The Book of Dragons
1899
The Book of Dragons
1899
E. Nesbit wrote with a mischievous sparkle that few children's authors have ever matched. This 1899 collection assembles twenty-two dragon tales that swirl with the unpredictable logic of a child's imagination. Here be dragons of every conceivable variety: an icy creature frozen mid-breath, a scaly beast that commandeers the General Post Office as its lair, another spiriting away the zoo's prize elephant, and even a surprisingly affectionate specimen whose gentle rumble sends a toddler straight to sleep. The heroes who confront these creatures are equally varied, plucky children, a thoroughly wicked prince, and an entire soccer team whose encounter with a fire-breathing beast emerges quite literally from the pages of an enchanted book. What makes these stories endure is their cheerful chaos, their refusal to take themselves too seriously while never quite letting the reader forget that dragons are, at their core, magnificent and dangerous things. Nesbit had a gift for speaking directly to children without condescension, and her fantasy is suffused with the same irrepressible spirit that animates her famous novels.
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“Yes, I know," Lionel interrupted. "Well, I shall read them all. I love to read. I am so glad I learned to read.””
— E. Nesbit
“I have no doubt that you will wish to know what the princess lived on, during the long years when the dragon did the cooking. My dear, she lived on her income, and that is a thing that a great many people would like to be able to do.””
— E. Nesbit
“My princess," he said tenderly, "two great powers are on our side: the power of love and the power of arithmetic. Those two are stronger than anything else in the world.””
— E. Nesbit
“But the dragon was asleep under the whirlpools, and when he woke up from being asleep he found he was drowned, so there was an end of him.””
— E. Nesbit
“For you are certain to know something if you give for seven days your whole thought to it, even though it be only the first declension, or the nine-times table, or the dates of the Norman Kings.””
— E. Nesbit
“The nine rubies were used afterwards in agriculture. You had only to throw them out into a field if you wanted it plowed. Then the whole surface of the land turned itself over in its anxiety to get rid of something so wicked, and in the morning the field was found to be plowed as thoroughly as any young man at Oxford.””
— E. Nesbit
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Nesbit, E.. The Book of Dragons. Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-book-of-dragons-b4505273-775f-4d39-a75f-84e73ef56ecf.Nesbit, E. (1899). The Book of Dragons. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-book-of-dragons-b4505273-775f-4d39-a75f-84e73ef56ecfNesbit, E.. The Book of Dragons. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-book-of-dragons-b4505273-775f-4d39-a75f-84e73ef56ecf.
