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Baldwin, Stanley E. Charles Kingsley (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1934).
This is a book length treatment of Kingsley's life and works.  After chapters providing a brief biography, a discussion of the background of the novels, and a consideration of the influence of Carlyle and Maurice, Baldwin devotes separate chapters to each of the novels: Yeast, Alton Locke, Two Years Ago, Hypatia, Westward Ho!, and Hereward the Wake .  Baldwin is measured in his assessment, though he still finds much to praise in Kingsley's diverse literary endeavors. Nevertheless, he considers Kingsley the man as more prominent than his literature.  "Some men's writings are the greatest part of them, and posterity studies their lives through a spirit of curiosity excited by their works.  In a sense this is true of Kingsley, but in a truer sense many are reading Kingsley's literary works because of the indelible impression his personality made upon his fellow men, for whom, in all his activities, he labored.  His life in itself was a poem of deep lyric passion" (194). 
Full Book Treatment ; Overview ; Carlyle ; Maurice ; Y east; Alton Locke ; Two Years Ago ; Hypatia ; Westward Ho! ; Hereward the Wake .
 

Benson, Arthur C.  “The Leaves of the Tree,” North American Review No. 669 (August 1911): 282-301.
Benson discusses Kingsley’s life, character, and works, paying particular attention to his life at Eversley.  He provides personal recollections of having met Kingsley as a child and relates other stories about Kingsley told him by his father. 
Overview ; Eversley .
 

Blore, G. H.  “Charles Kingsley,” in his Victorian Worthies: Sixteen Biographies (London: Oxford University Press, 1920): 177-195.
Blore provides a sketch of Kingsley’s life and principal works. 
Overview .
 

Brown, William Henry. Charles Kingsley: The Work and Influence of Parson Lot (Manchester: The Co-Operative Union, 1924).
Brown, an acquaintance of J. M Ludlow, provides a book length overview of Kingsley’s life and work focusing in particular on his “Parson Lot” period. Though excessively complimentary and lacking in critical rigor, this biography offers some interesting insights.
Full Book Treatment ; Overview.
 

Brown, W. Henry.  “Maurice, Kingsley and Hughes,” The Manchester Quarterly Vol. 51 (1925): 253-68.
Brown considers the life and works of Kingsley interweaving them with those of Maurice and Hughes.  All is laudatory with little critical analysis. 
Overview ; Hughes, Thomas ; Maurice .
 

Carnell, Corbin Scott. "Charles Kingsley," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 178: British Fantasy and Science-Fiction Writers Before World War I .  Ed. by Darren Harris-Fain (Detroit: Gale, 1997): 132-138.
Carnell provides a bibliography of Kingsley’s own works, a brief bibliography of secondary material, an overview of his life and works with a focus on his fantasy work The Water-Babies.  His assessment: “Charles Kingsley can be considered a competent novelist, an engaging writer of sermons, and the author of a significant work of fantasy.  His lively engagement with the issues of his day will make his life and ideas of interest even as his writings are read with declining frequency” (138). 
Overview ; The Water-Babies .
 

Carpenter, Humphrey.  “Parson Lot Takes a Cold Bath: Charles Kingsley and The Water-Babies ,” in his Secret Gardens: A Study of the Golden Age of Children’s Literature (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985): 23-43.
In this chapter Carpenter provides an overview of Kingsley’s life and works.  He suggests that Kingsley’s overt heterosexuality may not have been so real as he indicates in his letters to his wife.  He praises The Water-Babies for its innovation and readability but considers that it is also greatly muddled by its multitudinous social and political commentaries.  Quite different from anything else in the history of children’s literature, declares Carpenter, “it was both brilliant and a failure, self-contradictory, muddled, inspiring, sentimental, powerfully argumentative, irrationally prejudiced, superbly readable” (24). 
Overview ; Children ; Sexuality ; The Water-Babies .
 

Cazamian, Louis.  The Social Novel in England 1830-1850: Dickens, Disraeli, Mrs. Gaskell, Kingsley Trans. Martin Fido (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973; first published in French in 1903).
Cazamian provides a lengthy examination of Kingsley's life and works, focusing on his Christian Socialist activities and, particularly, on how Christian Socialism is represented in his novels, Yeast and Alton Locke .  Cazamian considers Kingsley a "gifted writer" who employs these novels as a "propaganda vehicle" to describe the age's "most vital aims and ideals" (241). 
Overview ; Social and Political Views ; Christian Socialism ; Alton Locke ; Yeast ; Novels .
 

