Literate Lifetime

"Today a reader, tomorrow a leader." -- W. Fusselman
Looking for something great (and free) to read? Enter an author's name and/or a key word from a book title to search for entries in our database of public domain works.


Kingsley, Henry, 1830-1876

We have 1 book for this author.

Henry Kingsley (2 January 1830 – 24 May 1876) was an English novelist, brother of the better known Charles Kingsley.

Kingsley was born at Barnack rectory, Northamptonshire. He was the son of the Rev. Charles Kingsley the elder, who came of a long line of clergymen and soldiers, married Mary Lucas and in addition to the two well-known novelists, their family included Dr George Kingsley the traveller and writer, and a daughter who also wrote fiction. Henry Kingsley's boyhood was spent at Clovelly and Chelsea, and at the age of 14 he began to attend King's College London, and Worcester College, Oxford, which he left without graduating. An opportune legacy from a relation enabled him to leave Oxford free of debt and emigrate to Australia, arriving at Melbourne in the Gauntlet in December 1853. He became involved in gold-digging, and later joined the mounted police.

For some time he had little or no money and carried his swag from station to station. Mr Philip Russell stated in 1887 that he employed Kingsley at his station Langa-Willi, and that Geoffrey Hamlyn was begun there. Miss Rose Browne the daughter of "Rolf Boldrewood" has stated that it was on her father's suggestion that Kingsley began to write. Mr Russell's story is confirmed by her further statement that her father gave Kingsley a letter to Mr Mitchell of Langa-Willi station, that he stayed with Mitchell, and there wrote Geoffrey Hamlyn.

On his return to the UK in 1858 he devoted himself to literature, and wrote several well-regarded novels, including Geoffrey Hamlyn (1859), set in Colebrooke, Devon, and Australia, The Hillyars and the Burtons (1865), Ravenshoe (1861), and Austin Elliot (1863). Ravenshoe is generally regarded as the best. Henry Kingsley married Sarah Maria Haselwood on 19 July 1864. In 1869, he went to Edinburgh to edit the Daily Review, but he soon gave this up, and in 1870 became war correspondent for the paper during the Franco-German War.

Kingsley also published Leighton Court (1866), Mademoiselle Mathilde (1868), Tales of Old Travel re-narrated (1869), Stretton (1869), The Boy in Grey (1871), Hetty and other Stories (1871), Old Margaret (1871), Hornby Mills and other Stories (1872), Valentine (1872), The Harveys (1872), Oakshott Castle (1873), Reginald Hetherege (1874), Number Seventeen (1875), The Grange Garden (1876), Fireside Studies (Essays) (1876), The Mystery of the Island (1877).

He died of cancer of the tongue after living the last few years of his life at Cuckfield Sussex.

External link

References

  • This article incorporates public domain text from: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J.M. Dent & sons; New York, E.P. Dutton.
  • Serle, Percival (1949). "Kingsley, Henry". Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. 


This article incorporates text from the public domain 1949 edition of Dictionary of Australian Biography from
Project Gutenberg of Australia, which is in the public domain in Australia and the United States of America.

This biographical information was gathered from the Henry_Kingsley page, courtesy of the Wikipedia project.

Books

Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn

Pick of the Day

The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle
The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle
by
Hugh Lofting (Author)

Read more...

Other recent picks


Lists of Interest

Modern Library 100 Best Novels Modern Library 100 Best Novels: In 1998, Modern Library picked the top 100 Novels of the century. This list contains all of the bo ...

Webmaster's Favourites Webmaster's Favourites: These are my selections, humbly presented as books that I particularly enjoyed.



Other ways of browsing