Westward Ho!

(Host: Lucy) A bestselling novel you’ve probably never heard of created pop culture waves and sparked a mid-Victorian tourist industry. Westward Ho! is full of daring adventures, exciting sea battles, lush landscapes, and romance, but – unlike the novels of Stevenson and Dickens – is mostly forgotten today. Its author, Charles Kingsley, was an Anglican clergyman, amateur historian, and zealous social reformer. Westward Ho! illustrates his passionate engagement with the issues of his time, from evolution and empire to religious practice. This episode explores these Victorian debates as well as the novel’s mythos of Elizabeth seafarers and the Devon coastline. For further reading suggestions and more, please visit: https://www.footnotinghistory.com