Chadwick, Owen.  "Charles Kingsley at Cambridge," The Historical Journal Vol. XVIII, No. 2 (1975): 303-325.
Chadwick examines Kingsley’s time at Cambridge both as an undergraduate and as the Regius Chair of Modern History.  In addition to considering the circumstances of his election as Professor and the reactions of University personnel and the wider community, Chadwick discusses such topics as his pedagogical abilities, the responses of the students, the content of his lectures, and his philosophy of history.  Chadwick also intersperses accounts of many of Kingsley’s views on, for example, Catholicism, Newman, science, evolution, sanitation, sexuality, muscular Christianity, together with brief treatments of some of his novels.  He concludes: “But unsophisticated, no; natural, only when he intended naturalness; innocent, not merely no but quite the opposite – who would have thought the good man to have so much blood in his fancy?  If you go along with Kingsley until you begin to know him, you wonder whether this unsubtle man was not one of the most complicated souls you ever met” (325). 
Overview ; Cambridge University ; History Professor ; History ; Social and Political Views .
 

Chapman, Edward Mortimer.  English Literature in Account with Religion 1800-1900 (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1910).
Chapman devotes several pages to a cursory outline of Kingsley’s life and works. 
Overview .
 

Chitty, Susan.  The Beast and the Monk: A Life of Charles Kingsley (New York: Mason/Charter, 1974).
For this excellent book-length biography of Kingsley Chitty had access to three hundred love letters from Kingsley to Fanny that had hithertoo not been viewed by anyone outside the family, as well as to a locked diary kept by Fanny in Nice during her year's separation from Kingsley in 1843.  The latter contained some revealing, sexually charged drawings.  Chitty declares that it is because of these new sources "that the present biography can claim to give a fuller and more intimate picture of Kingsley than any that has till now appeared" (17). 
Full Book Treatment ; Overview ; Sexuality ; Social and Political Views .
 

Chitty, Susan.  Charles Kingsley’s Landscape (Newton Abbot; North Pomfret, Vt.: David and Charles, 1976).
The first part of this work is essentially a biography of Kingsley with particular focus on the places he lived and visited, especially those in Devon. Most of the second part is an examination of the places, again mainly in Devon, mentioned in his works, particularly Westward Ho! , Two Years Ago , and The Water-Babies. 
Overview ; Devon ; Westward Ho! ; Two Years Ago ; The Water-Babies .
 

Coles, Nicholas.  "Charles Kingsley," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 32: Victorian Poets Before 1850. Edited by William E. Fredeman (Detroit: Gale, 1984): 182-190.
In this DLB chapter Coles provides an overview of Kingsley’s life interspersed with a review of his writings, particularly his poetry.  There is a bibliography of Kingsley’s own works together with a short secondary bibliography.  There are also several illustrations.  Coles writes that “Kingsley’s literary career was marked by oscillation among genres rather than by steady development: his dominant themes, however, remained constant.  He was only occasionally a poet and, after a bout of experimentation, worked most successfully in simple established forms.  His longest-lasting pieces were the lyrics which John Hullah set to music” (189). 
Overview ; Poetry ; Saint’s Tragedy, The .
 

Colloms, Brenda.  Charles Kingsley: The Lion of Eversley (London: Constable, 1975).
This is a book-length biography that examines the myriad sides to Kingsley's life.  Colloms concludes that if the abundantly gifted Kingsley had been more single-minded, more ambitious, and less sensitive, he might have attained a more prominent position in literary history or in the Church or in science. 
Overview ; Full Book Treatment .
 

Colloms, Brenda. “Charles Kingsley, Poet and Social Reformer,” RSV: Rivista di Studi Vittoriani Vol. 1, No. 2 (July 1996): 23-47.
In a lengthy article Colloms provides a sketch of Kingsley’s life, character, and works, concentrating on his poetry.  She praises in particular the “disturbing and powerful” poem “St. Maura” but declares that Kingsley will be remembered by the general public for his shorter poems (36).  She also lauds Kingsley for having added the topic of social problems to the scope of the popular novel. 
Overview ; Poetry ; Social and Political Views .
 

Conacher, W. M.  “Charles Kingsley,” Queen’s Quarterly Vol. 45 (1938): 503-511.
Conacher presents a sketch of Kingsley’s life and works.  He praises the characterization in Hereward the Wake; it surpasses that of Bulwer Lytton’s Harold and that of Scott’s Ivanhoe.  While he criticizes Kingsley’s anti-Catholic treatment in Westward Ho! as being mere bigotry and not based on proper historical facts, he admires the novel’s color and romance.  Though Hypatia has matter for a masterpiece, “haste, over-enthusiasm, and lack of artistry have spoiled it” (509). Alton Locke is modern in its sympathy for the working classes and its political views, while Yeast, though the work of a young author, is praised for its “generous feeling” (510).  Kingsley, according to Conacher, “railed at John Bull in life and in letters and was essentially in the end John Bull himself” (511). 
Overview ; Novels ; Religion ; Catholicism.
 

