The Magic World

E. Nesbit

Description

“The Magic World” is a 1912 collection of short stories by E. Nesbit. Edith Nesbit (1858 – 1924) was an English poet and author. She is perhaps best remembered for her children's literature, publishing more than 60 such books under the name E. Nesbit. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, which had a significant influence on the Labour Party and British politics in general. The Stories include: "The Cat-hood of Maurice", The Mixed Mine", "Accidental Magic", "The Princess and the Hedge-pig", "Septimus Septimusson", "The White Cat", "Belinda and Bellamant", and more. This wonderful collection is perfect bedtime reading material and would make for a wonderful addition to any family collection. Other notable works by this author include: “The Prophet's Mantle” (1885), “Something Wrong” (1886), and “The Marden Mystery” (1896). Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.

Sujets

• Imaginaire
• Short Stories
• Young Adult Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 17 juin 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781528787581
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

THE MAGIC WORLD
By
E. NESBIT
With illustrations by
H. R. MILLAR
and
SPENCER PRYSE

First published in 1912


This edition published by Read Books Ltd. Copyright © 2019 Read Books Ltd. This book is copyright and may not be
reproduced or copied in any way without
the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library


Contents
E. Nesbit
I. THE CAT-HOO D OF MAURICE
II. TH E MIXED MINE
III. ACCIDENTAL MAGIC; OR DON’T TELL ALL YOU KNOW
IV. THE PRINCESS AND T HE HEDGE-PIG
V. SEPTIMUS SEPTIMUSSON
VI. T HE WHITE CAT
VII. BELINDA AND BELLAMANT; OR THE BELLS OF CA RRILLON-LAND
VIII. JUSTNOWLAND
IX. THE RELATED MUFF
X. THE AUN T AND AMABEL
XI. KENNETH AND THE CARP
XII. THE MAGI CIAN’S HEART


Illustrations
He scrambled out of the cupboard, and the boots and goloshes fell off him like spray o ff a bather.
‘If you think cats have such a jolly time,’ said Lord Hugh, ‘why no t be a cat?’
It was Mabel who untied the string and soothed his terrors.
He landed there on his four padded feet light a s a feather.
When Jane went in to put Mabel’s light out Maurice c rept in too.
Her bow went do wn suddenly.
‘Look!’ he said, ‘look!’ and pointed.
Far above him and every one else towered t he elephant.
It became a quite effi cient motor.
Quen tin de Ward.
It landed on the point of the chin of Smi thson major.
‘Who are you?’ he said. ‘Answer, I adjure you by the sacred Tau!’
The cart was drawn by an enormous creature, more like an elephant than an ything else.
‘Silence,’ cried the priest. ‘Chosen of the Immortals, close your eyes!’
On the lower terrace the royal nurse was walking up and down with the baby princess that all the fus s was about.
Instantly a flight of winged arrows crossed the garden.
‘I would kiss you on every one of your thousand spears,’ she said, ‘to give you wha t you wish.’
So we all sat on chairs in the drawing-room, and thought of nothing to say harde r than ever.
‘We scalped Eliza as she passed throug h the hall.’
Sidney threw the rug over her, and rolled her ov er and over.
Early next morning he tried to catch fish with several pieces of string knotted together an d a hairpin.
A radiant vision stepped into the circ le of light.
There w as a splash.
‘Oh, good-bye!’ he cried desperately, and snapped at the worm.


E. Nesbit
Edith Nesbit was born in Kennington, Surrey in 1858. Her family moved around constantly during her youth, living variously in Brighton, Buckinghamshire, France, Spain and Germany, before settling for three years in Halstead in north-west Kent, a location which later inspired her well-known novel, The Railway Children. In 1880, Nesbit married Hubert Bland, and her writing talents – which had been in evidence during her teens – were quickly needed to bring in e xtra money.
Over the course of her life, Nesbit would go on to publish approximately 40 books for children, including novels, collections of stories and picture books. Among her best-known works are The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1898), The Wouldbegoods (1899) and The Railway Children (1906). Nesbit is regarded by many critics as the first truly 'modern' children's writer, in that she replaced the fantastical worlds utilised by authors such as Lewis Carroll with real-life settings marked by the occasional intrusion of magic. In this, Nesbit is seen as a precursor to writers such as J. K. Rowling and C. S. Lewis. Nesbit was also a lifelong socialist; in 1884 she was among the founding members of the influential Fabian Society. For much of her adult life she was an active lecturer and prolific writer on socialism.
Having suffered from lung cancer for some years, Nesbit died in 1924 at New Romney, Ke nt, aged 65.





He scrambled out of the cupboa rd, and the boots and goloshes fell off him like spray o ff a bather.


