Born this day in 1819, Charles Kingsley.

Kingsley is the author of The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby, published in 1863, two years before Alice in Wonderland.

The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature (1984, 1995) has an entry on both Kingsley and The Water-Babies.

He was made a Canon of Westminster. Surely that gives him license to be preachy.

I will not belabor this point, as we mentioned it yesterday, but “every book leads, if you let it have its way, to another book.” From a review of The Companion:

Not a book one will sit down to read cover to cover, The Companion is nevertheless wonderful to rummage about in. Surely everyone who picks it up will look first for her or his favorites, only to encounter other intriguing tidbits, thereby to dally and browse longer than expected.

The Water-Babies is about the death– and underwater resurrection– of Tom, a little ‘climbing boy’. It was written for Kingsley’s youngest son. Kingsley was something of an activist, and in part due to the preachiness and popularity of the book, within a year of its publication the use of young boys as junior chimney sweeps was outlawed. Score one for Kingsley.

Daily Readings June 12

• Oh! That We Two Were Maying
• The Last Buccaneer
• The Sands of Dee
• The Thee Fishers
• Lorraine

They are all poems.

Oh! that we two were Maying
Down the stream of the soft spring breeze;
Like children with violets playing
In the shade of the whispering trees.
Oh! that we two sat dreaming
On the sward of some sheep-trimmed down,
Watching the white mist steaming
Over river and mead and town.
Oh! that we two lay sleeping
In our nest in the churchyard sod,
With our limbs at rest on the quiet earth's breast,
And our souls at home with God!

Stay well. Stay safe. Keep reading. Dally and browse a bit.