Courtney, Janet E.  “Charles Kingsley,” Fortnightly Review Vol. 105 (Jan-June 1919): 949-957.
In the centenary year of Kingsley’s birth Courtney offers a brief general outline of the author’s life and principal works.  She praises Kingsley’s historical novels for their readability though acknowledging the presence of many didactic passages.  She criticizes, however, the modern novels, i.e. Yeast, Two Years Ago, and Alton Locke for their old-fashionedness.  Their chief merit lies in their treatment of social questions rather in their literary skill.  On the other hand, Courtney lauds the children’s stories for their charm and ability to delight. Courtney also discusses the somewhat overlooked study of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, The Saint’s Tragedy (1848).  Though stressing the great interest and attention Kingsley paid to this early work, Courtney criticizes its pervasive didacticism.  “It is a sermon against monkishness and in praise of wedded love, more interesting to read, no doubt, than Kingsley’s sermons strictly so-called, but it does not differ from them essentially” (954). 
Overview ; Saint’s Tragedy, The ; Social and Political Novel .
 

Dawson, Carl. "Polemics: Charles Kingsley and Alton Locke," in his Victorian Noon: English Literature in 1850 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979): 179-202.
Dawson provides an overview of Kingsley’s character, his social and religious views, especially those on Roman Catholicism, and his involvement in and his diverse attitudes towards socialism.  He discusses Alton Locke , “perhaps one of the oddest literary documents of nineteenth-century England” (180), declaring that its recognition in modern times owes something to Kingsley’s treatment being relevant to contemporary Marxist assessments of literature.  “Kingsley articulates the sense of waste in his protagonist’s life; he equates Alton with the social upheavals of his age, setting him against middle-class virtues and assumptions; and he creates in Alton a psychic battle between social activism and pastoral escape”.  In  addition, “ Alton Locke could figure in the survey that Georg Lukács, makes of the middling hero in nineteenth-century historical fiction” (201). 
Overview ; Social and Political Views ; Religion ; Catholicism ; Alton Locke ; Yeast.
 

Dawson, W. J.  "Charles Kingsley," in The Makers of English Fiction. 2nd ed. (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1905): 179-190.
In this overview of Kingsley's life and works Dawson assigns Kingsley a high place in the secondary order of novelists, declaring that his failure to attain the highest rank is due to his versatility. While Dawson considers that none of his novels were as fine as The Cloister and the Hearth or Lorna Doone, he deems that Kingsley exerted a greater influence on his age than either Reade or Blackmoore, "an influence subtle and peculiar, based in part on personality, in part on the nature of his message" (179). 
Overview ; Novels .
 

Derbyshire, John. “Charles Kingsley: Divine Love, Divine Order.” The New Criterion 25, no. 1 (September 2006): 58-64. 
This is a short, outline article that gives a sketch of Kingsley’s life and works.
Overview.
 

Elton, Oliver. A Survey of English Literature 1830-1880. Vol. II. 309-316. London: Edward Arnold, 1920.
Elton presents a broad overview of Kingsley’s life and works. Yeast is not really a novel but “a kind of pamphlet-fantasy” in which the authorial commentary renders Kingsley himself the most distinct character (310). However, the work reveals promise of the future novelist. The true power of Alton Locke lies in its pictures rather than its ideas. Hypatia is praised for its drama and the passion and action of the story. Westward Ho!, more “a saga than a novel with a plot” (311), is lauded for its action, its enthusiasm, and its fine scene painting. Though Two Years Ago has excessive moralizing, “Kingsley is himself again whenever he gets back to landscape or to narrative” (312). Hereward the Wake suffers from a surfeit of the professor and a paucity of the artist. The Heroes receives high praise for its style, its descriptions, its appeal to children. Elton also lauds Kingsley’s “fervid picturesqueness” in a number of his shorter works, particularly his naturalist depictions in At Last. The Water-Babies though popular “is a good book badly spoilt” (314). Elton commends Kingsley’s poetic power, particularly his lyric and narrative poems. “He is one of the few poets of the time who make us wish cordially that he had written more” (315). 
Overview; Novels; Poetry.
 

Fichter, Joseph H., S. J.  “The Socialism of a Protestant: Charles Kingsley (1819-1875)” in his Roots of Change (New York: Appleton-Century, 1939): 134-156.
Fichter reviews Kingsley’s life and principal works focusing on his social and political thought.  He is balanced in his assessment, pointing out a number of Kingsley’s faults, prejudices, and illogicalities in addition to his good qualities.  With respect to Kingsley’s changing views and specifically to his title of Christian Socialist, Fichter declares that “he was no more thoroughgoing Socialist than he was thoroughgoing Christian” (135).  Fichter briefly reviews Kingsley’s condition of England novels declaring Alton Locke to be “a tremendously effective book” (151) and the autobiographical Yeast to be badly marred by Kingsley’s intense anti-Catholic bigotry.  Fichter concludes that “the work of Charles Kingsley was on the whole a genuine contribution to the improvement of man’s relation with man.  His mistakes were the mistakes of every demagogue to tread the earth, but the hand he had in rousing social interest in English problems more than made up for them” (156). 
Overview ; Christian Socialism ; Social and Political Views ; Catholicism ; Alton Locke ; Yeast .
 

