A. W. Kinglake: A Biographical and Literary Study
()
About this ebook
Read more from William Tuckwell
Biographical Study of A.W. Kinglake Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA. W. Kinglake: A Biographical and Literary Study Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA. W. Kinglake: A Biographical and Literary Study Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHorace Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to A. W. Kinglake
Related ebooks
A. W. Kinglake: A Biographical and Literary Study Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Old Dominion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Works of Mark Twain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Roundabout Manner: Sketches of Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCollections and Recollections Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSunny Memories of Foreign Lands, Volume 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKnickerbocker's History of New York Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5In The End Is My Beginning Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDelphi Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray (Illustrated) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Uncle Silas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Descent into Hell: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Delphi Collected Works of William John Locke Illustrated Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBooks and Authors: Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKnickerbocker's History of New York, Complete Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gothic Quest - A History of the Gothic Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lane That Had No Turning, Complete Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Book of Ballads, edited by Bon Gaultier [pseud.] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGorsky: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUncle Silas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLetters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent.: Nine Humorous Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope — Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFar off Things Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEssays: Nine Humorous Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Innocents: A Story for Lovers (Annotated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Weavers: The Bestseller of 1907 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLetters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent: Satire on the Fashions of the New York Theater Scene Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Religion & Spirituality For You
The Screwtape Letters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Be Here Now Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Course In Miracles: (Original Edition) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Four Loves Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Grief Observed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mere Christianity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, Written and Se Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Three Questions: How to Discover and Master the Power Within You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Reason for God Discussion Guide: Conversations on Faith and Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Weight of Glory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dangerous Prayers: Because Following Jesus Was Never Meant to Be Safe Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Upon Waking: 60 Daily Reflections to Discover Ourselves and the God We Were Made For Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was, and Who God Has Always Been Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Warrior of the Light: A Manual Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Love Dare Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Complete Papyrus of Ani Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gospel of Mary Magdalene Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Billion Years: My Escape From a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Buddha's Guide to Gratitude: The Life-changing Power of Everyday Mindfulness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for A. W. Kinglake
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
A. W. Kinglake - William Tuckwell
A. W. KINGLAKE: A BIOGRAPHICAL AND LITERARY STUDY
..................
William Tuckwell
DOSSIER PRESS
Thank you for reading. In the event that you appreciate this book, please consider sharing the good word(s) by leaving a review, or connect with the author.
This book is a work of nonfiction and is intended to be factually accurate.
All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.
Copyright © 2016 by William Tuckwell
Interior design by Pronoun
Distribution by Pronoun
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
CHAPTER I EARLY YEARS
CHAPTER II EOTHEN
CHAPTER III LITERARY AND PARLIAMENTARY LIFE
CHAPTER IV THE INVASION OF THE CRIMEA
CHAPTER V MADAME NOVIKOFF
CHAPTER VI LATER DAYS, AND DEATH
THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON I.
THE WORKS OF C. S. CALVERLEY.
A. W. Kinglake: A Biographical and Literary Study
By
William Tuckwell
A. W. Kinglake: A Biographical and Literary Study
Published by Dossier Press
New York City, NY
First published circa 1919
Copyright © Dossier Press, 2015
All rights reserved
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
About Dossier Press
PREFACE
..................
IT IS JUST ELEVEN YEARS since Kinglake passed away, and his life has not yet been separately memorialized. A few years more, and the personal side of him would be irrecoverable, though by personality, no less than by authorship, he made his contemporary mark. When a tomb has been closed for centuries, the effaced lineaments of its tenant can be re-coloured only by the idealizing hand of genius, as Scott drew Claverhouse, and Carlyle drew Cromwell. But, to the biographer of the lately dead, men have a right to say, as Saul said to the Witch of Endor, Call up Samuel!
In your study of a life so recent as Kinglake’s, give us, if you choose, some critical synopsis of his monumental writings, some salvage from his ephemeral and scattered papers; trace so much of his youthful training as shaped the development of his character; depict, with wise restraint, his political and public life: but also, and above all, re-clothe him in his habit as he lived,
as friends and associates knew him; recover his traits of voice and manner, his conversational wit or wisdom, epigram or paradox, his explosions of sarcasm and his eccentricities of reserve, his words of winningness and acts of kindness: and, since one half of his life was social, introduce us to the companions who shared his lighter hour and evoked his finer fancies; take us to the Athenæum Corner,
or to Holland House, and flash on us at least a glimpse of the brilliant men and women who formed the setting to his sparkle; dic in amicitiam coeant et foedera jungant.
