Hereward the Wake [Christmas Summary Classics]

Hereward the Wake
With, the appearance of "Hereward the Wake," sometimes called "Hereward, the Last of the English," Kingsley brought to a close a remarkable series of works of fiction. Although the story was not published until 1866, the germ of it came to Kingsley, according to Mrs. Kingsley's "Memoirs" of her husband, during the summer of 1848, while on a visit to Crowland Abbey, near Peterborough, with the Rev. F.D. Maurice. As its title implies, the romance is suggested by the life and adventures of Hereward, a Saxon yeoman who flourished about 1070. The story itself perhaps does not move along with the same spirit and vigour that characterise Kingsley's earlier works; it shows, nevertheless, that he had lost none of his cunningness for dramatic situations, nor his vivid powers of visualising scenes and events of the past.