Books with author Clarles Kingsley

A grim, wonderful and classic fantasy tale for children and adults: A poor maltreated boy is working as a chimney-sweep. He drowns, but continue to live and learn in the magical water world. Perhaps he and his friends -- drowned humans like him -- can get a second chance among the living?An important aspect of The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby (first published 1862-63) is its criticism of child labour; the novel is credited with easing the passage of the Chimney Sweepers Regulation Act of 1864, prohibiting the use of minors as chimney-sweeps.This fairy tale for a modern age is also of interest in the history of science. Charles Kingsley (1819-75) was a famous author and a broad church priest of the Church of England, with a keen interest in biology and natural science; he was an early supporter of Darwinism. With its metamorphoses and evolving organisms, The Water-Babies popularized Darwin’s theory of evolution for children, though with a bent for Lamarckism -- behaviour can be a driving force behind the evolution.In his review of On the Origin of Species (1859) a few days before the release, Kingsley explained that he “long since, from watching the crossing of domesticated animals and plants, learnt to disbelieve the dogma of the permanence of species.” Kingsley and Charles Darwin became friends. In the next edition of his book, Darwin made a reference to Kingsley, when he stated that “A celebrated author and divine has written to me that ‘he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws’.”

The protagonist is Tom, a young chimney sweep, who falls into a river after encountering an upper-class girl named Ellie and being chased out of her house. There he dies and is transformed into a "water baby", as he is told by a caddis fly — an insect that sheds its skin — and begins his moral education. The story is thematically concerned with Christian redemption, though Kingsley also uses the book to argue that England treats its poor badly, and to question child labour, among other themes.

The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby is a children's novel by Charles Kingsley. Written in 1862–63 as a serial for Macmillan's Magazine, it was first published in its entirety in 1863. It was written as part satire in support of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species. The book was extremely popular in England, and was a mainstay of British children's literature for many decades, but eventually fell out of favour in part due to its prejudices (common at the time) against Irish, Jews, Catholics and Americans

The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby is a children's novel by the Reverend Charles Kingsley. Written in 1862-1863 as a serial for Macmillan's Magazine, it was first published in its entirety in 1863. The book was extremely popular during its day, and was a mainstay of children's literature through the 1920s. The protagonist is Tom, a young chimney sweep, who falls into a river after encountering an upper-class girl named Ellie and being chased out of her house. There he dies and is transformed into a "water baby", as he is told by a caddis fly — an insect that sheds its skin — and begins his moral education. The story is thematically concerned with Christian redemption, though Kingsley also uses the book to argue that England treats its poor badly, and to question child labour, among other themes.

The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby is a children's novel by the Reverend Charles Kingsley. Written in 1862 63 as a serial for Macmillan's Magazine, it was first published in its entirety in 1863. It was written as part satire in support of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species. The book was extremely popular in England, and was a mainstay of British children's literature for many decades, but eventually fell out of favour in part due to its prejudices (common at the time) against Irish, Jews, Americans, and the poor