Henry Kingsley

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, before attending 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.

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