Westward Ho in Norham Gardens
42. Westward Ho in Norham Gardens
I got through my BPhil in the summer of 1977 and was allowed then to expand the 20,000 word BPhil thesis into a 100,000 word thesis for my doctorate. That first thesis looked at the treatment of women and marriage in some of Trollope’s novels, and the larger work was intended to compare him with several of his contemporaries.
I had little doubt of the most important of these, for my ideas of Victorian Fiction had been shaped by David Cecil’s seminal work Early Victorian Novelists, which had covered Dickens and Thackeray and Trollope and Mrs Gaskell and George Eliot as well as Emily and Jane Bronte. I concentrated on the first five for the Brontes were obviously very special in their highly charged approach.
But I also decided to work in Charles Kingley for I liked his writing and also wanted to talk about Hypatia which looks at the female philosopher who was such an important figure in the replacement of the classical religions in the early Christian era. That prompted an acid comment from one of my examiners, the redoubtable Dorothy Bednarowska, that I had been heroic to read through all of Kingsley’s novels. But I had enjoyed them hugely, not least because they were so different in style and content from the others I studied.
Kingley’s first two novels dealt with contemporary socio-political issues and were perhaps more germane to the subject of my thesis, as Hypatia was, but the novels I enjoyed most were two historical romps. One was Hereward the Wake about the last Anglo-Saxon resistance to the Norman Conquest, a subject dear to Kingsley who was emotionally committed to the primacy of the Anglo-Saxons in the heritage of the English, rather than the for him French Normans. The other, which I found delightful, was Westward Ho.
This was a sort of pendant to Froude whom I had read the previous year, for it was set during the time of English rivalry with the Spanish, and his hero Amyas Leigh has a wonderful time attacking Spanish possessions in Latin America. He is involved with Sir Francis Drake, who was essentially a pirate, but became a hero because of his achievements in formal warfare against the Spanish, as second in command of the fleet which overcame the Armada, helped of course by the weather.
Kingsley was even more anti-Catholic than Froude, and he is perhaps most famous now for his dispute with Cardinal Newman who seems to have bested him in the argument. And we have to be grateful to Kingley for his attack, for that prompted Newman’s moving Apologia pro Vita Sua in which the intellectual wrestling that led him into the Catholic Church is brilliantly related.
But Kingley, who was a Christian Socialist, and admirably concerned with working men’s education, was obviously the more popular writer and his descriptions of the inequities of the Catholics doubtless continued to command credibility. And he could make his point forcibly, having the first love of his hero first kidnapped by a Spaniard and then burnt at the stake by the Spanish Inquisition.
Interestingly, Amyas is blinded like Rochester in Jane Eyre, and ends up having to be cared for. His carer is the devoted Indian maid who had followed him, and who conveniently turns out to be white, the daughter of another English adventurer and a Spanish woman. This is quite different from having to depend on the redoubtable Jane Eyre, which some critics have heralded as a forceful assertion of feminism. Ayacanora is obviously not in the same league, but it is interesting that the supposedly chauvinist Kingsley should also have in a sense emasculated his hero.
42. Westward Ho in Norham Gardens
I got through my BPhil in the summer of 1977 and was allowed then to expand the 20,000 word BPhil thesis into a 100,000 word thesis for my doctorate. That first thesis looked at the treatment of women and marriage in some of Trollope’s novels, and the larger work was intended to compare him with several of his contemporaries.
I had little doubt of the most important of these, for my ideas of Victorian Fiction had been shaped by David Cecil’s seminal work Early Victorian Novelists, which had covered Dickens and Thackeray and Trollope and Mrs Gaskell and George Eliot as well as Emily and Jane Bronte. I concentrated on the first five for the Brontes were obviously very special in their highly charged approach.
But I also decided to work in Charles Kingley for I liked his writing and also wanted to talk about Hypatia which looks at the female philosopher who was such an important figure in the replacement of the classical religions in the early Christian era. That prompted an acid comment from one of my examiners, the redoubtable Dorothy Bednarowska, that I had been heroic to read through all of Kingsley’s novels. But I had enjoyed them hugely, not least because they were so different in style and content from the others I studied.
