I have been in the rare and antiquarian book business for over forty years; my family has been in the rare books business since 1876. Rare books are in my blood.
Water-Babies, The
London: Macmillan and Co., 1886. Item #06597
A Victorian Fairy Tale Reimagined - The Sambourne Edition in a Fine Bayntun Binding
The Water-Babies with One Hundred Illustrations by Linley Sambourne
KINGSLEY, Charles. The Water-Babies. A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. New Edition. With One Hundred Illustrations by Linley Sambourne. London: Macmillan and Co., 1886.
First edition thus, with Sambourne’s illustrations.
Small quarto (7 7/8 x 6 1/8 inches; 200 x 156 mm.). [vi], [1–3], 4–371, [1, printer’s imprint] pp. Half-title with early ink inscription, largely erased at time of binding.
Handsomely bound ca. 1960 by Bayntun of Bath in full blue polished calf, covers with double gilt fillet border. Spine with five raised bands, richly tooled and lettered in gilt in compartments, with green morocco label. Decorative gilt turn-ins, blue marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. A near fine, elegant example.
First published in 1863, The Water-Babies remains the most enduring work of Charles Kingsley - a curious and compelling fusion of fairy tale, moral allegory, and social critique. Written for his young son, Grenville Arthur (“the land-baby” of the subtitle), the story follows Tom, a chimney sweep’s boy, through a fantastical underwater transformation that serves as both imaginative adventure and vehicle for Kingsley’s views on religion, science, and child labor.
This 1886 edition is distinguished by the extensive and lively illustrations of Linley Sambourne, long associated with Punch, whose inventive and often humorous visual interpretations bring a distinctly late-Victorian character to the text. Unlike earlier illustrated editions, Sambourne’s designs rely heavily on imaginative invention rather than strict observation, lending the work a whimsical and sometimes surreal quality.
While occasionally confused in the trade with the rare suppressed-leaf issue of the 1863 first edition (containing the poem L’Envoi), this later Macmillan edition represents a separate and desirable illustrated issue in its own right.
The present copy is further enhanced by a refined Bayntun binding, executed in the mid-twentieth century, combining durability with a classical aesthetic well suited to Victorian literature. Such bindings remain highly regarded for both their craftsmanship and their suitability for practical library use.
Price: $750.00