The Heroes [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION Charles Kingsley, one of the busiest of men, illustrates the truth of the saying that it is only the busy people who can always find time. He wrote this book» as his wife tells us, while he was rector of Eversley, in the intervals of his parish work and his lectures to working men in various parts of the country. It was a Christmas gift in 1855 to his three children. Rose, Maurice, and Mary. Kingsley was not the first great writer to retell the old classic stories specially for children. Nearly fifty years before, Charles Lamb, in the Adventures of Ulysses, wrote very beautifully the story of the Greek hero and his ten years' wanderings after the siege" of Troy. Nathaniel Hawthorne, too, four years before Kingsley wrote, put into modern dress some of the wonderful tales of the ancient world. Kingsley's work differs from the work of his predecessors. Lamb told the story of only one hero; Hawthorne's stories are not about heroes alone; Kingsley did not deal with Ulysses at all: he probably felt that vii