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95 pages

English

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“The Phoenix and the Carpet” is a 1904 fantasy children's novel by E. Nesbit. The second in a trilogy of novels beginning with “Five Children and It” (1902), it follows the escapades of the same five children: Anthea, Cyril, Robert, Jane and the “Lamb”. In this story, the children receive a new carpet from their mother to replace one destroyed in a fire. The children discover an egg inside it, which eventually hatches into a wish-granting phoenix that enables the children to go on many fantastical adventures. 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. 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

Univers ado

Imaginaire

Mythical Creature

Young Adult Fiction

Animals

Informations

Publié par	Read Books Ltd.
Date de parution	17 juin 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781528787598
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

THE PHOENIX AND THE CARPET
By
E. NESBIT

First published in 1904

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

To my dear Godson, Hubert Griffith and his sister Margaret

Contents
E. Nesbit
CHAPT ER 1. THE EGG
CHAPTER 2. THE T OPLESS TOWER
CHAPTER 3. TH E QUEEN COOK
CHAPTER 4. TWO BAZAARS
CHAPTER 5 . THE TEMPLE
CHAPTER 6 . DOING GOOD
CHAPTER 7. MEWS FROM PERSIA
CHAPTER 8. THE CATS, THE COW, AND THE BURGLAR
CHAPTER 9. THE BUR GLAR’S BRIDE
CHAPTER 10. THE HOLE I N THE CARPET
CHAPTER 11. THE BEGINNIN G OF THE END
CHAPTER 12. THE EN D OF THE END

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.

To Hubert
Dear Hubert, if I ever found A wishing-carpet lying round, I’d stand upon it, and I’d say: ‘Take me to Hubert, right away!’ And then we’d travel very far To where the magic countries are That you and I will never see, And choose the loveliest gifts for you, from me.
But oh! alack! and well-a-day! No wishing-carpets come my way. I never found a Phoenix yet, And Psammeads are so hard to get! So I give you nothing fine— Only this book your book and mine, And hers, whose name by yours is set; Your book, my book, the book of Margaret!
E. Nesbit Dymchurch Sep tember, 1904

