The Water-Babies

Textual Notes

Spot checks of the serial in Macmillan’s Magazine show that Kingsley revised it for the book of 1863. In Chapter V the serial’s list of the children at St. Brandan’s Isle went on, after the babes of Bethlehem, to the children whom King Darius threw to the lions with their fathers (Daniel 6:24). It named too the forty-two little boys whom, in Kingsley’s telling, the bears ate for mocking the prophet, and he called the prophet Elijah in error for Elisha (2 Kings 2:23-24). He cut the passage from the book, and he recast the backstairs litany of Chapter VIII, whose pairs of adjectives differ from the serial’s. The whole paragraph of the Moral that hopes, with Bishop Butler, for “another chance” appears to be new in the book. The epigraphs may be new as well, since searches of the serial’s text find no trace of those heading Chapters I and V, though the magazine’s page images have not been checked. The first edition also carried a six-line L’Envoi, cancelled during the print-run; it is given here as printed in the Boston edition of 1864, which kept it.

Four of the book’s lists are printed in two columns in the early editions, the creed of epithets in Chapter III, the cutler’s shop of weapons in Chapter V, Pandora’s ills in Chapter VII and the backstairs litany in Chapter VIII. This edition, following its copy-text, reads each list down the left column and then the right, where Project Gutenberg read across the rows. The source does not settle the order. Reading by columns keeps together the rhyming words of Chapter III, inductive, deductive, seductive and productive, and sorts the weapons of Chapter V into edged tools and pointed ones, which suggests that it is the order Kingsley intended. After his death the text drifted in small ways. The long-tailed ducks called harelds in 1863 and 1864 had become harolds by 1885, and Wordsworth’s “might” in the epigraph to Chapter VI had become “night” by the same date. Both errors reached the Macmillan printing of 1922 from which the copy-text descends, and both are corrected below, while the other emendations restore readings of 1863 that Standard Ebooks modernised.

Dedication. grown-up for grownup. The 1863 and 1922 editions both read GROWN-UP; the closed form is Standard Ebooks’ modernisation.

Chapter I. sate reclined for sat reclined. Wordsworth’s form, printed in 1863 and 1922; Standard Ebooks modernised it.

Chapter IV. divers and sundry for diverse and sundry. The serial, the 1863 edition and the 1922 printing all read divers, the old word for several; diverse is Standard Ebooks’ change.

Chapter VI. glorious in the might for glorious in the night. Wordsworth’s word, printed in the editions of 1863 and 1864; night is a misprint that entered the text by 1885.

Chapter VII. harelds for harolds. The 1863 and 1864 editions read harelds (the long-tailed duck); harolds is a corruption that entered the text by 1885.

Chapter VIII and Last. magic-lanthorns for magic-lanterns. Kingsley’s archaic spelling, printed in 1863; Standard Ebooks modernised it.