What Is "The Water Babies"� About?

This children's story was first written by Charles Kingsley in serial form for a magazine, but was published in book form with illustrations in 1863. It concerns the adventures of Tom, a chimney sweep's boy, who lives in dirt and misery at the mercy of his cruel master. One day, sweeping chimneys, Tom accidentally lands in the room of a little girl called Ellie. He is chased from her room and the house, falls in the river and becomes a "water baby." He stays in the underwater country with other children, learning good behaviour from the two guardians, the kindly Mrs Do-as-you-would-be-done-by and the severe Mrs Be-done-by-as-you-did. In the end he learns that the two are one, and when he has become "clean" in spirit as well as in body, he is reunited with Ellie. The book is of course a fantasy, but its protest against the atrocious conditions in which sweeps' boys lived was real, and attracted much attention at the time.