Lex

Browse

GenresShelvesPremiumBlog

Company

AboutJobsPartnersSell on LexAffiliates

Resources

DocsInvite FriendsFAQ

Legal

Terms of ServicePrivacy Policygeneral@lex-books.com(215) 703-8277

© 2026 LexBooks, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Water-Babies

1863

Charles Kingsley

Read

The Water-Babies

Charles Kingsley

1863

British Literature, Children & Young Adult Reading, Novels, Science-Fiction & Fantasy

When Tom, a chimney-sweep boy, stumbles into the bedroom of a wealthy household and flees into a cold stream, he undergoes a strange metamorphosis: he becomes a water-baby, a tiny aquatic creature in an underwater world of caves, currents, and curious denizens. What begins as a Victorian fairy tale about adirty, neglected child longing for cleanliness transforms into something far stranger: a satirical adventure that weaves Darwinian natural history, sharp social commentary about child labor, and genuine fantasy into one improbable narrative. Tom swims through encounters with lobsters, dragons, and other water-babies, seeking redemption and purity in a world where he must learn that being good and being clean are not quite the same thing. The book zigs between earnest moral instruction and genuine adventure, between mocking Victorian hypocrisy and celebrating the wonder of the natural world. It is a product of its time, certainly, with its heavy-handed virtues and didactic tangents, but it also pulses with genuine affection for itshero and a reckless ambition to teach children about evolution, ethics, and empathy all at once. The water-babies swim on as a curious relic: a book that believed children could handle ideas as big as the origin of species, dressed up in flippers and fins.

Project Gutenberg

A children's novel written during the late 19th century. The book follows the adventures of Tom, a young chimney-sweep w...

Wikipedia

The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby is a children's novel by Charles Kingsley. Written in 1862–1863 as a seri...

Goodreads

Tom, a poor orphan, is employed by the villainous chimney-sweep, Grimes, to climb up inside flues to clear away the soot...

3.4(10K)

Editions

The Water-Babies
The Water-BabiesCurrent
Project Gutenberg · 276 pages
EPUB
The Water-Babies
The Water-Babies
Standard Ebooks · 276 pages
EPUB
The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby
The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby
Project Gutenberg · 265 pages
EPUB
The Water-Babies
The Water-Babies
Project Gutenberg · 206 pages
EPUB

X-Ray

“The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.””

— Charles Kingsley

“Did not learned men, too, hold, till within the last twenty-five years, that a flying dragon was an impossible monster? And do we not now know that there are hundreds of them found fossil up and down the world? People call them Pterodactyles: but that is only because they are ashamed to call them flying dragons, after denying so long that flying dragons could exist.””

— Charles Kingsley

“Do as you would be done by.””

— Charles Kingsley

“In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water-baby.A water-baby?  You never heard of a water-baby.  Perhaps not.  That is the very reason why this story was written.  (...)"But there are no such things as water-babies."How do you know that?  Have you been there to see?  And if you had been there to see, and had seen none, that would not prove that there were none.  If Mr. Garth does not find a fox in Eversley Wood”

— Charles Kingsley

“Stop!" said the Irishwoman. "I have one more word for you both; for you will both see me again before all is over. Those that wish to be clean, clean they will be; and those that wish to be foul, foul they will be. Remember.””

— Charles Kingsley

“And what was the song which she sang? Ah, my little man, I am too old to sing that song, and you too young to understand it.””

— Charles Kingsley

“[...] his little whirl-about of a head was so full of the notion of going out to see the world, that it forgot her in five minutes: however, though his head forgot her, I am glad to say his heart did not.””

— Charles Kingsley

“Some people think that there are no fairies. But it is a wide world, and plenty of room in it for fairies, without people seeing them; unless, of course, they look in the right place.””

— Charles Kingsley

“...children always wake after they have slept exactly as long as is good for them..””

— Charles Kingsley

Link to this book

Add a free, dofollow link to Lex on your blog, forum, syllabus, or reading list.

