The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby
Author:
Charles Kingsley
Illustrator:
J. Noel Paton
Two illustrations by J. Noel Paton, R.S.A.
Publication:
1863 by Macmillan & Co. LTD (London)
Genre:
Classic Literature, Fairy Tales, Fiction, Folk Tales, Satire
Pages:
350
Current state:
Basic information has been added for this book.
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Book Guide
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This 'fairy tale for a land-baby' was written nearly a hundred years ago, but its freshness has endured and will endure, to all seeming, for another hundred years or more. It is with the freshness of morning that it begins, as the little sweep's boy Tom tramps up out of the grim West Riding mill-town before the rest of the world is awake to do a job of work in the chimneys of Harthover Hall in Vendale, the real-life original of which was somewhere between Malham Cove and Gordale Scar. '...at the wall's foot grew long grass and gay flowers, all drenched with dew; and instead of the groaning of the pit-engine, they heard the skylark saying his matins high up in the air, and the pit-bird warbling in the hedges, as he had warbled all night long.' And so tom walks out of the world of mills and pits into the bright clear world of high fells, and further into the wonderful world of nature, where there is unfolded for him a pageant and a parable that has never yet been excelled in a hundred years of children's books.
From the dust jacket of the 1957 J.M. Dent and E.P. Dutton Children's Illustrated Classic edition
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Charles Kingsley
1819 - 1875British
Charles Kingsley, novelist and historian, was born on 12th June 1819 at Holne, on the edge of Dartmoor. His childhood was divided between Barnack in... See more
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Resource Guide
Podcast
Episode 70: Why Read Fairy Tales?
Released in 2020 by The Literary Life
Available formats: Streaming Audio
Length: 1 hr. 29 min.
View on the The Literary Life site
"Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins tackle the topic of fairy stories, discussing the what, why and how of reading them. Angelina shares the distinctive characteristics of fairy stories in contrast to other types of stories, such as myths. They deal with the question of whether fairy tales are 'escapist', the influence of the Grimm brothers scholarly work on interpreting fairy stories, and allowing the story to unveil its deeper truths without forcing meaning onto it.
Angelina gives an illustration of how to see the gospel messages in fairy tales by talking us through the story of Sleeping Beauty. She refutes the ideas that fairy tales are about human romance or are misogynistic. She also highlights some of the Enlightenment and Puritan responses to fairy tales that still linger with us today. Cindy and Angelina also discuss some common concerns such as the magical, weird, or scary aspects of fairy tales. Angelina also makes a distinction between folk tales, literary fairy tales, and cautionary tales."
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