Alexander William Kinglake (5 August 1809 – 2 January 1891) was an English orientalist travel writer and historian. Alexander William Kinglake Vanity Fair 2 March 1872

Alexander William Kinglake Vanity Fair 2 March 1872

He was born near

Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England. It is a market town and has a Minster (church), minster church. Its population in 2011 was 64,621. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century priory, monastic foundation, owned by the ...

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

, and educated at

Eton College Eton College ( ) is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing boarding school, boarding education for boys aged 13–18, in the small town of Eton, Berkshire, Eton, in Berkshire, in the United Kingdom. It has educated Prime Mini ...

and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

. He was called to the bar in 1837, and built up a thriving legal practice, which, in 1856, he abandoned to devote himself to literature and public life. His first literary venture was ''Eothen; or Traces of travel brought home from the East'' (London: J. Ollivier, 1844), a very popular work of Eastern travel, apparently first published anonymously, in which he described a journey he made about ten years earlier in Syria, Palestine and Egypt, together with his Eton contemporary Lord Pollington.

Elliot Warburton Bartholomew Eliot George Warburton (1810–1852), usually known as Eliot Warburton, was an Irish traveller and novelist, born near Tullamore, Ireland. Biography His father was Major George Warburton, Inspector General of the Royal Irish Cons ...

said it evoked "the East itself in vital actual reality" and it was instantly successful. However, his ''

magnum opus A masterpiece, , or ; ; ) is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, skill, profundity, or workmanship. Historically, ...

'' was ''The Invasion of Crimea: Its Origin, and an Account of its Progress down to the Death of Lord Raglan'', in 8 volumes, published from 1863 to 1887 by Blackwood, Edinburgh, one of the most effective works of its class. The History, which Geoffrey Bocca describes as a book "by which no intelligent man can fail immediately to be fascinated, no matter to what page he might open it" has been accused of being too favourable to Lord Raglan and unduly hostile to

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last ...

for whom the author had an extreme aversion. The town of Kinglake in Victoria, Australia, and the adjacent national park are named after him. A Whig, Kinglake was elected at the 1857 general election as one of the two Members of Parliament (MP) for

Bridgwater Bridgwater is a historic market town and civil parish in Somerset, England. The town had a population of 41,276 at the 2021 census. Bridgwater is at the edge of the Somerset Levels, in level and well-wooded country. The town lies along both sid ...

, having unsuccessfully contested the seat in

1852 Events January–March * January 14 – President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte proclaims a new constitution for the French Second Republic. * January 15 – Nine men representing various Jewish charitable organizations come to ...

. He was returned at the next two general elections, but the result of the 1868 general election in Bridgwater was voided on petition on 26 February 1869. No by-election was held, and after a

Royal Commission A royal commission is a major ad-hoc formal public inquiry into a defined issue in some monarchies. They have been held in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Malaysia, Mauritius and Saudi Arabia. In republics an equi ...

found that there had been extensive corruption, the town was disenfranchised in 1870. In the late 1880s he developed cancer of the throat, and he died on 2 January 1891.

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References

* * *Drabble, M. (ed.) (1983) ''The Oxford Companion to English Literature''. Oxford: U. P.; p. 534

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