| Description |
x, 211 pages, 8 pages of color plates : illustrations, genealogical table, 1 map, portraits ; 26 cm |
| Contents |
List of illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Abridged family tree -- 1. Ancient tales and origins -- 2. Life at home -- 3. Life at school -- 4. Chelsea -- 5. Oxford -- 6. In transit -- 7. New beginnings -- 8. Sydney bound -- 9. The Monaro and Gippsland -- 10. Prelude to home -- 11. Homeward bound -- 12. Eversley -- 13. Wargrave -- 14. The editor -- 15. The last years -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index |
| Summary |
Although Henry Kingsley spent little more than four years in Australia - from December 1853 to February 1858 - his novel The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn is among the best stories of station life in the heyday of the squatters, and his "colonial experience" coloured the remainder of his life. Kingsley was the son of an English clergyman. His elder brother, Charles, also a clergyman, was to achieve renown as the author of Westward Ho! and The Water Babies. Henry himself was something of a rebel and an adventurer. At Oxford he spent much of his time rowing - he won the Diamond Sculls at Henley - and engaging in other sport and social activites, he left without taking a degree. Like many footloose Englishmen of the time, Kingsley decided to try his luck on the Victorian goldfields. While in Australia he travelled widely in Victoria and New South Wales and spent some time working and as a guest on country properties. It was while he was at one of them, Langi Willi, that he began writing Geoffry Hamlyn, which he finished on his return to England. The success of the book started him on his career as a novelist. His life was beset with financial difficulties, largely of his own making, since his income from writing was substantial. Towards the end of his life he was appointed editor of the Free Presbyterian Daily Review in Edinburgh and went as that paper's correspondent to the Franco-Prussian War. But he was an unlikely editor for a religious journal, and his appointment was duly terminated. With his popularity as a novelist waning, his last years were spent in straitened circumstances. The Passing Guest is a carefully researched account of Kingsley's life. Where the records of his activities are vague, such as the period of his lide in Australia, the story has been pieced together from autobiographical passages in his novels and from his journalism and other writings. The book is illustrated by Kingsley's own watercolours painted while in Australia and other contemporary illustrations and by photographs taken by the present author during is researches in England and Australia. -- Inside cover |
| Analysis |
Australia |
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English fiction |
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Australia |
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English fiction |
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Novels in English. English writers, 1837-1900: Kingsley, Henry, 1830-1876. Biographies |
| Notes |
Includes index |
| Bibliography |
Bibliography: pages [185]-205 |
| Subject |
Kingsley, Henry, 1830-1876.
|
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Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography.
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Novelists, English -- 19th century -- Biography.
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| SUBJECT |
Australia http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79021326 -- In literature.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2002011414
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Australia -- In literature.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2007101694
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Australia -- Biography.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2008114302
|
| Genre/Form |
Biographies.
|
| LC no. |
82011169 |
| ISBN |
0702219800 |
|