Kingley’s first two novels dealt with contemporary socio-political issues and were perhaps more germane to the subject of my thesis, as Hypatia was, but the novels I enjoyed most were two historical romps. One was Hereward the Wake about the last Anglo-Saxon resistance to the Norman Conquest, a subject dear to Kingsley who was emotionally committed to the primacy of the Anglo-Saxons in the heritage of the English, rather than the for him French Normans. The other, which I found delightful, was Westward Ho.
This was a sort of pendant to Froude whom I had read the previous year, for it was set during the time of English rivalry with the Spanish, and his hero Amyas Leigh has a wonderful time attacking Spanish possessions in Latin America. He is involved with Sir Francis Drake, who was essentially a pirate, but became a hero because of his achievements in formal warfare against the Spanish, as second in command of the fleet which overcame the Armada, helped of course by the weather.
Kingsley was even more anti-Catholic than Froude, and he is perhaps most famous now for his dispute with Cardinal Newman who seems to have bested him in the argument. And we have to be grateful to Kingley for his attack, for that prompted Newman’s moving Apologia pro Vita Sua in which the intellectual wrestling that led him into the Catholic Church is brilliantly related.
But Kingley, who was a Christian Socialist, and admirably concerned with working men’s education, was obviously the more popular writer and his descriptions of the inequities of the Catholics doubtless continued to command credibility. And he could make his point forcibly, having the first love of his hero first kidnapped by a Spaniard and then burnt at the stake by the Spanish Inquisition.
Interestingly, Amyas is blinded like Rochester in Jane Eyre, and ends up having to be cared for. His carer is the devoted Indian maid who had followed him, and who conveniently turns out to be white, the daughter of another English adventurer and a Spanish woman. This is quite different from having to depend on the redoubtable Jane Eyre, which some critics have heralded as a forceful assertion of feminism. Ayacanora is obviously not in the same league, but it is interesting that the supposedly chauvinist Kingsley should also have in a sense emasculated his hero.
42. Westward Ho in Norham Gardens
I got through my BPhil in the summer of 1977 and was allowed then to expand the 20,000 word BPhil thesis into a 100,000 word thesis for my doctorate. That first thesis looked at the treatment of women and marriage in some of Trollope’s novels, and the larger work was intended to compare him with several of his contemporaries.
I had little doubt of the most important of these, for my ideas of Victorian Fiction had been shaped by David Cecil’s seminal work Early Victorian Novelists, which had covered Dickens and Thackeray and Trollope and Mrs Gaskell and George Eliot as well as Emily and Jane Bronte. I concentrated on the first five for the Brontes were obviously very special in their highly charged approach.
But I also decided to work in Charles Kingley for I liked his writing and also wanted to talk about Hypatia which looks at the female philosopher who was such an important figure in the replacement of the classical religions in the early Christian era. That prompted an acid comment from one of my examiners, the redoubtable Dorothy Bednarowska, that I had been heroic to read through all of Kingsley’s novels. But I had enjoyed them hugely, not least because they were so different in style and content from the others I studied.
Kingley’s first two novels dealt with contemporary socio-political issues and were perhaps more germane to the subject of my thesis, as Hypatia was, but the novels I enjoyed most were two historical romps. One was Hereward the Wake about the last Anglo-Saxon resistance to the Norman Conquest, a subject dear to Kingsley who was emotionally committed to the primacy of the Anglo-Saxons in the heritage of the English, rather than the for him French Normans. The other, which I found delightful, was Westward Ho.
This was a sort of pendant to Froude whom I had read the previous year, for it was set during the time of English rivalry with the Spanish, and his hero Amyas Leigh has a wonderful time attacking Spanish possessions in Latin America. He is involved with Sir Francis Drake, who was essentially a pirate, but became a hero because of his achievements in formal warfare against the Spanish, as second in command of the fleet which overcame the Armada, helped of course by the weather.
