The Enchanted Castle
1907
The Enchanted Castle
1907
Three siblings. One summer. A ring that makes magic real. When Jerry, Jimmy, and Kathleen stumble upon a sleepy princess in a hidden garden, they assume it's just another of their elaborate games. But the girl insists she's royalty, and when she shows them a secret room stuffed with treasure and a ring that grants wishes, the adventure stops being pretend. Statues come alive. A dragon materializes. The children must outwit an enchanted duke and figure out how to reverse the spell before they lose themselves entirely to a world where imagination has terrifying consequences. E. Nesbit, who practically invented modern children's fantasy, delivers a story that understands something profound: children take pretend seriously, and sometimes the games won't let them go. It's a tale of summer holidays spent in woods that hide impossible things, of siblings who bicker and brave and bond, and of the arresting question at its heart: what happens when the magic you wished for actually arrives?
Editions
X-Ray
“If you're lucky enough to be different, don't you ever changed" - Taylor Swift””
— E. Nesbit
“Oh, if I could choose,” said Mabel, “of course I’d marry a brigand, and live in his mountain fastness, and be kind to his captives and help them to escape and-“ “You’ll be a real treasure to your husband.” said Gerald.””
— E. Nesbit
“Don't bother about believing it, if you don't like it,' said the Princess. 'It doesn't so much matter what you believe as what I am.””
— E. Nesbit
“Aunt Emily says grown-ups never really like playing. They do it to please us.""They little know," Gerald answered, "how often we do it to please them.””
— E. Nesbit
“When you are young so many things are difficult to believe, and yet the dullest people will tell you that they are true--such things, for instance, as that the earth goes round the sun, and that it is not flat but round. But the things that seem really likely, like fairy-tales and magic, are, so say the grown-ups, not true at all. Yet they are so easy to believe, especially when you see them happening. And, as I am always telling you, the most wonderful things happen to all sorts of people, only you never hear about them because the people think that no one will believe their stories, and so they don't tell them to anyone except me. And they tell me, because they know that I can believe anything.””
— E. Nesbit
“It is a moment, and it is eternity. It is the centre of the universe and it is the universe itself. The eternal light rests on and illuminates the eternal heart of things.””
— E. Nesbit
“Gerald's look assured her that he and the others would be as near angels as children could be without ceasing to be human.””
— E. Nesbit
“Everything was pleasant that day somehow. There are days like that, you know, when everything goes well from the very beginning; all the things you want are in their places, nobody misunderstands you, and all that you do turns out admirably.””
— E. Nesbit
“I've not got much money, but I've got heaps of ideas.””
— E. Nesbit
