At the South Pole, or, The adventures of Richard Pengelley, Mariner

At the South Pole was first published in 1870 before any explorers had spent more than a few moments on an offshore island, claiming possession of the land. However no subject or country was beyond Kingston's scope although Muir in her Australian children's books a bibliography (p. 215, entry 3942) quotes Kingston as stating that he had 'met no other descriptive work' on Antarctica.

Kingston was widely travelled in Europe and America and drew on these experiences for his writing. He also had a family background in the Royal Navy and commercial shipping and was able to use this. Kingston's familiarity with shipboard conditions and with the sea enabled him to write convincingly on these. Having admitted that he had no reference works as his source material was no stop to his fertile imagination.

At the South Pole is the story of some of the sailors and several passengers from the ship Black Eagle who escaped to an ice floe following the loss of the ship in the ice and eventually reached shore. Walrus, large bears and wolves inhabit the waters and shores of the continent: the animals much larger than their northern hemisphere inspiration. Tufts of coarse grass and burnet and a moss-like plant are found growing. An old shipwreck is discovered which provides them with the timber to build a house; and ultimately with their escape.

Kingston writes an exciting adventure story, laced with detail and with action. And if this story is populated with creatures from the northern polar regions, few at the time of his writing would have challenged him.

Quayle (p. 81) writes 'Ballantyne, Kingston and Mayne Reid, were the triumvirate who dominated the field of teenage juvenile fiction in Britain during ... the 1850's to 1870's.' These three writers wrote dozens of adventure stories between them, mostly for boys but some also intended for girls.

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