What social issue is the primary focus of 'The Water-Babies' by Charles Kingsley?
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Correct answer: The mistreatment of child chimney sweeps
Though a fantasy, the book was written as a polemic against the employment of climbing boys. Its popularity helped spur the Chimney Sweepers Regulation Act of 1864.
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More Social Reform Themes questions
- Which of these themes is central to George Eliot’s 'Felix Holt, the Radical'?
- The character of Jo the crossing-sweeper in 'Bleak House' is a poignant representation of:
- Frances Trollope’s 'Michael Armstrong, the Factory Boy' (1840) was one of the first novels to expose:
- The concept of 'Noblesse Oblige' in Victorian reform literature refers to:
- How did the 'Circumlocution Office' in Dickens’s 'Little Dorrit' address the theme of administrative reform?
- The 'Fallen Woman' motif in Victorian novels like Gaskell’s 'Ruth' was used to reform social attitudes by: