Water-Babies

Complete and unabridged, with 47 full-page plates by J. M. W. Turner, William Powell Frith and Marianne North. A chimney-sweep drowns in a Yorkshire stream and becomes a water-baby, and is educated under the sea by Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby and her sister. Kingsley wrote it in 1863, partly as a fairy tale for his youngest son and partly as a pamphlet against child labour; the Chimney Sweepers Act followed a year later. The satire on scientific men and on schoolmasters is aimed at people he named. Forty-seven marine and river paintings by Luke Fildes and Alfred Sisley, from Venice shipping to Moret-sur-Loing, keep Kingsley's underwater journey in view.