-The Water-Babies

A priest in the Church of England with an interest in the natural world and friend of Charles Darwin, Kingsley wrote The Water-Babies as a morality tale for children. This work contains sections critical of the child labor policies of Victorian England and satirical sections in support of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. The water-babies live in caves under Saint Brendan’s Fairy Isle, located in the Atlantic Ocean west of Ireland. The water-babies are children who have been abandoned or mistreated. This work also expresses Kingsley’s intense hatred of the Irish and Catholics as well as including disparaging characterizations of Jewish and Black people.