Looking Backward

As mentioned before, I'm the co-editor of Fantasy Magazine. One of the things that we're trying in the next few months are some reprints of older works by authors such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Jules Verne, accompanied by notes that try to place the work in the overall fantasy tradition.Why? Well, I proposed the idea for a number of reasons. One is admittedly commercial -- it frees us up a little to do things like the occasional bonus story. The first of these will be a Halloween story by Deb Taber, "The Summoning of Spirits Too Far From Home," which I harassed Deb for after hearing her read it at WisCon this spring. In December, we'll have a lovely, funny piece from Carole Lanham, "Keepity Keep".But above and beyond the ability to do that, I think it's interesting to look back at some of the roots of today's stories, and while I don't want to phrase this effort as one to "educate" readers, it's one that I hope will inform them in a way that enhances reading fantasy overall.Our first piece, appearing next week,  is an excerpt from Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies, the story of Tom the chimney sweep, who is transformed into one of the title creatures. It's accompanied by some absolutely stunning photos by Zena Holloway,  who has a new illustrated version of the book coming out in November. Her photos and Stephen Segal of Weird Tales should be the recipients of any credit for loveliness of design.The Water Babies was impelled in part by the Reverend Kingsley's abhorrence of a brand new theory from Charles Darwin, and it's interesting to see the digs Kingsley gets in at the idea of evolution from time to time. And it seems odd, nowadays, when the same people proposing that we teach Creationism in the schools are sometimes the same people who are anti-fantasy, and condemn the Harry Potter books for its soul-damaging references to sorcery and the like. (But then buy the Left Behind books -- are those fantasy or something different?)In many ways, the book is sorely dated. There's a tick in Victorian literature where children scream "Oh! Oh! Oh!" a lot and Tom does this several annoying times. Tweeness of this sort appears in the lines like a sticky film of treacle laid over the entirety of the text. And yet - it's interesting to see what Kingsley does, particularly in that he uses the book to plead for working children like Tom, who escapes an abusive and horrible existence when he becomes a water baby. This social commentary is painted with a very broad brush of the sort that I don't think would be tolerated by today's readers. But do we have many equivalents of this nowadays? I'm hard pressed to think of them.P.S. I'd love suggestions for reprints of this kind that you'd like to, and I'm particularly interested in ones coming from outside the Western tradition. This does not mean that authors should start sending me their reprints! (Unless you are a vampire or other immortal creature whose work is now in the public domain because you faked your death in 1850. In that case, feel free to query. This does not mean send me your previously published story about a vampire who faked their death in 1850, but I'd be glad to look at an unpublished one. Submissions guidelines are here.)