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The Water Babies
The Water Babies
Jan 1, 2026 1:45 AM

Author:Charles Kingsley,Richard D. Beards,Richard D. Beards

The Water Babies

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.

Reviews

Storm Born is my kind of book - great characters, dark worlds, and just the right touch of humor. A great read

—— PATRICIA BRIGGS, #1 New York Times bestselling urban fantasy author

A curious and intriguing novel... the brilliant skill of the writing makes the world come alive on the page

—— Hermione Lee , Guardian

A nicely written, wonderfully entertaining novel... Philosophy is a big, difficult subject - there is none bigger - that Bail depicts thoughtfully and with sympathetic humour

—— The Daily Telegraph

Quietly fascinating... Bail's prose is as full of space and glaring, almost painful light as the landscape... This book is as hard and sparse as that landscape, but no less beautiful for that

—— Jonathan Gibbs , Independent

Bail's highly idiosyncratic style resembles a choppy sea in which phrases and images constantly jostle each other to send up a dazzlingly brilliant spray. In addition, his ability to conjure up a character in a paragraph or even a mere sentence is remarkable

—— Francis King , Literary Review

The novel makes no pretence of providing unambiguous answers, but takes us on a beguiling, questing journey

—— Nick Rennison , Sunday Times

Murray Bail marshals the tensions between his characters and their ideas to great effect

—— Peter Scott , The Telegraph

A gratifyingly dry wit pervades this novel of ideas

—— Chris Ross , The Guardian

P.G. Wodehouse is the gold standard of English wit

—— Christopher Hitchens

To dive into a Wodehouse novel is to swim in some of the most elegantly turned phrases in the English language

—— Ben Schott

Wodehouse is so utterly, properly, simply funny

—— Adele Parks

I've recorded all the Jeeves books, and I can tell you this: it's like singing Mozart. The perfection of the phrasing is a physical pleasure. I doubt if any writer in the English language has more perfect music

—— Simon Callow

Wodehouse was quite simply the Bee's Knees. And then some

—— Joseph Connolly

I constantly find myself drooling with admiration at the sublime way Wodehouse plays with the English language

—— Simon Brett

Quite simply, the master of comic writing at work

—— Jane Moore

To pick up a Wodehouse novel is to find oneself in the presence of genius - no writer has ever given me so much pure enjoyment

—— John Julius Norwich

Compulsory reading for anyone who has a pig, an aunt - or a sense of humour!

—— Lindsey Davis

The Wodehouse wit should be registered at Police HQ as a chemical weapon

—— Kathy Lette

Witty and effortlessly fluid. His books are laugh-out-loud funny

—— Arabella Weir

The funniest writer ever to put words to paper

—— Hugh Laurie

The greatest comic writer ever

—— Douglas Adams

P.G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century

—— Sebastian Faulks

Sublime comic genius

—— Ben Elton

You don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour

—— Stephen Fry
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