
Melville, Lewis. Victorian Novelists. London: Constable, 1906: 239-257. Internet Archive, from a copy in the University of California Libraries.
Rhys, Ernest. Introduction. The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn. London: Dent (Everyman), 1910. HathiTrust, from a copy in Princeton University Library.
Scheuerle, William H. The Neglected Brother: A Study of Henry Kingsley. Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1971.
Created 7 December 2023