Findlay, Isobel M.  "Charles Kingsley," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 190: British Reform Writers, 1832-1914. Edited by Gary Kelly and Edd Applegate (Detroit: Gale, 1998): 145-159.
Findlay provides a bibliography of Kingsley’s own works, a short list of further secondary readings, an account of his life and writings with particular emphasis on his social and political views as expressed in his reformist works.  “The personal success that Charles Kingsley enjoyed within the Church and other established social institutions throughout his life did not prevent him from making important contributions to the cause of reform in England.  Although he has been often dismissed as a mere popularizer of the thinking of others, especially of Maurice, Kingsley achieved much though his parochial duties and his activities involving political organization, print culture, and education.  If he did not resolve contradictions at the heart of reform or reconstruct hierarchic notions of the healthy and unified social body, the power and particularity of his writing and public oratory nevertheless generated significant social change” (157). 
Overview ; Social and Political Views ; Sanitation ; Racial Prejudices .
 

Friswell, Laura Hain. In the Sixties and Seventies: Impressions of Literary People and Others (Boston: Herbert B. Turner, 1906).
In this work of recollections Friswell briefly discusses her father’s and her own relationship with Kingsley. She writes affectionately of Kingsley and provides some interesting anecdotes.
Overview.
 

Gribble, Francis. The Romance of the Men of Devon. London: Mills and Boon, 1912.
In this survey of famous Devonians Gribble provides a short overview of Kingsley’s life, work, and writings. Though Kingsley only spent a short part of his life in Devon, he was always proud to have come from there. Referring in particular to Kingsley’s acceptance of the Regius Professorship of History at Cambridge, to his controversy with Newman, and to his Christian Socialist views, Gribble writes that he was “prejudiced and muddle-headed” though not as much as most other early and mid-Victorians (242). Still, Kingsley, according to Gribble, deserves praise as both a patriot and a poet.
Overview.
 

Griswold, Hattie Tyng.  Home Life of Great Authors.  7th ed. (Chicago: McClurg, 1902): 363-371.
Griswold presents a short account of Kingsley’s life and works with particular attention to his life in the parish of Eversley.  She provides little critical analysis. 
Overview ; Eversley .
 

Harris, Styron.  Charles Kingsley, A Reference Guide (Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1981).
This is a bibliography of writings about Kingsley for the period 1848 to 1978.  Harris also provides brief annotations.  In addition, Harris provides a short introduction covering Kingsley's life and works. 
Overview ; Bibliography of Secondary Works .
 

Hickin, Rev. Leonard.  “Charles Kingsley, 1819-1875,” The Expository Times Vol. LXXXVI, No. 5 (Feb. 1975): 146-150.
This is an appreciation of the life and works of Kingsley one hundred years after his death.  Hickin focuses on Kingsley’s Christianity, his religious views and his practical work as a minister.  He concludes that he “was a devoted pastor, a gifted preacher, and an outstanding Christian leader” (149). 
Overview ; Parson, Kingsley as ; Religion .
 

Huxley, Elspeth.  The Kingsleys: A Biographical Anthology (Allen & Unwin, 1973).
This is an anthology of selections from the works of Charles, Henry, and George Kingsley.  Huxley considers that Charles Kingsley, “the archetypal Victorian”, will be remembered more as a social reformer, a storyteller and an eccentric “than as a poet or serious novelist” (9). 
Overview .
 

Jewitt, Arthur Russell.  “Charles Kingsley: An Appreciation,” Dalhousie Review Vol. 4 (July 1924): 193-202.
Jewitt provides a short general overview of Kingsley’s life and works.  He stresses what posterity owes to Kingsley’s endeavors in such areas as sanitation and the franchise and to his influence in the enactment of factory acts, workmen’s compensation acts, better poor laws, and the right to form trade unions.  However, Jewitt offers little deep analysis and less negative criticism.  His treatment is gushing and ornate as in “Charles Kingsley enriched English literature by the originality and imagination of his genius, quickened and enlivened public opinion by his life of ideal behaviour and resonant golden deeds, leaving the world better than he found it, going to his reward recognized, revered, and loved, a ‘gallant knight-errant of God’” (202) 
Overview ; Social and Political Views .
 

