A mistreated chimney-sweep drowns and is reborn as a water-baby, undergoing a moral education among river and sea creatures. Kingsley's didactic Victorian fairy tale.
Books mentioned in The Water-Babies (7)
Peter Simple by Frederick Marryat: “In the first picture they saw these Doasyoulikes living in the land of Readymade, at the foot of the Happy-go-lucky Mountains, where flapdoodle grows wild; and if you want to know what that is, you must read Peter Simple.”
Malleus Maleficarum by Heinrich Kramer: “_Exorcisms_, _for which the read Maleus Maleficarum_, _Nideri Formicarium_, _Delrio_, _Wierus_, _etc._”
Formicarius by Johannes Nider: “_Exorcisms_, _for which the read Maleus Maleficarum_, _Nideri Formicarium_, _Delrio_, _Wierus_, _etc._”
The Forsaken Merman by Matthew Arnold: “come out in the night—like the forsaken Merman in Mr. Arnold’s beautiful, beautiful poem, which you must learn by heart some day”
Ode to Duty by William Wordsworth: ““Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear The Godhead’s most benignant grace; Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face:”
Beauty and the Beast by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont: “But Tom thought he would sooner have a jolly good fairy tale, about Jack the Giant-killer or Beauty and the Beast, which taught him something that he didn’t know already.”
Triumph of Antimony by Basil Valentine: “Sympathy, after the method of Basil Valentine his Triumph of Antimony, and Kenelm Digby his Weapon-salve, which some call a hair of the dog that bit him.”
Books that mention The Water-Babies (2)
Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott: “that time-honoured dish demanded the concentrated action of several mighty minds; so the “Water Babies” came ashore and fell to cooking.”
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield: “I have been like this ever since the age of seven when, sitting on a high wall and reading The Water Babies, I was so seduced by the descriptions of underwater life...”