The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. With two Illustrations by J.Noel Paton. London: Miacmillan, 1864. Second Edition. Pp, 378. Publisher’s smooth green buckram, title lettered in gilt with pictorial gilt center device to centre of upper cover. Borads lightly worn, joints weak.

A fairy tale about the underwater adventures of Tom, a chimney-sweep’s climbing-boy. The “land-baby” of the sub-title was based on Kingsley’s youngest son, five-year-old Grenville Arthur. Charles Kingsley was a rural vicar in Victorian England and this work espouses his love of nature & his strong sense of indignation at the Victorian practice of using small children as laborers.