This I have endeavoured to do, with such aid as I could command from his few remaining contemporaries. His letters to his family were destroyed by his own desire; on those written to Madame Novikoff no such embargo was laid, nor does she believe that it was intended. I have used these sparingly, and all extracts from them have been subjected to her censorship. If the result is not Attic in salt, it is at any rate Roman in brevity. I send it forth with John Bunyan’s homely aspiration:
CHAPTER I EARLY YEARS
..................
THE FOURTH DECADE OF THE deceased century dawned on a procession of Oriental pilgrims, variously qualified or disqualified to hold the gorgeous East in fee, who, with bakshîsh in their purses, a theory in their brains, an unfilled diary-book in their portmanteaus, sought out the Holy Land, the Sinai peninsula, the valley of the Nile, sometimes even Armenia and the Monte Santo, and returned home to emit their illustrated and mapped octavos. We have the type delineated admiringly in Miss Yonge’s Heartsease,
bitterly in Miss Skene’s Use and Abuse,
facetiously in the Clarence Bulbul of Our Street.
Hang it! has not everybody written an Eastern book? I should like to meet anybody in society now who has not been up to the Second Cataract. My Lord Castleroyal has done one—an honest one; my Lord Youngent another—an amusing one; my Lord Woolsey another—a pious one; there is the ‘Cutlet and the Cabob’—a sentimental one; Timbuctoothen—a humorous one.
Lord Carlisle’s honesty, Lord Nugent’s fun, Lord Lindsay’s piety, failed to float their books. Miss Martineau, clear, frank, unemotional Curzon, fuddling the Levantine monks with rosoglio that he might fleece them of their treasured hereditary manuscripts, even Eliot Warburton’s power, colouring, play of fancy, have yielded to the mobility of Time. Two alone out of the gallant company maintain their vogue to-day: Stanley’s Sinai and Palestine,
as a Fifth Gospel, an inspired Scripture Gazetteer; and Eothen,
as a literary gem of purest ray serene.
In 1898 a reprint of the first edition was given to the public, prefaced by a brief eulogium of the book and a slight notice of the author. It brought to the writer of the Introduction
not only kind and indulgent criticism, but valuable corrections, fresh facts, clues to further knowledge. These last have been carefully followed out. The unwary statement that Kinglake never spoke after his first failure in the House has been atoned by a careful study of all his speeches in and out of Parliament. His reviews in the Quarterly
and elsewhere have been noted; impressions of his manner and appearance at different periods of his life have been recovered from coæval acquaintances; his friend Hayward’s Letters, the numerous allusions in Lord Houghton’s Life, Mrs. Crosse’s lively chapters in Red Letter Days of my Life,
Lady Gregory’s interesting recollections of the Athenæum Club in Blackwood of December, 1895, the somewhat slender notice in the Dictionary of National Biography,
have all been carefully digested. From these, and, as will be seen, from other sources, the present Memoir has been compiled; an endeavour—sera tamen—to lay before the countless readers and admirers of his books a fairly adequate appreciation, hitherto unattempted, of their author.
I have to acknowledge the great kindness of Canon William Warburton, who examined his brother Eliot’s diaries on my behalf, obtained information from Dean Boyle and Sir M. Grant Duff, cleared up for me not a few obscure allusions in the Eothen
pages. My highly valued friend, Mrs. Hamilton Kinglake, of Taunton, his sister-in-law, last surviving relative of his own generation, has helped me with facts which no one else could have recalled. To Mr. Estcott, his old acquaintance and Somersetshire neighbour, I am indebted for recollections manifold and interesting; but above all I tender thanks to Madame Novikoff, his intimate associate and correspondent during the last twenty years of his life, who has supplemented her brilliant sketch of him in La Nouvelle Revue
of 1896 by oral and written information lavish in quantity and of paramount biographical value. Kinglake’s external life, his literary and political career, his speeches, and the more fugitive productions of his pen, were recoverable from public sources; but his personal and private side, as it showed itself to the few close intimates who still survive, must have remained to myself and others meagre, superficial, disappointing, without Madame Novikoff’s unreserved and sympathetic confidence.
Alexander William Kinglake was descended from an old Scottish stock, the Kinlochs, who migrated to England with King James, and whose name was Anglicized into Kinglake. Later on we find them settled on a considerable estate of their own at Saltmoor, near Borobridge, whence towards the close of the eighteenth century two brothers, moving southward, made their home in Taunton—Robert as a physician, William as a solicitor and banker. Both were of high repute, both begat famous sons. From Robert sprang the eminent Parliamentary lawyer, Serjeant John Kinglake, at one time a contemporary with Cockburn and Crowder on the Western