CHAPTER 1.
THE EGG
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 jo lly clever.’
Anthea was rummaging in the corner-drawers of her mind for a very disagreeable answer, when she remembered what a wet day it was, and how the boys had been disappointed of that ride to London and back on the top of the tram, which their mother had promised them as a reward for not having once forgotten, for six whole days, to wipe their boots on the mat when they came home from school.
So Anthea only said, ‘Don’t be so jolly clever yourself, Squirrel. And the fireworks look all right, and you’ll have the eightpence that your tram fares didn’t cost to-day, to buy something more with. You ought to get a perfectly lovely Catharine wheel for eightpence.’
‘I daresay,’ said Cyril, coldly; ‘but it’s not YOUR eightpe nce anyhow—’
‘But look here,’ said Robert, ‘really now, about the fireworks. We don’t want to be disgraced before those kids next door. They think because they wear red plush on Sundays no one else i s any good.’
‘I wouldn’t wear plush if it was ever so—unless it was black to be beheaded in, if I was Mary Queen of Scots,’ said Anthea, with scorn.
Robert stuck steadily to his point. One great point about Robert is the steadiness with which h e can stick.
‘I think we ought to test the m,’ he said.
‘You young duffer,’ said Cyril, ‘fireworks are like postage-stamps. You can only use them once.’
‘What do you suppose it means by “Carter’s tested seeds” in the adv ertisement?’
There was a blank silence. Then Cyril touched his forehead with his finger and sho ok his head.
‘A little wrong here,’ he said. ‘I was always afraid of that with poor Robert. All that cleverness, you know, and being top in algebra so often—it’s bou nd to tell—’
‘Dry up,’ said Robert, fiercely. ‘Don’t you see? You can’t TEST seeds if you do them ALL. You just take a few here and there, and if those grow you can feel pretty sure the others will be—what do you call it?—Father told me—“up to sample”. Don’t you think we ought to sample the fire-works? Just shut our eyes and each draw one out, and the n try them.’
‘But it’s raining cats and dogs, ’ said Jane.
‘And Queen Anne is dead,’ rejoined Robert. No one was in a very good temper. ‘We needn’t go out to do them; we can just move back the table, and let them off on the old tea-tray we play toboggans with. I don’t know what YOU think, but I think it’s time we did something, and that would be really useful; because then we shouldn’t just HOPE the fireworks would make those Prossers sit up—we s hould KNOW.’
‘It WOULD be something to do,’ Cyril owned with langu id approval.
So the table was moved back. And then the hole in the carpet, that had been near the window till the carpet was turned round, showed most awfully. But Anthea stole out on tip-toe, and got the tray when cook wasn’t looking, and brought it in and put it ov er the hole.
Then all the fireworks were put on the table, and each of the four children shut its eyes very tight and put out its hand and grasped something. Robert took a cracker, Cyril and Anthea had Roman candles; but Jane’s fat paw closed on the gem of the whole collection, the Jack-in-the-box that had cost two shillings, and one at least of the party—I will not say which, because it was sorry afterwards—declared that Jane had done it on purpose. Nobody was pleased. For the worst of it was that these four children, with a very proper dislike of anything even faintly bordering on the sneakish, had a law, unalterable as those of the Medes and Persians, that one had to stand by the results of a toss-up, or a drawing of lots, or any other appeal to chance, however much one might happen to dislike the way things were turning out.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ said Jane, near tears. ‘I don’t care, I’ll dr aw another—’
‘You know jolly well you can’t,’ said Cyril, bitterly. ‘It’s settled. It’s Medium and Persian. You’ve done it, and you’ll have to stand by it—and us too, worse luck. Never mind. YOU’LL have your pocket-money before the Fifth. Anyway, we’ll have the Jack-in-the-box LAST, and get the most out of it we can.’
So the cracker and the Roman candles were lighted, and they were all that could be expected for the money; but when it came to the Jack-in-the-box it simply sat in the tray and laughed at them, as Cyril said. They tried to light it with paper and they tried to light it with matches; they tried to light it with Vesuvian fusees from the pocket of father’s second-best overcoat that was hanging in the hall. And then Anthea slipped away to the cupboard under the stairs where the brooms and dustpans were kept, and the rosiny fire-lighters that smell so nice and like the woods where pine-trees grow, and the old newspapers and the bees-wax and turpentine, and the horrid an stiff dark rags that are used for cleaning brass and furniture, and the paraffin for the lamps. She came back with a little pot that had once cost sevenpence-halfpenny when it was full of red-currant jelly; but the jelly had been all eaten long ago, and now Anthea had filled the jar with paraffin. She came in, and she threw the paraffin over the tray just at the moment when Cyril was trying with the twenty-third match to light the Jack-in-the-box. The Jack-in-the-box did not catch fire any more than usual, but the paraffin acted quite differently, and in an instant a hot flash of flame leapt up and burnt off Cyril’s eyelashes, and scorched the faces of all four before they could spring back. They backed, in four instantaneous bounds, as far as they could, which was to the wall, and the pillar of fire reached from floor to ceiling.
‘My hat,’ said Cyril, with emotion, ‘You’ve done it this ti me, Anthea.’
The flame was spreading out under the ceiling like the rose of fire in Mr Rider Haggard’s exciting story about Allan Quatermain. Robert and Cyril saw that no time was to be lost. They turned up the edges of the carpet, and kicked them over the tray. This cut off the column of fire, and it disappeared and there was nothing left but smoke and a dreadful smell of lamps that have been tur ned too low.
All hands now rushed to the rescue, and the paraffin fire was only a bundle of trampled carpet, when suddenly a sharp crack beneath their feet made the amateur firemen start bac