Talk:The Water-Babies

Sources

JSBlog: The Water-Babies gives a useful analysis, and amongst the links it provides are a couple of Victorian Web pages, Revising the Fairytale: Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies and Five. Charles Kingsley's Water-Babies which might be useful. . dave souza, talk 21:24, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Comment with nice illustrations, Treasures of the Library (pdf). . . dave souza, talk 17:22, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

File:Jessie Willcox Smith - The Water Babies - p236 (Restored).jpg to appear as POTD soon

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Jessie Willcox Smith - The Water Babies - p236 (Restored).jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on November 28, 2012. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2012-11-28. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks! —howcheng {chat} 18:25, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Picture of the day

Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, a character named after the Golden Rule, from The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby, a children's novel by Charles Kingsley. Published in 1863, the book was extremely popular in England, and was a mainstay of British children's literature for many decades. The book had been intended in part as a satire, a tract against child labour, as well as a serious critique of the closed-minded approaches of many scientists of the day in their response to Charles Darwin's ideas on evolution.Artist: Jessie Willcox Smith; Restoration: ErikTheBikeMan

Science Fiction

Since it seems to deal with a lot of scientific themes, is it in fact SF as well? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.158.108.224 (talk) 12:36, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Italian link

I removed the Italian link since it refers to the Miles Davis' album "Water-Babies" --Angelo Mascaro (talk) 15:34, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Anti-American prejudice

I am not sure the reference taken from the novel to anti-Americanism is of quite the same stripe as Kingsley's prejudices against the Irish or Catholics. The entry seems to overlook that at the time he wrote this novel America was engaged in its Civil War, in which Kingsley was very interested - and on the side of the North. He expresses admiration for Fremont in his previous novel, Two Years Ago (1857).

Might not his reference to Americans be better contextualized than it currently is? There were evidently several kinds of Americans in 1862 and Kingsley does not generalize. Cerreno (talk) 15:56, 7 June 2016 (UTC)Cerreno 7 June 2016

Chimney Sweep Regulations

It it worth adding that this book was the catalyst for regulations for chimney sweeps? http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/livinglearning/19thcentury/overview/childrenchimneys/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.40.33.254 (talk) 12:33, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 11 August 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Reading Beans 09:12, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

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The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby → The Water-Babies – Per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:SUBTITLES. The subtitle is rarely used and does not even appear on the covers of many editions. Zacwill (talk) 01:27, 11 August 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. Waqar💬 15:17, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose For those of us who first read Kingsley's masterpiece as children in the Dent/Dutton, "Children's Illustrated Classics" series (in which some of Kingsley's "imaginative sprawl" had been "tidied up" (in the words of Robert Douglas-Fairhurst) somewhat, but not by rewriting, only some excision, and then again as adults in the Oxford World's Classics hard cover, with an introduction by RD-F, the subtitle is as much a part of the book as the title. The book was written for Kingsley's youngest boy, and I knew that as a child, not just from the dedication a few pages in. I understand WP's compulsions and injunctions, but if more than a century of children have lived with the subtitle, I don't see why adults whom WP says it targets, cannot. The only change that might be warranted is: The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby to The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. (Added 13:01, 11 August 2024 (UTC) Please note Land-Baby is hyphenated.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:33, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

  PS Also, "The Water Babies," without the hyphen, perhaps even without the definite article, should be redirected to this page with a blurb up top, not a dab page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:39, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Funnily enough, neither the Dent/Dutton nor the Oxford World's Classics edition includes the subtitle on the cover. Zacwill (talk) 11:50, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Not on the cover, but the title page. The dedication a few pages further acknowledges the reader (or listener) who represents the targeted readership of the subtitle. I've read the book many times in various versions. Eventually, I read the Origin of Species because of this book. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:50, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Don't you mean On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life? Zacwill (talk) 12:56, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

No I do not. The title page of the version I first read, abridged by Richard Leakey was The Illustrated Origin of Species. Thereafter, I read the Oxford World's Classics version, introduced by Gillian Beer. Its title page is The Origin of Species. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:50, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Very clear common name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:19, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
• Support as the common name and the more likely search term. The article can still include the full subtitle, even in the lead's first sentence, but because this is a primary topic for The Water Babies (disambiguation) and the primary cover-image in the article stops after "Babies", so should the title. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 03:28, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.