Caroline Cawthorn
Oxford University
Thanks to the generosity of the Friends of Princeton Library, I was able to spend three weeks pursuing my doctoral research at the Firestone Library. My research focused on the library's holdings, largely in the Parrish Collection, relating to the life and works of the nineteenth century writer and cleric Charles Kingsley. My interest in Kingsley came about as a result of my current research into the depiction of militarism and war in the nineteenth century novel: I am particularly interested in the role literature played in promoting the substantial shift in public opinion towards the rank-and-file soldier or sailor during the Victorian era, from being regarded as the 'scum of the earth' in the early years of the century to the idealisation of the 'Christian Soldier' in the mid nineteenth century.
Whilst Kingsley is a writer largely forgotten today, he enjoyed great popularity in his day - a category of artists who seem to have held particular interest for Parrish. Kingsley is a particularly significant writer for my project because he was one of the few Victorian religious novelists who wrote specifically about contemporary war. Kingsley wrote two novels - Westward Ho! (1855) and Two Years Ago (1858) in response to the Crimean War of 1854-1856, and it was this somewhat unusual interest in the war which I wished to research at Princeton.
Despite Kingsley's popularity as a writer and theologian in his own time, his work has received comparatively little critical attention, and there is no complete edition of Kingsley's letters in print. Anyone interested in Kingsley's correspondence has had to depend on the biography published by his widow, Fanny Kingsley in 1877, which is necessarily limited, both for reasons of space, a desire to protect the privacy of living correspondents and in order to preserve a positive image of the man himself. It has been particularly interesting to compare the letters published by Fanny with the letters themselves, and to read Fanny's correspondence (also in the Parrish Collection) discussing what sections of letters should be left out of the biography.
The research was extremely useful in confirming my suspicion that Kingsley was very much concerned with the Crimean War during the period 1854 - 1856, and was much more ambivalent about the event than Fanny's biography would seem to suggest. The folder in the Parrish Collection containing Kingsley's letters to the Stapleton family has been particularly valuable in providing an insight into the writer's political and religious views at this time. Letters addressed to Kingsley from largely anonymous members of his readership have also been helpful in gauging the public reception of Kingsley's works.
The chance to examine letters in the substantial Kingsley holdings in the Parrish Collection and Princeton Library has not only provided me with vital information for my doctoral thesis, but has enhanced my understanding of this complex man. His letters in particular have proved essential in getting past the idealised image of Kingsley presented in his wife's biography, and have been more rich in references to the Crimean War and the military in general than I could realistically have hoped. I would like to thank all the staff in Special Collections, particularly Meg Rich and AnnaLee Pauls, for all their help, and the Friends of the Princeton Library for providing me with this opportunity.
libraryf@princeton.edu
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