In 1902, Charles Kingsley's second daughter, Mary St. Leger Kingsley Harrison (1852–1931), became a convert to Roman Catholicism. Mrs. Harrison was already a public figure, well-known for the essays and fiction she wrote under the pen name of “Lucas Malet”; according to one contemporary critic, “the library public clamoured” for the half-dozen novels she published in the 1880s and 1890s (Courtney, “A Novelist of the 'Nineties,” 231). In interviews granted to newspapers and magazines, Mrs. Harrison simultaneously asserted her personal affection for her father and her deviation from his values and philosophy. Certainly her conversion came as no surprise to her friends, for “Lucas” – as she insisted they call her – had long been a rebel against “muscular Christianity.” As I will demonstrate, this rebellion is encoded in her most famous novel, The History of Sir Richard Calmady (1901).

Charles Kingsley was known, of course, for his belief in the sanctity of heterosexual married love; for his emphasis on “manly” strength and chivalry, particularly when exercised on behalf of women; and for his uncompromising hostility to the Church of Rome. In her youth, Mary Kingsley was a dutiful daughter.