John, the editor of the Pictorial Bible, and other works connected with Biblical literature, was born at Plymouth, December 4, 1804. His father was a mason, the son of a Cornish miner. In early life he bore a good character, but fell into habits of intemperance, which soon reduced his family to penury. John was his eldest child. He was a puny infant; his muscular frame was feeble, and unfitting him for the active games of boyhood. An aged grandmother, whose memory was charged with all the nursery lore of her times, was his first instructor, and found in him an apt and eager scholar. The only schooling he received was of the most ordinary kind, and for a short period; and this was rendered less efficient by a change of masters, and frequent headaches. Books, however, were a necessity of his life, and the pangs of hunger were more endurable than a scanty supply of mental food. When not twelve years old he began to write tales, and framed the plot of a tragedy, which he enacted with some of his companions. In his thirteenth year an event occurred which, though not fatal to his life, seemed to blast all his prospects of literary eminence or improvement. He had been accustomed to help his father as a jobbing mason, and on February 17, 1817, when engaged in repairing the roof of a house, he lost his footing, and fell from a height of 35 feet upon a stone pavement. His limbs were not broken, but a permanent injury was done to the skull, and the sense of hearing was totally destroyed. After eight months his general health was restored, but with "knowledge at one entrance quite shut out," a melancholy drawback, as it seemed, from the value of all the rest. Unable any longer to assist his father, he was allowed to occupy his time in whatever way he felt inclined. One of the expedients he adopted to raise a little fund for the purchase of books was that of wading at low water in Plymouth harbour in quest of yarn and old iron, by which he earned about threepence per week. When disabled by an accident from this gainful employment, he tried his hand at some rude drawings, more gaudy than truthful, which he disposed of to the children in the neighbourhood. He also prepared coloured labels in capital letters for the use of small shopkeepers or persons who let lodgings. Thus two or three years passed till he had nearly completed his fifteenth year. No resource seemed left for him but the workhouse, into which he was admitted November 15, 1819. The officers of the place, who were intelligent, worthy men, encouraged Kitto's taste for literature, and relaxed the rules of the workhouse in his favour. A journal which he began to keep about this time is a most interesting document, marking "the growth of an individual mind," and revealing the elements of the strong character that was in due time to be developed. After having learnt the art of making list shoes, a shoemaker in Plymouth offered to take him as an apprentice; but he proved to be an overbearing and inhuman tyrant on the small scale. Poor Kitto was goaded by his insults almost to madness and suicide. An appeal was made to the magistrates; his indentures were cancelled, and he obtained an order for readmission into the workhouse. A gleam of light now fell on his prospects. He attracted the notice of several literary and benevolent persons by some short essays, which were inserted in a local journal. A small fund was raised for his temporary support, and he was placed with Mr Burnard, the clerk of the guardians, to board and lodge, with the privilege of spending the day at the public library, where he prepared a small volume of miscellanies, which was published by subscription. Shortly after, Mr Groves, a dentist at Exeter, but who formerly resided in Plymouth, became acquainted with his history and circumstances; this gentleman offered to take him as gratuitous pupil, and to allow him a sum for his personal expenses. In a short time he became so far a proficient in dentistry, that, when his patron was preparing to go abroad on a Christian mission to Persia, Kitto thought of entering on the practice of that art in his native place, or engaging himself as an assistant to a London practitioner. But by this time his religious convictions had been greatly deepened, and he cherished a wish to be employed in connection with missionary undertakings. A vacancy occurring in the printing-office of the Church Missionary Society, Kitto was chosen to fill it. Here he remained, a short interval excepted, for nearly two years, when he went to the Society's establishment at Malta. After being in that island little more than six months, the hopes he had cherished of a domestic union were suddenly crushed, and brought on a severe illness—and this, in addition to some points of disagreement between himself and the Society, led to his return to England in the beginning of 1829, when he accepted the office of tutor to Mr Groves's two sons. He accompanied Mr Groves to Bagdad, the proposed seat of his mission, by an overland route, passing through St Petersburg, Moscow, and Astrakan. They reached their destination in December 1829. During his residence, within the short space of three years, he witnessed a siege, an inundation, the plague, and famine. At Bagdad, however, and in the travels that preceded and followed his sojourn there, he laid the foundation of his future literary eminence, and acquired, by personal observation, that knowledge of oriental life which fitted him for the great work of illustrating the Sacred Scriptures.

After the ravages of the plague, the missionary establishment was broken up. In September 1832 Kitto returned home by way of Teheran, Tahrezz, Trebizond, and Constantinople. From the last named place he sailed for England, and reached Stangate Creek exactly four years after embarking at Gravesend for St Petersburg. When in sight of his native shores, he exclaimed, "Give me a little house—a little wife—a little child—and a little money in England, and I will seek no more, and wander no more!" On arriving in London he was introduced to some members of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and was thus brought into connection with Mr Charles Knight. By this liberal-minded publisher he was engaged to assist in the various serial publications of the Society, and at last to prepare works of which he was the sole author. Of the latter class the most important were the Pictorial History of Palestine and the Pictorial Bible; and the last-named work is that on which his reputation is chiefly founded. Henceforward, Kitto's life was one of incessant labour. His working day was generally sixteen hours long; and though his deafness excluded him from much social enjoyment, it was not without its advantages, in producing a concentrated and unbroken attention to his literary pursuits. The Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature, in which he obtained the co-operation of forty scholars, British, American, and German, has superseded every previous work of the kind, and placed biblical literature on a level with the advanced scholarship of the present day.

His Daily Bible Illustrations, in eight small Svo volumes, is a worthy companion of the Pictorial Bible and the Cyclopaedia. But with this his life's work was done. On the morning after he had finished it he was seized with a slight paralytic stroke, and from that time was incapacitated for literary labour. Absolute rest alone afforded the slightest chance of recovering health, or even prolonging life. But his incessant toil had proved barely adequate to meet the daily wants of a large family, even with the addition of L100 per annum, granted in December 1850, from the Royal Civil List. By the exertion of some of his friends, a fund was raised to enable him to go abroad, and to make some provision for his family in the event of his decease. In the autumn of 1854 he and his family removed to Canstatt, in Württemberg. Within a few weeks after their arrival his youngest child sickened and died, and was Kittingen soon followed by his eldest daughter, a young person of great promise. He bore these bereavements with exemplary resignation, but regarded them as premonitory of his own approaching decease. On the 25th of November he was seized with a fit, which speedily proved fatal. His remains were interred in the churchyard at Canstatt, near those of his children. Besides the works already mentioned, Dr Kitto wrote Uncle Oliver's Travels, 1838; History of Palestine, 1843; Thoughts among Flowers, 1843; The Pictorial Sunday Book, 1845; The Lost Senses, Deafness and Blindness, 1845; Pictorial Life of our Saviour; and several smaller works. The Journal of Sacred Literature was founded by him in 1848. (Ryland's Memoirs of Kitto, Edin. 1856, and Eclectic Review, May 1856.)