The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby

The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby is an 1863 novel for children by the British professor, cleric, and activist Charles Kingsley. The novel was originally written to satirize religious, pseudoscientific alternatives to Charles Darwin’s seminal work on evolutionary biology, On the Origin of Species. However, it reached a much wider audience than intended and became inducted into the annals of British children’s literature. The story follows Tom, a young chimneysweeper who falls into a river and transforms into a bug-like “water-baby,” then embarks on an absurd educational journey. Though it has been praised for its humor, the novel has also been critiqued for its reductive and negative portrayals of Jews, Americans, the impoverished, and several other demographics.

The novel begins as Tom, a somewhat hapless figure, wanders the countryside and becomes infatuated with the daughter of a wealthy man named Ellie. After entering her house, he is chased away and falls into a river nearby. He drowns, emerging as a “water-baby,” described as an insect that frequently molts. The remainder of the story concerns Tom’s moral education in the narrative framework of his journey towards redemption as a good Christian boy. Kingsley uses Tom’s endeavor to subtly undermine contemporary social problems in England, including its brutal treatment of those in poverty, as well as unconscionable child labor issues.

Tom’s journey consists of a sequence of adventures which each have a moral lesson at the end. He meets a number of other water-babies who are seeking their own moral absolutions. His main spiritual guides become three fairies, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby, and Mother Carey. Tom also reunites with Ellie, who transformed into a water-baby. Tom’s master from before he transformed, Grimes, also drowns and transforms, but is sent to the end of the world to be tortured for the immoral acts he committed in life. Tom’s final mission is to rescue him and to help him through the process of repenting for his sins.



Grimes succeeds, earning himself a second try at life. Similarly, Tom is granted a return to his human form. He goes on to become a renowned scientist who works in urban planning, helping to innovate in railways, engines, weapons, and electric communications systems. He reunites with Ellie, who also returns to human form. Ironically, they never marry or consummate any other statement of love. The narrator remarks with his trademark sarcasm that no one gets married in fairy tales except princes and princesses.

At the end of The Water-Babies, the narrator undermines his own credibility by warning that he has just told a fairy tale. Kingsley’s novel is skeptical of dogmatic religious works, especially those of the Christian tradition, and of didactic texts in general. He proposes that his work, like all of literature, should be read with skepticism, since fallible and corruptible human beings compose it. The novel thus conveys an agnostic sensibility about the possibility of objective moral goodness, advocating for the reader’s use of his or her own judgment.