Kendall, Guy.  Charles Kingsley and His Ideas (London: Hutchinson, 1947).
This book-length treatment of Kingsley in addition to providing a biographical account focuses in particular on his diverse views and ideas. 
Overview ; Full Book Treatment ; Social and Political Views .
 

Lord, Walter Frewen.  “The Kingsleys,” in his The Mirror of the Century (London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1906): 188-203.
Lord discusses the life and work of the two brothers Henry and Charles Kingsley, focusing on their novels.  “As regards the work of Charles Kingsley, we shall have to say that over-emphasis destroyed the artistic effect that he would fain have produced.  A not dissimilar lack of finish is perceptible in the work of Henry Kingsley, owing to his eagerness to produce.  A little more mental concentration in the case of both; a little more deliberation in the case of Charles, and a little more earnestness in the case of Henry, and the world of letters would have been enriched by two great artists.  As it is – proxime accesserunt” (202). 
Overview ; Novels ; Kingsley, Henry .
 

Lovett, Robert Morss and Helen Sard Hughes. The History of the Novel in England (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1932).
In this brief outline of Kingsley’s life and works, the authors stress the influence of Carlyle declaring that Kingsley was a popular expounder of the latter’s doctrine.
Overview ;   Carlyle.
 

Marmo, Macario.  The Social Novel of Charles Kingsley (Salerno: Di Giacomo, 1937).
In this book length study of Kingsley’s life, personality, views, and works Marmo focuses in particular on the art as well as the social implications of Kingsley’s social novels.  He concludes that Kingsley the man was more significant than his poetry and novels.  His very diverse deeds and objectives were greater than the art of his literary works.  Above all, Marmo contends, Kingsley was a vehement opponent of democracy as well as of rampant laissez-faire competition.  In summing up Marmo declares “But now that this selfish democratic system has reached its crisis and civilization is centering again round Rome, we must recognize in Kingsley an ideal Pioneer;  for Charles Kingsley denounced the foul competitive system at the time of its birth, and remained all his life the assertor of the Collectivist Ideal and the monitor of Co-operation as the one remedy for unbridled competition” (114). 
Overview ; Full Book Treatment ; Novels .
 

Martin, Robert Bernard.  The Dust of Combat: A Life of Charles Kingsley (London: Faber and Faber, 1959).
A full book biography of Kingsley with excellent critical analyses of his writings, practical works and his multifarious views and ideas.  Contains good illustrations. 
Full Book Treatment ; Overview ; Social and Political Views .
 

Melville, Lewis.  “The Centenary of Charles Kingsley,” Contemporary Review Vol. 115 (June 1919): 670-674.
Melville’s appreciation of Kingsley’s life and works contains little that he did not write in his 1906 Victorian Novelists.  However, he is more certain this time that Westward Ho! is Kingsley’s best work.  “The deeds of derring–do in the South Seas and on the Spanish Main, and the story of the defeat of the great Armada are admirably told, and are comparable with similar episodes in the best works of any other author.  There Kingsley is at his best, and his best is very good indeed” (674). 
Overview ; Poetry ; Characterization in Novels ; Westward Ho! .
 

Melville, Lewis.  "Charles Kingsley," in his Victorian Novelists (London: Archibald Constable, 1906): 106-124.
Melville reviews Kingsley’s life and works.  He praises some of  Kingsley’s shorter poems though considering that his poetry in general is not up to the standard of his romances.  Yeast is more a pamphlet than a novel and is spoiled by Kingsley’s dissertations on his own views.  Though the story of Alton Locke is slight, the novel’s characterization is superior to that of Yeast.  Melville praises Hypatia for its “brilliant and forcible picture of life”, for its fine characterization, and its good planning.  It is, however, “sometimes stagey, and often melodramatic, and not infrequently grandiloquent” (114, 118).  Westward Ho! is Kingsley’s most successful novel though it does not quite reach the level of Hypatia.  Melville singles out Kingsley’s command of language and his scene-painting.  “. . . it is this power of description that distinguishes him above his contemporaries, with the exception, perhaps of Disraeli; indeed, places him in this respect above all writers since Scott, and even Scott’s landscape does not always seem so spontaneous” (124). 
Overview ; Novels ; Poetry ; Characterization in Novels .
 

Morton, A. L. “Parson Lot,” in his The Matter of Britain: Essays in a Living Culture (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1966): 137-143.
Morton provides a brief account of Kingsley’s life and works, paying particular attention to his endeavors on behalf of the poor as Parson Lot, Christian Socialist.  He praises Kingsley’s genuine commitment to the plight of the down-trodden though he considers Kingsley was a combination of both Radical and Tory.  Believing in the worker and the aristocrat, it was the classes in between for whom Kingsley had a great antipathy.  Morton also lauds the depiction of the worker and of Chartism in Alton Locke .  Though Kingsley finally denounces Chartism, this is the first time that English fiction deals with it seriously and sympathetically.  Though Kingsley never really succeeded in standing apart from his Tory views and though his socialist work invariably failed, he was, according to Morton, “like Ruskin, one of those who helped to prepare the ground from which a genuine socialist movement was to spring a generation or so later” (143). 
Overview ; Christian Socialism ; Chartism .
 

