It began with the day when it was almost the Fifth of November, and a doubt arose in some breast-Robert's, I fancy-as to the quality of the fireworks laid in for the Guy Fawkes celebration.

'They were jolly cheap, ' said whoever it was, and I think it was Robert, 'and suppose they didn't go off on the night? Those Prosser kids would have something to snigger about then.'

'The ones I got are all right, ' Jane said; 'I know they are, because the man at the shop said they were worth thribble the money-'

'I'm sure thribble isn't grammar, ' Anthea said.

'Of course it isn't, ' said Cyril; 'one word can't be grammar all by itself, so you needn't be so jolly clever.'

The Phoenix and the Carpet

The Railway Children Returns is coming to cinemas soon! A sequal to the much loved 1970 adaptation of The Railway Children, starring Jenny Agutter playing the adult version of herself from the original film. A tale of blissful independence and adventure, Edith Nesbit's beloved children's classic is a timeless story of joy, hope and the importance of family. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition of The Railway Children features the beautiful illustrations of C. E. Brock, and an afterword by editor and publisher Anna South. Peter, Phyllis and Roberta's lives change overnight when their father is taken away by two strangers. They move from the comfort of their London home to a small country cottage, and are left to their own devices while their mother writes day and night to support the family. But with their new poverty comes more freedom than they ever dreamed of, and the railway line at the bottom of their garden offers the trio a world of new friendships that will change their lives forever.

The Railway Children

This is the story of the different ways we looked for treasure, and I think when you have read it you will see that we were not lazy about the looking.

There are some things I must tell before I begin to tell about the treasure-seeking, because I have read books myself, and I know how beastly it is when a story begins, "'Alas!" said Hildegarde with a deep sigh, "we must look our last on this ancestral home"'-and then some one else says something-and you don't know for pages and pages where the home is, or who Hildegarde is, or anything about it. Our ancestral home is in the Lewisham Road. It is semi-detached and has a garden, not a large one. We are the Bastables. There are six of us besides Father. Our Mother is dead, and if you think we don't care because I don't tell you much about her you only show that you do not understand people at all.

The Story of the Treasure Seekers

Un beau jour, Cyril, Robert, Anthea et Jane délivrent des griffes d'un marchand un animal extraordinaire doué de parole : la Mirobolante. Le jour même, les enfants se retrouvent en possession d'une amulette capable de réaliser leurs désirs les plus chers... À condition, qu'ils retrouvent l'autre moitié du talisman, et que jamais ils n'en oublient la formule magique. C'est alors que commence un fabuleux voyage dans le passé.

Le secret de l'amulette

En construisant un château, Anthea, Jane, Cyril et Robert découvrent, enfouie dans le sable, une créature qui dit pouvoir exaucer leurs voeux. Être riche, voler comme un oiseau ou devenir chevalier... Qui n'a jamais rêvé de voir ses souhaits se réaliser ? Mais attention ! le rêve peut rapidement virer au cauchemar : les enfants apprennent à leurs dépens que la magie se retourne parfois contre celui qui en fait mauvais usage.

Cinq enfants et moi

They were not railway children to begin with. I don't suppose they had ever thought about railways except as a means of getting to Maskelyne and Cook's, the Pantomime, Zoological Gardens, and Madame Tussaud's. They were just ordinary suburban children, and they lived with their Father and Mother in an ordinary red-brick-fronted villa, with coloured glass in the front door, a tiled passage that was called a hall, a bathroom with hot and cold water, electric bells, French windows, and a good deal of white paint, and 'every modern convenience', as the house-agents say.

There were three of them. Roberta was the eldest. Of course, Mothers never have favourites, but if their Mother HAD had a favourite, it might have been Roberta. Next came Peter, who wished to be an Engineer when he grew up; and the youngest was Phyllis, who meant extremely well.

Philip Haldane and his sister lived in a little red-roofed house in a little red-roofed town. They had a little garden and a little balcony, and a little stable with a little pony in it-and a little cart for the pony to draw; a little canary hung in a little cage in the little bow-window, and the neat little servant kept everything as bright and clean as a little new pin.

Philip had no one but his sister, and she had no one but Philip. Their parents were dead, and Helen, who was twenty years older than Philip and was really his half-sister, was all the mother he had ever known. And he had never envied other boys their mothers, because Helen was so kind and clever and dear. She gave up almost all her time to him; she taught him all the lessons he learned; she played with him, inventing the most wonderful new games and adventures. So that every morning when Philip woke he knew that he was waking to a new day of joyous and interesting happenings. And this went on till Philip was ten years old, and he had no least shadow of a doubt that it would go on for ever. The beginning of the change came one day when he and Helen had gone for a picnic to the wood where the waterfall was, and as they were driving back behind the stout old pony, who was so good and quiet that Philip was allowed to drive it. They were coming up the last lane before the turning where their house was, and Helen said:

'To-morrow we'll weed the aster bed and have tea in the garden.'

