Children’s Literature, Science and Faith: The Water-Babies

Abstract

The once vastly popular children’s book, The Water-Babies or a Fairy Tale for a Land Baby (1862–63) by Charles Kingsley does not appear to be translatable to modern times; it is considered a particularly Victorian work, one marked by the era’s spiritual crisis, a crisis that was brought to a head by the 1859 publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species.¹ Yet, after its 1863 publication, Water-Babies was apparently popular up through the 1920s. The story provided inspiration for beautiful illustrations by Linley Sambourne, W. Heath Robinson and Rosalie K. Fry, all of whom were engaged by the detailed natural history illustrations prized by Victorians. The best known are those by American artist Jessie Willcox Smith (1863–1935), who was born the year of Water-Babies’ publication. Her illustrations for the 1916 Dodd, Mead and Company edition with its scenes of babies encountering gloriously detailed sea and pond life underwater are the most memorable and mark the height of the book’s popularity. Conversely, the book’s reduction in popular appeal might be seen as signaled by the failure of a 1940 attempt by Walt Disney to use the title in a picture book that only dealt with water fairies (and bears and Snow White) and did not touch on the natural history theme.²