Moulton, Charles Wells (ed.).  The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors Vol. VII (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1959 (c1904])
This is a collection of about 90 short extracts from mainly nineteenth century writings about diverse aspects of Kingsley’s life and work. It is particularly useful as an introduction to nineteenth century Kingsleyan studies.
Overview. 
 

Murray, Robert H. "Kingsley and Christian Socialism" in Studies in the English Social and Political Thinkers of the Nineteenth Century Vol. I (Cambridge, U.K.: Heffer, 1929): 432-455.
After a brief analysis of the age's social and political context, especially the Marxist background, Murray provides an overview of Kingsley's life and works focusing in particular on his activities in the Christian Socialist sphere. 
Overview ; Maurice ; Social and Political Views ; Christian Socialism .
 

Pope-Hennessy, Una.  Canon Charles Kingsley: A Biography (New York, Macmillan, 1949).
A book-length biography. 
Full Book Treatment ; Overview ; Social and Political Views .
 

Price, J. B.  “Charles Reade and Charles Kingsley,”Contemporary Review  Vol. 183 (Jan/June 1953): 161-166.
Price considers that with respect to literary merit Kingsley’s romances are better than his humanitarian novels.  Still, the latter “certainly exhibit his fine social sympathies, and both Yeast and Alton Locke are excellent sermons” (163).  Price praises the conception of Hypatia , declaring that “the life, realism, and pictorial brilliancy of the scenes give it a power rare in an historical novel”.  Westward Ho! “is more mature, and more carefully written” (164).  Price also lauds the dramatic element in Kingsley’s works. 
Overview ; Novels .
 

Rapple, Brendan A. "Charles Kingsley," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 163: British Children's Writers, 1800-1880.  Edited by Meena Khorana (Detroit: Gale 1996): 136-147.
Following the usual format of the DLB, a bibliography of Kingsley’s own works is followed by an account of his life interspersed with an analysis of his writings, in this case his works for children.  A short secondary bibliography is appended.  Several illustrations are also provided.  Rapple’s assessment: “Tastes change, and it is not surprising that modern children eschew works intended for their Victorian ancestors.  The Heroes has been supplanted by other retellings of the Greek tales; the science of Glaucus and Madam How and Lady Why no longer has appeal, and today's youth would reject the books’ pervasive social commentary, sermonizing, and didacticism.  Nor is Westward Ho! read much by present-day youngsters, though it is still available in a children's edition.  The significant exception has been the consistently high readership, especially in the United Kingdom, for The Water-Babies , of which there are probably more editions, adaptations, and abridgements in print today than in Kingsley's own time.  The work’s simplicity, brilliant fantasy, and affection for the young, despite its frequent preaching, still capture the devotion of children.  It is The Water-Babies , though its author would never have foretold it, that will ensure Kingsley a high rank in the history of children's literature” (146). 
Overview ; Children ; Glaucus ; Westward Ho! ; Heroes, The ; The Water-Babies ; Hereward the Wake ; Madam How and Lady Why .
 

Raven, Simon.  "Simon Raven on the Perverse Mr. Kingsley," The Spectator (Jan. 25, 1975): 92.
In this review of Susan Chitty's 1975 biography of Kingsley, The Beast and the Monk, Raven favorably contrasts it with Brenda Colloms's biography, Charles Kingsley: The Lion of Eversley. The latter work is "a standard work of piety, decently done on its own terms" which provides Kingsley's "official face". However, Chitty, who had the advantage of accessing three hundred previously unpublished letters by Kingsley to his wife Fanny as well as a locked diary by Fanny which she kept during the time of the couple's courting, succeeded, according to Raven, in looking under the surface and getting beyond the commonly known Kingsley. In short, she removed "the mask". 
Overview .
 

Roberts, R. Ellis.  “Charles Kingsley (1819-1875),” Bookman Vol. 56 (June 1919): 97-102.
Roberts provides an overview of Kingsley’s life and works.  He considers Westward Ho! to be Kingsley’s most satisfactory novel and The Water-Babies his “best book” praising in particular the latter’s story and songs.  Roberts also briefly mentions the Newman controversy, declaring that Kingsley’s inability to understand Newman was due to more than his distaste for the Roman Church.  Rather, Kingsley “had long ago closed his mind to the idea that truth was not the possession of the English nation as expressed by the English Church.  He had never pursued truth wherever it led as had Newman” (97). 
Overview ; Westward Ho!
 

