Career
Before finally becoming a Unitarian and officiating as a minister of that denomination in Greenock, Scotland and chapel of Toxteth Park, in the edge of Liverpool, England. lieutenant was during his three years preaching in Liverpool that Giles gained a reputation as a preacher of marked oratorical power. In 1840, Giles moved to the United States, where he preached, lectured extensively, and wrote.
He was widely known as a lecturer, and his numerous volumes of literary interpretation and criticism were well-received, particularly his Human Life in Shakespeare.
Other works included Lectures and Essays (2 vols 1845), Christian Thoughts on Life (1850), and Illustrations of Genius in Some of its Applications to Society and Culture. One daughter, Nora, was drown off Bucksport in 1869, at the age of 18, in a sailing accident.
Giles was plagued by a variety of health issues. He had a hunchbacked, dwarfish stature which he claimed resulted from a nurse having let him fall as an infant, injuring his spine.
Throughout his life, he struggled with alcoholism.
Although he initially found strong drink distasteful, he became acclimated to liquor when it was prescribed to him to counter an illness. His public life came to an abrupt halt around 1865, when he suffered a sudden paralytic attack while lecturing in Boston. He lived for seventeen years thereafter, and died in Quincy, Massachusetts.
He was an avid reader and was proficient in both French and German.
