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With their father, mother, and youngest brother all overseas, siblings Robert, Anthea, Cyril, and Jane find themselves living with an old woman at a boarding house in London. When they purchase an ancient Egyptian amulet, they hatch a plan to bring their family back together. The Story of the Amulet is the final book in Edith Nesbit’s beloved Psammead Trilogy.
About the author
Edith Nesbit (1858-1924) was an English writer of children’s literature. Born in Kennington, Nesbit was raised by her mother following the death of her father—a prominent chemist—when she was only four years old. Due to her sister Mary’s struggle with tuberculosis, the family travelled throughout England, France, Spain, and Germany for years. After Mary passed, Edith and her mother returned to England for good, eventually settling in London where, at eighteen, Edith met her future husband, a bank clerk named Hubert Bland. The two—who became prominent socialists and were founding members of the Fabian Society—had a famously difficult marriage, and both had numerous affairs. Nesbit began her career as a poet, eventually turning to children’s literature and publishing around forty novels, story collections, and picture books. A contemporary of such figures of Lewis Carroll and Kenneth Grahame, Nesbit was notable as a writer who pioneered the children’s adventure story in fiction. Among her most popular works are The Railway Children (1906) and The Story of the Amulet (1906), the former of which was adapted into a 1970 film, and the latter of which served as a profound influence on C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series. A friend and mentor to George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells, Nesbit’s work has inspired and entertained generations of children and adults, including such authors as J.K. Rowling, Noël Coward, and P.L. Travers.
Summary
The Story of the Amulet(1906) is a children’s fantasy novel by English writer Edith Nesbit. The final book in Nesbit’s beloved Psammead Trilogy—which also includes Five Children and It (1902) and The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904)—The Story of the Amulet is a tale of time travel, adventure, and the power of imagination. Described by American critic Gore Vidal as “a story of considerable beauty,” The Story of the Amulet follows a group of children who use the powers of an Egyptian artifact to travel through time in order to bring their family back together.Siblings Robert, Anthea, Cyril, and Jane live in central London with an old Nurse named Mrs. Green and her boarder, an Egyptologist named Jimmy. Their father, a war correspondent, has traveled to Manchuria for work, while their mother has taken their youngest brother to the Madeira islands off the coast of Portugal in order to recover from an illness. One day, the children go to the markets near the British Museum, where strange and rare objects are sold daily. There, they find their old friend “It,” the sand fairy known as the Psammead, who has been captured and is up for sale as an exotic monkey. The children free It, who advises them to purchase a magical Egyptian amulet with the power of time travel. Hoping to use the amulet to reunite their family, the children journey across time to such places as Babylon, Egypt, Tyre, and ancient England in search of the missing piece that will allow them to fulfill their wish.Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book. With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.
