The Story of the Amulet by E. Nesbit (important books to read txt) 📕
Description
In this conclusion to the Psammead Trilogy, Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane are reunited with the cantankerous Sand-fairy. While the old creature can’t grant them wishes anymore, it points them towards an old Egyptian amulet that can grant their hearts’ desire—in this case the return of their parents and baby brother. While their amulet is only half of a whole, it still acts as a time portal which they use to visit locales like Ancient Egypt, Babylon, Atlantis, and even a utopian future in search of the missing other half.
Perhaps one of E. Nesbit’s most personal works, The Story of the Amulet benefited from her interest in the ancient world, particularly Egypt. With the help of A. E. Wallis Budge, to whom the book is dedicated—then Head of the Assyrian Departments of the British Museum and translator of the Egyptian Book of the Dead—she conducted extensive research on the topic and is thus able to bring an exquisite attention to detail. For example, the titular amulet is shaped after the tyet, an Egyptian symbol also known as the “knot of Isis.” Likewise, the inscription at the back of the amulet is written in authentic Egyptian hieroglyphs.
A staunch supporter of democratic socialism and a founding member of the Fabian Society, E. Nesbit cultivated friendships with other like-minded writers, such as George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, whose influence on this book is easy to notice. She practiced what she preached, so much so that despite her literary successes, her acts of charity brought her close to bankruptcy.
These political beliefs are prominently displayed in the book. The children encounter memorable characters during their adventures, chief among them the Queen of Babylon, who causes quite a stir when she later pays them a call in their contemporary London. When the visiting Queen witnesses the squalid living conditions of the London working class, she’s amazed at how poorly they’re treated compared to the slaves of her own Babylon. Likewise, the utopian future—which features a wink to her friend H. G. Wells, the “great reformer”—is a striking contrast in terms of the happiness, care, and education of the general populace.
The book’s legacy can be found in the works of other writers. Most notably, C. S. Lewis incorporated several elements in his Chronicles of Narnia: the Calormene civilization of The Horse and His Boy draws heavily from The Amulet’s Babylon, and the episode in The Magician’s Nephew where Jadis, the White Witch, causes chaos during her short stay in London is also a direct homage to the aforementioned visit from the Queen. The format of these stories, where a group of people take their audience on adventures through time and space to learn about distant cultures, is an uncanny precursor to the popular British TV series Doctor Who.
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- Author: E. Nesbit
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“These are your folk,” said the headman, turning suddenly and angrily on Cyril, “you came as spies for them.”
“We did not,” said Cyril indignantly. “We wouldn’t be spies for anything. I’m certain these people aren’t a bit like us. Are they now?” he asked the runner.
“No,” was the answer. “These men’s faces were darkened, and their hair black as night. Yet these strange children, maybe, are their gods, who have come before to make ready the way for them.”
A murmur ran through the crowd.
“No, no,” said Cyril again. “We are on your side. We will help you to guard your sacred things.”
The headman seemed impressed by the fact that Cyril knew that there were sacred things to be guarded. He stood a moment gazing at the children. Then he said—
“It is well. And now let all make offering, that we may be strong in battle.”
The crowd dispersed, and nine men, wearing antelope-skins, grouped themselves in front of the opening in the hedge in the middle of the village. And presently, one by one, the men brought all sorts of things—hippopotamus flesh, ostrich-feathers, the fruit of the date palms, red chalk, green chalk, fish from the river, and ibex from the mountains; and the headman received these gifts. There was another hedge inside the first, about a yard from it, so that there was a lane inside between the hedges. And every now and then one of the headmen would disappear along this lane with full hands and come back with hands empty.
“They’re making offerings to their Amulet,” said Anthea. “We’d better give something too.”
The pockets of the party, hastily explored, yielded a piece of pink tape, a bit of sealing-wax, and part of the Waterbury watch that Robert had not been able to help taking to pieces at Christmas and had never had time to rearrange. Most boys have a watch in this condition.
They presented their offerings, and Anthea added the red roses.
The headman who took the things looked at them with awe, especially at the red roses and the Waterbury-watch fragment.
“This is a day of very wondrous happenings,” he said. “I have no more room in me to be astonished. Our maiden said there was peace between you and us. But for this coming of a foe we should have made sure.”
The children shuddered.
“Now speak. Are you upon our side?”
“Yes. Don’t I keep telling you we are?” Robert said. “Look here. I will give you a sign. You see this.” He held out the toy pistol. “I shall speak to it, and if it answers me you will know that I and the others are come to guard your sacred thing—that we’ve just made the offerings to.”
“Will that god whose image you hold in your hand speak to you alone, or shall I also hear it?” asked the man cautiously.
“You’ll be surprised when you do hear it,” said Robert. “Now, then.” He looked at the pistol and said—
“If we are to guard the sacred treasure within”—he pointed to the hedged-in space—“speak with thy loud voice, and we shall obey.”
He pulled the trigger, and the cap went off. The noise was loud, for it was a two-shilling pistol, and the caps were excellent.
Every man, woman, and child in the village fell on its face on the sand.
The headman who had accepted the test rose first.
“The voice has spoken,” he said. “Lead them into the anteroom of the sacred thing.”
So now the four children were led in through the opening of the hedge and round the lane till they came to an opening in the inner hedge, and they went through an opening in that, and so passed into another lane.
The thing was built something like this, and all the hedges were of brushwood and thorns:
“It’s like the maze at Hampton Court,” whispered Anthea.
The lanes were all open to the sky, but the little hut in the middle of the maze was round-roofed, and a curtain of skins hung over the doorway.
“Here you may wait,” said their guide, “but do not dare to pass the curtain.” He himself passed it and disappeared.
“But look here,” whispered Cyril, “some of us ought to be outside in case the Psammead turns up.”
“Don’t let’s get separated from each other, whatever we do,” said Anthea. “It’s quite bad enough to be separated from the Psammead. We can’t do anything while that man is in there. Let’s all go out into the village again. We can come back later now we know the way in. That man’ll have to fight like the rest, most likely, if it comes to fighting. If we find the Psammead we’ll go straight home. It must be getting late, and I don’t much like this mazy place.”
They went out and told the headman that they would protect the treasure when the fighting began. And now they looked about them and were
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