Kingsley was even more anti-Catholic than Froude, and he is perhaps most famous now for his dispute with Cardinal Newman who seems to have bested him in the argument. And we have to be grateful to Kingley for his attack, for that prompted Newman’s moving Apologia pro Vita Sua in which the intellectual wrestling that led him into the Catholic Church is brilliantly related.
But Kingley, who was a Christian Socialist, and admirably concerned with working men’s education, was obviously the more popular writer and his descriptions of the inequities of the Catholics doubtless continued to command credibility. And he could make his point forcibly, having the first love of his hero first kidnapped by a Spaniard and then burnt at the stake by the Spanish Inquisition.
Interestingly, Amyas is blinded like Rochester in Jane Eyre, and ends up having to be cared for. His carer is the devoted Indian maid who had followed him, and who conveniently turns out to be white, the daughter of another English adventurer and a Spanish woman. This is quite different from having to depend on the redoubtable Jane Eyre, which some critics have heralded as a forceful assertion of feminism. Ayacanora is obviously not in the same league, but it is interesting that the supposedly chauvinist Kingsley should also have in a sense emasculated his hero.
I got through my BPhil in the summer of 1977 and was allowed then to expand the 20,000 word BPhil thesis into a 100,000 word thesis for my doctorate. That first thesis looked at the treatment of women and marriage in some of Trollope’s novels, and the larger work was intended to compare him with several of his contemporaries.
I had little doubt of the most important of these, for my ideas of Victorian Fiction had been shaped by David Cecil’s seminal work Early Victorian Novelists, which had covered Dickens and Thackeray and Trollope and Mrs Gaskell and George Eliot as well as Emily and Jane Bronte. I concentrated on the first five for the Brontes were obviously very special in their highly charged approach.
But I also decided to work in Charles Kingley for I liked his writing and also wanted to talk about Hypatia which looks at the female philosopher who was such an important figure in the replacement of the classical religions in the early Christian era. That prompted an acid comment from one of my examiners, the redoubtable Dorothy Bednarowska, that I had been heroic to read through all of Kingsley’s novels. But I had enjoyed them hugely, not least because they were so different in style and content from the others I studied.
Kingley’s first two novels dealt with contemporary socio-political issues and were perhaps more germane to the subject of my thesis, as Hypatia was, but the novels I enjoyed most were two historical romps. One was Hereward the Wake about the last Anglo-Saxon resistance to the Norman Conquest, a subject dear to Kingsley who was emotionally committed to the primacy of the Anglo-Saxons in the heritage of the English, rather than the for him French Normans. The other, which I found delightful, was Westward Ho.
This was a sort of pendant to Froude whom I had read the previous year, for it was set during the time of English rivalry with the Spanish, and his hero Amyas Leigh has a wonderful time attacking Spanish possessions in Latin America. He is involved with Sir Francis Drake, who was essentially a pirate, but became a hero because of his achievements in formal warfare against the Spanish, as second in command of the fleet which overcame the Armada, helped of course by the weather.
Kingsley was even more anti-Catholic than Froude, and he is perhaps most famous now for his dispute with Cardinal Newman who seems to have bested him in the argument. And we have to be grateful to Kingley for his attack, for that prompted Newman’s moving Apologia pro Vita Sua in which the intellectual wrestling that led him into the Catholic Church is brilliantly related.
But Kingley, who was a Christian Socialist, and admirably concerned with working men’s education, was obviously the more popular writer and his descriptions of the inequities of the Catholics doubtless continued to command credibility. And he could make his point forcibly, having the first love of his hero first kidnapped by a Spaniard and then burnt at the stake by the Spanish Inquisition.
Interestingly, Amyas is blinded like Rochester in Jane Eyre, and ends up having to be cared for. His carer is the devoted Indian maid who had followed him, and who conveniently turns out to be white, the daughter of another English adventurer and a Spanish woman. This is quite different from having to depend on the redoubtable Jane Eyre, which some critics have heralded as a forceful assertion of feminism. Ayacanora is obviously not in the same league, but it is interesting that the supposedly chauvinist Kingsley should also have in a sense emasculated his hero.
The pictures are of the House in Norham Gardens, and then Kingsley with three early covers of the books I mention.