I.
THE CAT-HOOD OF MAURICE
To have your hair cut is not painful, nor does it hurt to have your whiskers trimmed. But round wooden shoes, shaped like bowls, are not comfortable wear, however much it may amuse the onlooker to see you try to walk in them. If you have a nice fur coat like a company promoter’s, it is most annoying to be made to swim in it. And if you had a tail, surely it would be solely your own affair; that any one should tie a tin can to it would strike you as an unwarrantable impertinence—to sa y the least.
Yet it is difficult for an outsider to see these things from the point of view of both the persons concerned. To Maurice, scissors in hand, alive and earnest to snip, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to shorten the stiff whiskers of Lord Hugh Cecil by a generous inch. He did not understand how useful those whiskers were to Lord Hugh, both in sport and in the more serious business of getting a living. A lso it amused Maurice to throw Lord Hugh into ponds, though Lord Hugh only once permitted this liberty. To put walnuts on Lord Hugh’s feet and then to watch him walk on ice was, in Maurice’s opinion, as good as a play. Lord Hugh was a very favourite cat, but Maurice was discreet, and Lord Hugh, except under violent suffering, was at that time a nyhow, dumb.
But the empty sardine-tin attached to Lord Hugh’s tail and hind legs—this had a voice, and, rattling against stairs, banisters, and the legs of stricken furniture, it cried aloud for vengeance. Lord Hugh, suffering violently, added his voice, and this time the family heard. There was a chase, a chorus of ‘Poor pussy!’ and ‘Pussy, then!’ and the tail and the tin and Lord Hugh were caught under Jane’s bed. The tail and the tin acquiesced in their rescue. Lord Hugh did not. He fought, scratched, and bit. Jane carried the scars of that rescue for many a long week.
When all was calm Maurice was sought and, after some little natural delay, found—in the bo ot-cupboard.
‘Oh, Maurice!’ his mother almost sobbed, ‘how can you? What will your father say?’
Maurice thought he knew what his fath er would do.
‘Don’t you know ,’ the mother went on, ‘how wrong it is t o be cruel?’
‘I didn’t mean to be cruel,’ Maurice said. And, what is more, he spoke the truth. All the unwelcome attentions he had showered on Lord Hugh had not been exactly intended to hurt that stout veteran—only it was interesting to see what a cat would do if you threw it in the water, or cut its whiskers, or tied things to its tail.
‘Oh, but you must have meant to be cruel,’ said mother, ‘and you will have to b e punished.’
‘I wish I hadn’t,’ said Maurice, fro m the heart.
‘So do I,’ said his mother, with a sigh; ‘but it isn’t the first time; you know you tied Lord Hugh up in a bag with the hedgehog only last Tuesday week. You’d better go to your room and think it over. I shall have to tell your father directly he comes home.’
Maurice went to his room and thought it over. And the more he thought the more he hated Lord Hugh. Why couldn’t the beastly cat have held his tongue and sat still? That, at the time would have been a disappointment, but now Maurice wished it had happened. He sat on the edge of his bed and savagely kicked the edge of the green Kidderminster carpet, and ha ted the cat.
He hadn’t meant to be cruel; he was su re he hadn’t; he wouldn’t have pinched the cat’s feet or squeezed its tail in the door, or pulled its whiskers, or poured hot water on it. He felt himself ill-used, and knew that he would feel still more so after the inevitable interview with his father.
But that interview did not take the immediately painful form expected by Maurice. His father did not say, ‘Now I will show you what it feels like to be hurt.’ Maurice had braced himself for that, and was looking beyond it to the calm of forgiveness which should follow the storm in which he should so unwillingly take part. No; his father was already calm and reasonable—with a dreadful calm, a terrif ying reason.
‘Look here, my boy,’ he said. ‘This cruelty to dumb animals must be checked—severe ly checked.’
‘I didn’t mean to be cruel,’ s aid Maurice.
‘Evil,’ said Mr. Basingstoke, for such was Maurice’s surname, ‘is wrought by want of thought as well as want of heart. What about your putting the hen i n the oven?’
‘You know,’ said Maurice, pale but determined, ‘you know I only wanted to help her to get her eggs hatched quickly. It says in “Fowls for Food and Fancy” that heat ha tches eggs.’
‘But she hadn’t any eggs,’ said Mr. Basingstoke.
‘But she soon would have,’ urged Maurice. ‘I thought a stitc h in time——’
‘That,’ said his father, ‘is the sort of thing that you must learn no t to think.’
‘I’ll try,’ said Maurice, miserably hoping f or the best.
‘I intend that you shall,’ said Mr. Basingstoke. ‘This afternoon you go to Dr. Strongitharm’s for the remaining week of term. If I find any more cruelty taking place during the holidays you will go there permanently. You can go and get ready.’
‘Oh, father, please not,’ was all Maurice f ound to say.
‘I’m sorry, my boy,’ said his father, much more kindly; ‘it’s all for your own good, and it’s as painful to me as it is to you—remember that. The cab will be here at four. Go and put your things together, and Jane shall pa ck for you.’
So the box was packed. Mabel, Maurice’s kiddy sister, cried over everything as it was put in. It was a v ery wet day.
‘If it had been any school but old Strong’s,’ she sobbed.
She and her brother knew that school well: its windows, dulled with wire blinds, its bigalarm bell, the high walls of its grounds, bristling with spikes, the iron gates, always locked, through which gloomy boys, im