Rowse, A. L. “Charles Kingsley at Eversley (I),” Contemporary Review  Vol. 221, No. 1282 (Nov. 1972): 234-238;  “Charles Kingsley at Eversley (2),” Contemporary Review  Vol. 221, No. 1283 (Dec. 1972): 322-326;  “Charles Kingsley at Eversley (3),” Contemporary Review  Vol. 221, No. 1284 (Jan. 1973): 7-12.
In these three short articles Rowse discusses a visit he paid to Eversley and provides a brief overview of Kingsley's life and works set against the background of Eversley. 
Overview ; Eversley .
 

Russell, George W. E. “Charles Kingsley.” 36-49 in Afterthoughts. London: Grant Richards, 1912.
In this short essay Russell provides a summary of Kingsley’s life and works. He states that his justification for writing about Kingsley was twofold: he knew him personally and Yeast, in which Kingsley “uttered his soul”, strongly influenced the formation of his own opinions.
Overview.
 

Sampson, George.  The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941).
Sampson provides a brief account of Kingsley’s life and principal works of literature.  Neither Yeast nor Alton Locke are very successful novels “and even as pamphlets they are vague, unvital and inconclusive” (780).  Hypatia is the best conceived and constructed novel. Westward Ho!, his most successful novel, “is an excellent tale of its kind” (781).  Though Two Years Ago has some vivid episodes, it fails to hold attention.  Hereward the Wake has vigor and freshness but has never been popular due to the story’s remoteness.  Both The Heroes and The Water-Babies “deserve their success” (781). 
Overview ; Novels.
 

Schilling, Bernard N.  “Kingsley,” in Human Dignity and the Great Victorians (New York: Columbia University Press, 1946): 96-122.
Schilling examines Kingsley's work as a humanitarian and his efforts to dignify the life of England's poor.  "Kingsley achieved a working synthesis between his religion and his radicalism; he made it seem as if he had to be a humanitarian reformer because of the implications which he saw in religion, not in spite of them" (96).  Schilling discusses Kingsley's work on behalf of sanitary reform and his campaign against the terrible conditions of the sweated tailoring trade, stressing Kingsley's belief that many societal problems had their underlying cause in laissez-faire capitalism. He also considers Kingsley's advocacy of popular medical instruction and of cooperative movements, his plans to make art, amusement, country life and education more available to the public, and his staunch promotion of public education.  Though Kingsley became increasingly conservative and came to embrace a form of feudalism as he aged, Schilling concludes that he "bore the mark of all great humanitarians - the union of compassion, humaneness, and optimism" (122). 
Overview ; Sanitation ; Social and Political Views ; Religion ; Education ; Christian Socialism .
 

Scott, Patrick.  "Charles Kingsley," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 21.  Victorian Novelists Before 1885. Edited by Ira B. Nadel and William E. Fredeman (Detroit: Gale, 1983): 195-207.
This follows the usual format of the DLB.  A bibliography of Kingsley’s own works is followed by an account of his life interspersed with an analysis of his major writings, in this case his novels.  A short secondary bibliography is appended.  Several illustrations are also provided.  Scott sums up Kingsley the novelist as follows: ‘If Kingsley never wrote a great work or an unflawed masterpiece, he can now, in light of the new biographical evidence, be recognized as a writer of considerable psychological complexity, one who produced searching and imaginative responses to some of the central issues of the late 1840s” (206). 
Overview ; Novels ; Alton Locke ; Yeast ; Westward Ho! ; Two Years Ago ; Hypatia ; Hereward the Wake .
 

Seaver, George.  C harles Kingsley: Poet (Folcroft Library Editions, 1973).
This is a short volume, about forty pages, examining Kingsley's poetry. Seaver declares that his poetic output cannot be considered great either for its output or for its quality.  Still, he praises much of his poetry and argues that "it has its own distinctive note: among the minor poets of our language he stands high" (3-4).  Seaver also lauds the poetic nature of Kingsley's prose; much is "prose-poetry".  In fact, his quality as a poet may be especially seen in his pen-pictures of nature and scenery in his Prose Idylls and in his novels.  However, Seaver concludes that the main interest will abide in Kingsley the man rather than Kingsley the poet. 
Overview ; Poetry ; Prose Rhythm ; Saint's Tragedy, The .
 

Somervell, D. C. English Thought in the Nineteenth Century (New York: David McKay, 1965; first published 1929).
This is a brief overview of Kingsley’s works and thought. Somervell concludes that Kingsley anticipated on the sentimental side the imperialist movement that dominated British politics at the end of the nineteenth century.
Overview .
 

