The Water Babies

The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby is a children's novel by the Reverend Charles Kingsley. Written in 1862-1863 as a serial for Macmillan's Magazine, it was first published in its entirety in 1863. The book was extremely popular during its day, and was a mainstay of children's literature through the 1920s, but eventually fell out of favor in part due to its prejudices against Irish, Jews, Catholics, blacks, Americans, and the poor. In the style of Victorian-era novels, The Water-Babies is a didactic moral fable about a young chimney sweep, Tom, who falls into a river and becomes a 'water-baby,' guided by moral teachers through lessons and adventures, eventually earning the right to become human again and being united with an upper-class girl Ellie who had also become a 'water-baby.'

First edition (London Macmillan and Company 1863) is usually without the L'Envoi leaf as is almost always encountered as the author had it removed from all but the first 200 or so copies. Illustrations in this edition include two full page plates by J. Noel Paton and with a number of small illustrations used throughout as opening initials.

Hodder and Stoughton's edition of 1916 with twelve gorgeous color plates and green and white text illustrations by Jessie Wilcox Smith is considered one of the best editions. Other notable illustrators are: Linley Sambourne who provided 100 illustrations to the edition of 1885, Warwick Goble who produced thirty-two tipped-in color plates for the 1909 edition, and W. Heath Robinson rendered eight color plates and miscellaneous black and white text illustrations to Constable & Company's edition in 1915.