INTRODUCTION

Charles Kingsley was born almost two centuries ago. Today his is a much-forgotten name in Victorian Literature and he is very rarely read out of the academic circle. This was not so when Kingsley died in 1875 after an energetic career lasting 35 years as one of England’s leading voices as poet, novelist, social reformer, churchman and his- torian. The Times in its obituary lamented that “perhaps he will be none the less regretted that he had accomplished so much of the task he set himself; that he has left the stamp of a vigorous indi- viduality on English society and English literature”and that his works “were invaluable as a protest against sickly sentimentality and mor- bid sensationalism, which were the snares and vices of some of his most popular contemporaries.”1 Kingsley’s fame remained high for another forty years until the First World War. His books went through numerous reprints and Macmillan issued a 28-volume complete works. Frances Kingsley’s huge Life of her husband was a popular Victorian biography, which appeared on both sides of the Atlantic in various abridged forms. Expensively bound editions of The Water-Babies were popular as prize gifts at schools, and it has captured the imagination of a host of professional illustrators. The book, by now a classic, has never been out of print. It was with the advent of Modernism, however, that Kingsley’s Victorian sermonizing and masculinity fell out of fashion. Some of his books were denigrated, a few were relegated to the sta- tus of children’s literature. Although numerous editions of his nov- els have continued to come out, until recently Kingsley was hardly taken seriously. Now, however, critics and historians increasingly begin to see Kingsley as an eminent thinker and reformer of his time, and his complex struggle to work out the relationship between sexuality, Christianity, and society has commanded respect. But if a reappraisal of Kingsley’s literary work is in full swing, a complete reassessment of his life has not been undertaken.

1 “Death of Charles Kingsley,” The Times 25 January, p. 9e. 2 introduction

Kingsley’s life was an eventful one. His evangelical upbringing made it difficult for him to accept his sexual urges, which resulted, while at university, in a period marked by dissipation and religious doubt till he met his future wife, Fanny. Their courtship was roman- tic, erotic, and religious at the same time. In marriage Kingsley rec- onciled his sexuality with his spirituality in a way which he thought was acceptable to Christianity. To sublimate the marriage bond, he also decided to become a man of the cloth. Kingsley settled in the parish where he would stay for the rest of his life, and it was here that he wrote his first literary work, The Saint’s Tragedy. With this closet play Kingsley produced a powerful plea against celibacy. By 1848 a profound awareness of the social evils of his time had emerged in Kingsley’s thinking. He became involved in the Chartist movement, and was active in social reform with a group of ardent young men led by the Anglican divine Frederick Denison Maurice. They would be known as the Christian Socialists. Kingsley’s direct knowledge of the working classes in London stimulated the writing of his propaganda novel Alton Locke, in which he addressed his views of individual freedom for the Christian believer, and gave an answer to Thomas Carlyle’s prophetic warnings. His liberal attitude to sex and religion on the one hand, and his socialist ideas on the other, had made him numerous enemies both in the church and among the “respectable” middle classes. Ferocious attacks against him appeared in the press, and under this pressure the Christian Socialist Movement disintegrated. Kingsley had never abandoned his crusade against celibacy, but in the years 1852–55 it assumed a new dimension. Kingsley made the body the central theme, first in his poetry, and then in his fiction. In his famous novels Hypatia and Westward Ho! Kingsley presented his views in such vigorous and startling language that critics started calling him “the apostle of the flesh,” while the physical violence in his poems and novels drew attention to the “muscular” element of his Christianity. After the success of Westward Ho! Kingsley suffered a period of depression which paralysed his creative powers. It is significant that at this stage he turned to children’s literature with The Heroes. These tales, however, can also be read against Kingsley’s stand on celibacy. When he became a literary lion and started to withdraw from con- troversial social activities, his friends of the Christian Socialist years distrusted him increasingly. His next novel, Two Years Ago, in which