Stoddard, Charles Warren. “Charles Kingsley and Westminster Abbey,” 149-160 in Exits and Entrances: A Book of Essays and Sketches. (Boston: Lothrop, 1903)
Stoddard discusses a visit he paid to Westminster Abbey to lunch with Kingsley, Canon of the Abbey. He comments on Kingsley’s life and writings as well as on the history and beauty of the Abbey.
Overview.
 

Thorp, Margaret Farrand.  Charles Kingsley 1819-1875 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1937).
A well-documented book-length biography and analysis of Kingsley's diverse ideas and views.  Contains a good bibliography of Kingsley's own writings. 
Full Book Treatment ; Overview ; Social and Political Views .
 

Tozer, Malcolm. "Charles Kingsley and the 'Muscular Christian' Ideal of Manliness," Physical Education Review Vol. 8, No. 1 (1985): 35-40.
Tozer sketches Kingsley’s life and works paying particular attention to his views on manliness and its relation to muscular Christianity.  He declares that Kingsley was the individual who was most responsible for acquainting the English with the Romantic, Christian and Chivalric ideal of manliness, the ideal that had such a strong influence on the subsequent development of games and outdoor pursuits in education. 
Overview ; Manliness ; Muscular Christianity ; Education .
 

Uffelman, Larry K. Charles Kingsley (Boston: Twayne, 1979).
In this book length study Uffelman focuses on Kingsley's literary achievement.  Chapter I provides an overview in which Kingsley's works are presented chronologically.  In subsequent chapters they are grouped thematically.  Uffelman declares that Kingsley, though a writer of some attractive lyrics and ballads, was a minor poet.  His main claim was as a novelist.  Though much of what he wrote was literature with a purpose, Uffelman considers "that the impact of that literature is due not so much to its purpose as to its presentation" (136). 
Overview ; Full Book Treatment ; Novels ; Poetry .
 

Uffelman, Larry K. “Kingsley, the Poet, and the Press,” Kansas Quarterly Vol. 7, No. 4 (1975): 79-84.
Uffelman discusses Kingsley’s relationship to the press.  In 1867 he edited for a short period Fraser’s Magazine; he helped found the Christian Socialist journals, Politics for the People and the Christian Socialist ; he published reviews and articles in North British Review, Good Words, Good Words for the Young, and Macmillan’s Magazine ; he first published in journals his prose idylls, many poems, and four of his novels.  However, his connections with periodicals were not always smooth.  He was frequently attacked by the press, especially during the 1840’s and 1850’s and his enemies used the reviews to assail him.  Kingsley’s bitterness toward the press is evident in such novels as Alton Locke and Two Years Ago where newspapers and journals and the people who write for them are treated with sarcasm and distrust. 
Overview ; Press, Relationship to .
 

Vance, Norman.  The Sinews of the Spirit: The Ideal of Christian Manliness in Victorian Literature and Religious Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
Vance devotes two chapters to Kingsley's life, thought, and literary works paying particular attention to themes of the relationship of manliness to religion in his novels.  "Christian manliness was not just an ideal in Kingsley's fiction, it was the basis of his practical work as pastor, teacher and reformer and the essence of his life and experience" (107). 
Overview ; Yeast ; Alton Locke ; Hypatia ; Westward Ho! ; Two Years Ago ; Hereward the Wake ; Muscular Christianity ; Manliness ; Newman Controversy .
 

Vulliamy, Colwyn E.  "Charles Kingsley and Christian Socialism," in Writers and Rebels: From the Fabian Biographical Series, ed. by Michael Katanka (London: Knight, 1976; Totowa, N. J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1976), 159-191 (first published as a Fabian Tract in 1914).
Vulliamy examines Kingsley’s views as a socialist as they developed and changed throughout his life, paying particular attention to his connection with Chartism, his work in sanitation, his socialist publications, and his activities in the Christian Socialist movement.  Vulliamy stresses that Kingsley the socialist was extremely constitutional and on no account revolutionary.  In addition, he accepted the system of social classes as divinely ordained and were not be changed.  The pervasive social ills were to be blamed on the individual not the class.  He concludes that “Kingsley’s power is to be found, not in the startling or original nature of his views, but in his manly and uncompromising advocacy of those views, and in the example of a most living and vigorous personality” (189). 
Overview ; Social and Political Views ; Chartism ; Christian Socialism .
 

Ward, A. W. and A. R. Waller (eds.). The Cambridge History of English Literature Vol. XIII, Part II  (New York, Putnam’s Sons, 1917): 392-410.
This is an overview of Kingsley's life and works with particular focus on his novels.  Kingsley's strong imagination and vivid descriptive style are singled out for especial praise. 
Overview ; Social and Political Views ; Novels.
 

Wedgwood, Julia.  Nineteenth Century Teachers and Other Essays (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1909).
This is a summary of Kingsley’s life and works.  There is little critical analysis. 
Overview .