THE WATER-BABIES: A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY

New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1891. Hardcover. GOOD PLUS. Gordon, Frederick C.. Gilt lettering and delicate floral and spiral designs to spine and front board, title to front board in gilt over white four-petal flower, deep red cloth-covered boards.Previous owner's name lightly to FFEP. Front hinge started. A little bit of foxing to endpapers, a light smudge or two to margins. Lightly bumped lower corners, mild rubbing and slight fraying to corners and end caps. A bit of smudging and light discoloration to board surfaces, some sunning to spine, light shelfwear. Vignette edition with one hundred lovely illustrations by Frederick C. Gordon. 308 pp. The vignette edition of a beautiful Victorian novel, with one hundred new illustrations by Frederick C. Gordon. Originally written in 1862ñ63 as a serial for Macmillan's Magazine, it was first published in its entirety in 1863. It was part satire in support of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species and was extremely popular in England, a mainstay of British children's literature for many decades. But it eventually fell out of favour in part due to its prejudices (common at the time) against Irish, Jews and Americans. The story follows Tom, a young chimney sweep, who falls into a river after being harrassed by an upper-class girl named Ellie. He drowns, is transformed into a "water baby", as he is told by a caddisflyóan insect that sheds its skinóand thus begins his moral education. The story is thematically concerned with Christian redemption, but Kingsley also uses the book to argue against the ill treatment of the poor, the child labor laws, etc.