Read The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley free on Lex
HTML
<a href="https://lex-books.com/book/the-water-babies-2aed22f4-b431-44b6-a5b8-e495ebbc0d63"><img src="https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg" alt="Read The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley free on Lex" width="160" height="40"></a>
Markdown
[![Read The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley free on Lex](https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg)](https://lex-books.com/book/the-water-babies-2aed22f4-b431-44b6-a5b8-e495ebbc0d63)
BBCode
[url=https://lex-books.com/book/the-water-babies-2aed22f4-b431-44b6-a5b8-e495ebbc0d63][img]https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg[/img][/url]
Plain link
Read The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley free on Lex: https://lex-books.com/book/the-water-babies-2aed22f4-b431-44b6-a5b8-e495ebbc0d63

Cite this book

Reading this edition for a paper or guide? Copy a citation.

MLA
Kingsley, Charles. The Water-Babies. Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-water-babies-2aed22f4-b431-44b6-a5b8-e495ebbc0d63.
APA
Kingsley, C. (1863). The Water-Babies. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-water-babies-2aed22f4-b431-44b6-a5b8-e495ebbc0d63
Chicago
Kingsley, Charles. The Water-Babies. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-water-babies-2aed22f4-b431-44b6-a5b8-e495ebbc0d63.

Across the web

aggregate ratings
Goodreads3.379.9k ratings↗

More books from this author

Charles Kingsley
Charles Kingsley
1819-1875

English priest and novelist known for his advocacy of Christian socialism and social reform.

TheWater-Babies

Charles Kingsley

The Water-Babies

Westward Ho!Or, theVoyages andAdventure...

Charles Kingsley

Town Geology

1872

Charles Kingsley

Hypatia — orNew Foeswith an OldFace

Charles Kingsley

The Romanand theTeuton: ASeries of...

Charles Kingsley

Madam Howand LadyWhy; Or,First...

Charles Kingsley

The Hermits

Charles Kingsley

Glaucus; Or,the Wondersof the Shore

1855

Charles Kingsley

Glaucus; Or, the Wonders of the Shore

Disciplineand OtherSermons

1867

Charles Kingsley

The Saint'sTragedy

1848

Charles Kingsley

Alexandriaand HerSchools:Four...

Charles Kingsley

Alexandria and Her Schools: Four Lectures Delivered at the Philosophical Institution, Edinburgh

The Water ofLife, andOtherSermons

Charles Kingsley

The AncienRégime

1867

Charles Kingsley

Sermons onNationalSubjects

Charles Kingsley

Sir WalterRaleigh andHis Time

1859

Charles Kingsley

All Saints'Day andOtherSermons

Charles Kingsley

ProseIdylls, Newand Old

1873

Charles Kingsley

DailyThoughts:Selectedfrom the...

Charles Kingsley

Plays andPuritans

1890

Charles Kingsley

WestminsterSermons:With aPreface

Charles Kingsley

The GoodNews of God

1859

Charles Kingsley

True Wordsfor BraveMen: A Bookfor...

Charles Kingsley

Phaethon:LooseThoughts forLoose...

Charles Kingsley

Two YearsAgo, VolumeII.

1857

Charles Kingsley

The Gospelof thePentateuch:A Set of...

Charles Kingsley

Two YearsAgo, VolumeI

1855

Charles Kingsley

Froude'sHistory ofEngland

Charles Kingsley

David: FiveSermons

1988

Charles Kingsley

ScientificEssays andLectures

1885

Charles Kingsley

Women andPolitics

1869

Charles Kingsley

Out of theDeep: Wordsfor theSorrowful

Charles Kingsley

More books like this

right arrow

Don Juan

1819

George Gordon Byron, Baron Byron

TheAdventuresof FerdinandCount Fat...

T. Smollett

The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete

Pride andPrejudice

1813

Jane Austen

Now We AreSix

1927

A. A. Milne

Now We Are Six

The Rainbow

1915

D. H. Lawrence

The Rainbow

Nostromo: ATale of theSeaboard

1904

Joseph Conrad

New GrubStreet

George Gissing

The CompleteProse Worksof MartinFarquhar...

Martin Farquhar Tupper

Men andWomen

Robert Browning

Phantasmag...and OtherPoems

1869

Lewis Carroll

Outlines ofEnglish andAmericanLiteratur...

William J. Long

Sybil, Or,the TwoNations

1845

Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield Disraeli

KiplingStories andPoems EveryChild Sho...

Rudyard Kipling

TheGourmet'sGuide toLondon

Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis

The Gourmet's Guide to London

The Works ofJohnMarston.Volume 3

John Marston

The Works of John Marston. Volume 3

OldMortality,Complete

Walter Scott

Old Mortality, Complete