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    The Magic City
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    The Magic City
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    The Magic City
    Ebook217 pages

    The Magic City

    By Edith Nesbit

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

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    About this ebook

    After Philip's older sister and sole family member Helen marries, he goes off to live with his new step sister Lucy. He has trouble adjusting at first, thrown into the world different from his previous life and abandoned by his sister while she is on her honeymoon. To entertain himself he builds a giant model city from things around the house: game pieces, books, blocks, bowls, etc. Then through some magic, he finds himself inside the city, and it is alive with the people he has populated it with.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherInteractive Media
    Release dateMar 12, 2018
    ISBN9781787244818
    Author

    Edith Nesbit

    Edith Nesbit (Londres, 1858-1924) escritora y poetisa que viajó por Inglaterra, España y Francia. Se casó a los 21 años con el político Hubert Bland, con quien tuvo cinco hijos. Su vida fue una continua lucha contra la rectitud victoriana de la época. Es conocida por sus libros para niños llenos de humor y con un estilo innovador que, en ocasiones, desarrolla las aventuras de los protagonistas en una realidad cotidiana con elementos mágicos.

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    Reviews for The Magic City

    4/5

    69 ratings4 reviews

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    • 5/5
      One of my favorite books of all time. Read it when I was around 12 and ten years later I still love it. There's so much imagination and adventure. I would recommend this book to people of any age. Yes, it's a children's book, but it's just too good to miss.
    • 3/5
      My edition had an introduction by Ann A. Flowers in which she states that the book's only significant flaw is that Helen isn't more kind to Philip when she suddenly gets married and leaves on a honeymoon. Well, Flowers ignores a few points of data. 1 - in those days, children were expected to cope better if given less time to dread (think of all the times you've read of a child suddenly being presented with a newborn sibling - didn't they wonder about the mom's belly?). 2 - Helen was swept up in her own fairy tale dream-come-true, her romance with Lucy's father, and may not have been thinking fully clearly. 3 - Lucy is a very nice girl and Philip a whiny brat who would have been fine (during said honeymoon and after) if he'd simply tried to accept her overtures when they first met.

      I believe the flaws are racism, sexism, imperialism, and too much topical slang. I just can't fully enjoy a story in which the only two lions of the kingdom are killed (rather than simply avoided), and in which the strong, smart, and brave girl has to constantly prove she's as capable as the bratty boy, and in which there are far too many references to characters as 'brown savages' etc., and in which there are many words that Nesbit meant to be colloquially appealing but are now difficult, such as 'bunked' for 'chickened out.'

      Otoh, this story is interesting in that it attempts to be somewhat more plausible, giving it more of a science fiction vibe than a fantasy one. And the explanations are charmingly written. For example: We come here when we're too asleep to dream. You go through the dreams and come out on the other side where everything's real. That's here.""
    • 5/5
      One of my absolutely favorite books as a child, partly because like the hero Philip I loved to build cities not only out of toy bricks but out of anything else available. In this story Philip by magic gets into a city he has build, along with a girl, Lucy (namesake and perhaps inspiration of Queen Lucy of Narnia, since C.S. Lewis said the Narnian children were influenced by Nesbit), and --accidentally-- their odious nursemaid. (Philip comes out of the city and has to choose to go back in by tears "Tears are very strong magic." --a line I have always remembered. It is said by Mr. Noah (originally the Noah in a Noah's Ark set, but animated as a wise guide to the children). The city has prophecies of the coming of two mythic figures, the Deliverer and the Destroyer. The Deliverer has a series of deeds to perform to earn the title, which Philip sets out to do, with Lucy's aid (originally they were not friends, but they become so.) The nursemaid also claims the Deliverership, and is known throughout the book as the Pretenderette (to the Claimancy of the Deliverership) , though as is remarked, the Claimancy of the Destroyership is also open.. Spoiler Warning. . Ultimately she calls in the barbarians from Caesar's Gallic Wars (one of the books of which the city is built) to seize power, but is defeated when Philip calls up Caesar himself and his legions. Yet Caesar greets the defeated Pretenderette with respect "I hail, madame, your courage." --part of that ethic of understanding for enemies that runs through Nesbit's work, and impressed me as a child. .There are a lot of other psychologically sophisticated aspects of the story -- Philip's beloved elder sister Helen had marred Lucy's father, a situation he found hard to accept, but he is able to work through it with an encounter with Helen n an island they had invented together which he is finally able to give away.
    • 2/5
      This was a cool book. I liked the ideas in it, and the story was cool.With the exception of /The Book of Dragons/, and her other short fiction, I think I prefer E. Nesbit's fantasy that has a grounding in the real world most. There's a reason for this, though. When she writes in pure fantasy mode, she tends to go faster and introduce more characters more quickly. The adult characters in her pure fantasy stories totally cater to the fantasy settings, as well, and often seem like a part of the child's imagination. The fantasy worlds seem this way, as well—and I guess from what happened, this makes complete sense. This isn't a bad thing necessarily, but it makes it harder for me to follow, and for some reason it doesn't hold my interest quite as much in some parts. I don't think it would be quite the same for a kid, though. Anyway, that aside, I can say I really liked the book. Don't let this dissuade you, though—I did really like the book (I just thought it was a little arduous of a listen).Don't confuse this with /The Magic World/, by E. Nesbit—that book is a collection of short stories; this one is not. Speaking of short stories, E. Nesbit wrote a short story that is very similar to this novel. I forgot which one it was, but it doesn't quite surprise me. She does seem to revisit her ideas once in a while (i.e. compare /The Railroad Children/ with /The Treasure Seekers/). At first, I wasn't so sure that I liked this tendency, but I think I appreciate it a lot more, now.