A. W. Kinglake: A Biographical and Literary StudyTuckwell, William
General
A. W. Kinglake: A Biographical and Literary Study
Tuckwell, William
Kinglake, Alexander William, 1809-1891
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.
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