1864 The Water-Babies

Description

Early Edition, Illustrated, Leather Binding, Signed Binding

The second edition, published the year after the first.

Bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe.

'The Water-Babies' is a children's fairy tale that was extremely popular when it was published. The novel follows Tom, a young chimney sweep, who falls into a river and is transformed into a water-baby.

Illustrated with a frontispiece, and one plate, by J. Noel Paton.

Written by Charles Kingsley. Kingsley was a priest for the Church of England, and was a friend and correspondent of Charles Darwin, writing this novel partly in satire of 'In Origin of Species'.

From the library of W. A. Foyle at Beeleigh Abbey, with his morocco bookplate to the front paste down. William Foyle was the co-founder of Foyles bookshop, founding the leading bookshop in 1903 alongside his brother. He purchased Beeleigh Abbey during the Second World War, an impressive twelfth century monastery in Essex, which became home to his library, one the largest private libraries in England.