A Victorian tale in which Tom, a sooty little chimney sweep with a great longing to be clean, is stolen by fairies and turned into a water-baby.

This edition of Charles Kingsley's 'The Water-Babies', illustrated by A. E. Jackson was originally published in 1920. The story was extremely popular in England and was a mainstay of British children's literature for many decades.

An abridged version of a Victorian tale in which Tom, a sooty little chimney sweep with a great longing to be clean, is stolen by fairies and turned into a water-baby.

The adventures of Tom, a sooty little chimney sweep with a great longing to be clean, who is stolen by fairies and turned into a water baby.

The adventures of Tom, a sooty little chimney sweep with a great longing to be clean, who is stolen by fairies and turned into a water baby ; and, The adventures of the three Darling children in Never-Never Land with Peter Pan, the boy who would not grow up.

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Instantly popular upon its initial publication in 1863, The Water Babies is at once a bewitching childhood fantasy and a skillfully woven moral allegory. Tom, a young chimney sweep, escapes his horrendous job and his cruel boss, Grimes, when fairies plunge him into a fantastical world under the sea. As he meets and befriends his fellow water babies, as well as all sorts of sea creatures, he begins to learn some valuable lessons. Much in demand by scholars, this authoritative new edition featuring the Victorian illustrations from early editions will charm children and adults alike.

The Water Babies: Illustrated By Charles Kingsley. On the surface, Charles Kingsley's 'The Water Babies' appears to be a traditional fairy tale complete with fairies, sea-beasts and talking animals. The villains are the neglectful masters, violent schoolteachers and ignorant parents, who create a darkening world of terror from which, the hero Tom must escape by turning into a water baby. However, upon entering a new world of underwater mystery, Tom must re-visit aspects of the human world in new magical forms, in order to correct his own weaknesses and become truly 'clean'. Kingsley's novel is a heavily symbolic and didactic text that conveys horror to the Victorian evils represented through surprising methods of fairytale fiction.