Charles Kingsley is remembered today for a variety of reasons: author of an acknowledged but little read classic for children; founder of English Christian Socialism and advocate of ‘muscular Christianity’ (a term he disliked); ludicrously unqualified professor of history at Cambridge; and stage villain who provoked John Henry Newman's Apologia pro vita sua. It is hardly surprising that he has not lacked for scholarly attention. Consequently, there might seem to be little call for J. M. I. Klaver's massive new biography, especially considering its shocking price. Although Klaver's occasionally leaden prose and determinedly chronological approach make for tough going (after Kingsley's early years, each chapter represents a year or at best two in his life), a full read of this exceptionally well-researched book is worth the effort. Klaver convincingly argues that the tag ‘apostle of the flesh’ – hung on Kingsley in 1858 by the Saturday Review – was an accurate one, essentially the key to his character. Kingsley was a man of prodigious sexual and physical energy, which he channelled into his passionate marriage and frenetic life, and elevated to a philosophical – and at times almost pathological – level. (For the latter tendency see pp. 74–8, 276.) Kingsley's adulation of sexual love in marriage (and consequent hatred of its opposite, celibacy) largely arose, Klaver argues, from the difficulties he encountered in convincing his future wife, and her Tractarian family, that she should abjure celibacy and marry him, and on his sense that the marriage saved him from a life of sin. Klaver points to continuing echoes of this early experience in Kingsley's fiction and poetry, and identifies a convincing link between Kingsley's elevation of the body (both sexually and otherwise) and both ‘muscular Christianity’ and his interest in the physical conditions of the poor, which led him at first to Christian Socialism and eventually to sanitary reform. The book is full of fresh insights. No scholar of Newman, for example, should ignore Klaver's account of the conflict between the two men. Crucially, Klaver enlarges his focus beyond the events of 1864, and situates Kingsley's reaction to Newman in the light of the former's intense feelings about celibacy. Klaver also points out that Newman's Callista: a tale of the third century (1856) was in many ways a reply to Kingsley's novel Hypatia: or, new foes with an old face (1853), and that Kingsley's earlier Yeast: a problem (1848, 1851 in book form) was in part a response to Newman's Loss and gain (1848). Although he does not challenge the accepted view that Newman got the better of the exchanges, Klaver provides a more nuanced account of Kinglsey's behaviour and intent than any previous scholar. His contention that Kingsley's 1868 biography of St Anthony (The hermits) was a considered, if oblique, reply to the Apologia is surprising and convincing. Klaver painstakingly describes every aspect of Kingsley's life and work, from his involvement with Christian Socialism, his concern for the poor, to his relationships with men like F. D. Maurice. He also notes Kingsley's theological tolerance (except for celibacy) and essential compassion, often towards surprising people: his brother-in-law J. A. Froude in the wake of the publication of The nemesis of faith (1849), and T. H. Huxley after his daughter's death. (Klaver's stress on Kingsley's scientific friendships, interests and embrace of Darwinian evolution is one of the book's great strengths.) Klaver also exposes Kingsley's less appealing characteristics: his occasional priggishness, and his bloodthirsty views on rebellious natives in Sarawak (see p. 245), India and Jamaica. Based on a thorough knowledge of the entirety of Kingsley's published works and extensive archival research, The apostle of the flesh will remain the standard biography for many years.