Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/William Henry Giles Kingston

KINGSTON, William Henry Giles (1814–1880), boys’ novelist, was born in London, February 28, 1814. Much of his youth was spent at Oporto, where his father was a merchant, but when he joined his father in business, and afterwards when he carried on business for himself, he lived chiefly in London. In 1844 his first book, The Circassian Chief, appeared, and its success led to the publication in 1845 of The Prime Minister, a Story of the Days of the Great Marquis of Pombal. The Lusitanian Sketches that appeared soon after describe Kingston’s travels in Portugal. In 1851 Peter the Whaler, his first book for boys, came out. That and its immediate successors were received with such unequivocal popularity that Kingston retired from business, and devoted himself to the production of tales of adventure for boys. Within thirty years he wrote upwards of one hundred and thirty such books. He travelled at various times in many of the countries of Europe, and lived for a while in Portugal during the civil war there. His Western Wanderings, published in 1856, describes a tour in Canada. In all philanthropic schemes Kingston took deep interest; he was the promoter of the mission to seamen; and he acted as secretary of a society for promoting an improved system of emigration. He was a supporter of the volunteer movement in England from the first. For his services in bringing about a commercial treaty between Portugal and Britain he was knighted by the queen of Portugal; and his literary merits were recognized at home by a grant from his own sovereign. He died at Willesden, August 5, 1880.

Kingston’s boyish ambition had been to enter the navy, and he always kept his affection for the sea. As he advanced in life he had opportunities of cruising in men-of-war, besides sailing in merchantmen and his own yacht; and it was thus that he gained the knowledge of practical seamanship that he used so graphically in his books. Most of his stories are stories of the sea; and he generally laid his plots in the old romantic days before England’s wooden walls had given place to iron-clads. He was a master of the simple romance in which boys delight, and knew well how to draw the peculiar compound of valour and magnanimity that forms the hero to healthy boyhood. He had great assimilative power in using the accounts of travellers in countries where he had never been; and his imagination supplied him abundantly with gallant adventures, thrilling dangers, and hairsbreadth escapes. His books are useful in insinuating knowledge whilst they are giving pleasure, and they are valuable inasmuch as their whole tone is pure, wholesome, and manly. Characteristic specimens of his works are The Three Midshipmen; The Three Lieutenants; The Three Commanders; and The Three Admirals. Occasionally his books were not in the form of a story; and some of them are designed for adult readers.