At Last: A Christmas in the West Indies

by Charles Kingsley

Work by Charles Kingsley, a prolific English novelist and author whose main power lay in his descriptive faculties.

Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Charles Kingsley was an English clergyman, university professor, historian, and novelist, particularly associated with the West Country and north-east Hampshire.

He was educated at Helston Grammar School before studying at King's College London, and the University of Cambridge. Charles entered Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1838, and graduated in 1842. He chose to pursue a ministry in the church. From 1844, he was rector of Eversley in Hampshire, and in 1860, he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge.

His writing shows an impulse to reconfigure social realities into dream geographies through Christian idealism.

Reviews

[Nadra Nathai-Gyan · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book can be quite tedious to get through, for the natural history person, it presents an excellent portrait of the land in the late 1800s. One can visualise what Aripo savannas looked like then, the pristine nature of the Nariva swamp, and mentions of other locales in Trinidad and the West Indies. I found it useful to measure man's interventions and impacts on the natural landscape.

[Dan Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Obscure Victorian travel narrative set in the West Indies, mainly the island of Trinidad, by the eminent Charles Kingsley. A bit repetitive and long winded at times and full of standard 19th century racism. Still, it's an illuminating depiction of how the British viewed the people and lands of the Indies and some of the descriptions are quite vivid and entertaining.