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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“Dreams, dreams!” he said; “old age is full of them!”
“You’ve been in dreams with us before now,” said Robert, “don’t you remember?”
“I do, indeed,” said he. The room had many more books than the Fitzroy Street room, and far more curious and wonderful Assyrian and Egyptian objects. “The most wonderful dreams I ever had had you in them.”
“Where,” asked Cyril, “did you get that thing in your hand?”
“If you weren’t just a dream,” he answered, smiling, “you’d remember that you gave it to me.”
“But where did we get it?” Cyril asked eagerly.
“Ah, you never would tell me that,” he said, “You always had your little mysteries. You dear children! What a difference you made to that old Bloomsbury house! I wish I could dream you oftener. Now you’re grown up you’re not like you used to be.”
“Grown up?” said Anthea.
The learned gentleman pointed to a frame with four photographs in it.
“There you are,” he said.
The children saw four grown-up people’s portraits—two ladies, two gentlemen—and looked on them with loathing.
“Shall we grow up like that?” whispered Jane. “How perfectly horrid!”
“If we’re ever like that, we shan’t know it’s horrid, I expect,” Anthea with some insight whispered back. “You see, you get used to yourself while you’re changing. It’s—it’s being so sudden makes it seem so frightful now.”
The learned gentleman was looking at them with wistful kindness. “Don’t let me undream you just yet,” he said. There was a pause.
“Do you remember when we gave you that Amulet?” Cyril asked suddenly.
“You know, or you would if you weren’t a dream, that it was on the 3rd December, 1905. I shall never forget that day.”
“Thank you,” said Cyril, earnestly; “oh, thank you very much.”
“You’ve got a new room,” said Anthea, looking out of the window, “and what a lovely garden!”
“Yes,” said he, “I’m too old now to care even about being near the Museum. This is a beautiful place. Do you know—I can hardly believe you’re just a dream, you do look so exactly real. Do you know …” his voice dropped, “I can say it to you, though, of course, if I said it to anyone that wasn’t a dream they’d call me mad; there was something about that Amulet you gave me—something very mysterious.”
“There was that,” said Robert.
“Ah, I don’t mean your pretty little childish mysteries about where you got it. But about the thing itself. First, the wonderful dreams I used to have, after you’d shown me the first half of it! Why, my book on Atlantis, that I did, was the beginning of my fame and my fortune, too. And I got it all out of a dream! And then, ‘Britain at the Time of the Roman Invasion’—that was only a pamphlet, but it explained a lot of things people hadn’t understood.”
“Yes,” said Anthea, “it would.”
“That was the beginning. But after you’d given me the whole of the Amulet—ah, it was generous of you!—then, somehow, I didn’t need to theorize, I seemed to know about the old Egyptian civilization. And they can’t upset my theories”—he rubbed his thin hands and laughed triumphantly—“they can’t, though they’ve tried. Theories, they call them, but they’re more like—I don’t know—more like memories. I know I’m right about the secret rites of the Temple of Amen.”
“I’m so glad you’re rich,” said Anthea. “You weren’t, you know, at Fitzroy Street.”
“Indeed I wasn’t,” said he, “but I am now. This beautiful house and this lovely garden—I dig in it sometimes; you remember, you used to tell me to take more exercise? Well, I feel I owe it all to you—and the Amulet.”
“I’m so glad,” said Anthea, and kissed him. He started.
“That didn’t feel like a dream,” he said, and his voice trembled.
“It isn’t exactly a dream,” said Anthea softly, “it’s all part of the Amulet—it’s a sort of extra special, real dream, dear Jimmy.”
“Ah,” said he, “when you call me that, I know I’m dreaming. My little sister—I dream of her sometimes. But it’s not real like this. Do you remember the day I dreamed you brought me the Babylonish ring?”
“We remember it all,” said Robert. “Did you leave Fitzroy Street because you were too rich for it?”
“Oh, no!” he said reproachfully. “You know I should never have done such a thing as that. Of course, I left when your old Nurse died and—what’s the matter!”
“Old Nurse dead?” said Anthea. “Oh, no!”
“Yes, yes, it’s the common lot. It’s a long time ago now.”
Jane held up the Amulet in a hand that twittered.
“Come!” she cried, “oh, come home! She may be dead before we get there, and then we can’t give it to her. Oh, come!”
“Ah, don’t let the dream end now!” pleaded the learned gentleman.
“It must,” said Anthea firmly, and kissed him again.
“When it comes to people dying,” said Robert, “goodbye! I’m so glad you’re rich and famous and happy.”
“Do come!” cried Jane, stamping in her agony of impatience.
And they went. Old Nurse brought in tea almost as soon as they were back in Fitzroy Street. As she came in with the tray, the girls rushed at her and nearly upset her and it.
“Don’t die!” cried Jane, “oh, don’t!” and Anthea cried, “Dear, ducky, darling old Nurse, don’t die!”
“Lord, love you!” said Nurse, “I’m not agoing to die yet a while, please Heaven! Whatever on earth’s the matter with the chicks?”
“Nothing. Only don’t!”
She put the tray down and hugged the girls in turn. The boys thumped her on the back with heartfelt affection.
“I’m as well as ever I was in my life,” she said. “What nonsense about dying! You’ve been a sitting too long in the dusk, that’s what it is. Regular blind man’s holiday. Leave go of me, while I light the gas.”
The yellow light illuminated four pale faces.
“We do love you so,” Anthea went on, “and we’ve made you a picture to show you how we love you. Get it out, Squirrel.”
The glazed testimonial was dragged out from under the
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