Clearly, the mice have been at this one so it's far from perfect. A minty cabinet card of Dr. Kingsley should set a collector back about 50 dollars...maybe 35 if you find a bargain. This one is under 10.

 

Dr. Kingsley was one of the most influential and pivotal clergymen, thinkers, and authors of 19th century Britain. His friends and compatriots included two of the English church's greatest theologians and writers: Dr. Frederick Denison Maurice and Bishop John Henry Newman, who eventually left the Church of England for Rome and became Cardinal Newman. Kingsley carried on a vigorous public debate with Cardinal Newman over Protestantism vs. Roman Catholicisim. I could be in error on this point but I seem to remember reading that, despite their loud, public and often cantankerous dispute...the two admired one another and remained friends.

Kingsley is best known for his works of fiction which were enormously popular in both Britain and the U.S. during the middle of the 19th century.

 

A few of his most famous works are still read today, including the prescient and powerful, The Water Babies. Despite expressing some atrocious opinions of mid-19th century Englishmen about Jews, the Irish and Americans, the book still delivers a powerful indictment against child labor and opposition to scientific Darwinsm. Thus, Kingsley helped frame in the minds of many the simultaneous evil of social Darwinism juxtaposed against the increasingly accepted scientific application of it.

Kingsley, influenced heavily by George MacDonald and the aforementioned Maurice, was somewhat influential on later writers of both fiction and tracts touching on social concern. In no small way, Kingsley helped bring science and health education into British schools.

 

This cabinet card is in the condition you see. But for the price, it's a pretty good buy. And if you collect the great thinkers, inventors and authors of the 19th century, Kingsley is a must.