The Magic City

There were once four children who spent their summer holidays in a white house, happily situated between a sandpit and a chalkpit. One day they had the good fortune to find in the sandpit a strange creature. Its eyes were on long horns like snail's eyes, and it could move them in and out like telescopes. It had ears like a bat's ears, and its tubby body was shaped like a spider's and covered with thick soft fur-and it had hands and feet like a monkey's. It told the children-whose names were Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane-that it was a Psammead or sand-fairy. (Psammead is pronounced Sammy-ad.) It was old, old, old, and its birthday was almost at the very beginning of everything. And it had been buried in the sand for thousands of years. But it still kept its fairylikeness, and part of this fairylikeness was its power to give people whatever they wished for. You know fairies have always been able to do this. Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane now found their wishes come true; but, somehow, they never could think of just the right things to wish for, and their wishes sometimes turned out very oddly indeed. In the end their unwise wishings landed them in what Robert called 'a very tight place indeed', and the Psammead consented to help them out of it in return for their promise never never to ask it to grant them any more wishes, and never to tell anyone about it, because it did not want to be bothered to give wishes to anyone ever any more. At the moment of parting Jane said politely-

'I wish we were going to see you again some day.'

And the Psammead, touched by this friendly thought, granted the wish.

The Story of the Amulet

The house was three miles from the station, but, before the dusty hired hack had rattled along for five minutes, the children began to put their heads out of the carriage window and say, "Aren't we nearly there?" And every time they passed a house, which was not very often, they all said, "Oh, is this it?" But it never was, till they reached the very top of the hill, just past the chalk-quarry and before you come to the gravel-pit. And then there was a white house with a green garden and an orchard beyond, and mother said, "Here we are!"

"How white the house is, " said Robert.

"And look at the roses, " said Anthea.

"And the plums, " said Jane.

"It is rather decent, " Cyril admitted.

The Baby said, "Wanty go walky;" and the hack stopped with a last rattle and jolt.

Five Children and It

There were three of them-Jerry, Jimmy, and Kathleen. Of course, Jerry's name was Gerald, and not Jeremiah, whatever you may think; and Jimmy's name was James; and Kathleen was never called by her name at all, but Cathy, or Catty, or Puss Cat, when her brothers were pleased with her, and Scratch Cat when they were not pleased. And they were at school in a little town in the West of England-the boys at one school, of course, and the girl at another, because the sensible habit of having boys and girls at the same school is not yet as common as I hope it will be some day. They used to see each other on Saturdays and Sundays at the house of a kind maiden lady; but it was one of those houses where it is impossible to play. You know the kind of house, don't you? There is a sort of a something about that kind of house that makes you hardly able even to talk to each other when you are left alone, and playing seems unnatural and affected. So they looked forward to the holidays, when they should all go home and be together all day long, in a house where playing was natural and conversation possible, and where the Hampshire forests and fields were full of interesting things to do and see.

The Enchanted Castle

This beautiful HarperCollins Children's Classics edition is perfect for every bookshelf. 

 Bobbie, Peter and Phyllis have lost their father. He has disappeared and, with him, their happy life in London too. They have a new life now, in a new place, in a new (but truly quite old and shabby) home beyond the train tracks.

 Each day of this new life, they greet the 9.15am train and hope it carries their love to Father, wherever he has gone. But the railway promises to bring something else entirely .

Edith Nesbit's natural gift for storytelling has brought her worldwide renown as a classic children's author. But beyond her beloved children's stories lay a darker side to her imagination, revealed here in her chilling tales of the supernatural.

 Haunted by lifelong phobias which provoked, in her own words, 'nights and nights of anguish and horror, long years of bitterest fear and dread', Nesbit was inspired to pen terrifying stories of a twilight world where the dead walked the earth.

 All but forgotten for almost a hundred years until In the Dark was first published 30 years ago, this collection finally restored Nesbit's reputation as a one of the most accomplished and entertaining ghost-story writers of the Victorian age.

 With seven extra newly-discovered stories now appearing for the first time in paperback, this revised edition includes an introduction by Hugh Lamb exploring the life of the woman behind these tales and the events and experiences that contributed to her fascination with the macabre.

In the Dark - Tales of Terror by E. Nesbit

The writings of Shakespeare have been justly termed "the richest, the purest, the fairest, that genius uninspired ever penned."

Shakespeare instructed by delighting. His plays alone (leaving mere science out of the question), contain more actual wisdom than the whole body of English learning. He is the teacher of all good-- pity, generosity, true courage, love. His bright wit is cut out "into little stars." His solid masses of knowledge are meted out in morsels and proverbs, and thus distributed, there is scarcely a corner of the English-speaking world today which he does not illuminate, or a cottage which he does not enrich. His bounty is like the sea, which, though often unacknowledged, is everywhere felt. As his friend, Ben Jonson, wrote of him, "He was not of an age but for all time." He ever kept the highroad of human life whereon all travel. He did not pick out by-paths of feeling and sentiment. In his creations we have no moral highwaymen, sentimental thieves, interesting villains, and amiable, elegant adventuresses--no delicate entanglements of situation, in which the grossest images are presented to the mind disguised under the superficial attraction of style and sentiment. He flattered no bad passion, disguised no vice in the garb of virtue, trifled with no just and generous principle. While causing us to laugh at folly, and shudder at crime, he still preserves our love for our fellow-beings, and our reverence for ourselves.

Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare

MATILDA'S ears were red and shiny. So were her cheeks. Her hands were red too. This was because Pridmore had washed her. It was not the usual washing, which makes you clean and comfortable, but the "thorough good wash, " which makes you burn and smart till you wish you could be like the poor little savages who do not know anything, and run about bare in the sun, and only go into the water when they are hot.

Matilda wished she could have been born in a savage tribe instead of at Brixton.

"Little savages, " she said, "don't have their ears washed thoroughly, and they don?t have new dresses that are prickly in the insides round their arms, and cut them round the neck. Do they, Pridmore?"

But Pridmore only said, "Stuff and nonsense, " and then she said, "don't wriggle so, child, for goodness' sake."

Livres