Books with title The Wonderful Toys

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

The Wonderful Garden or The Three Cs is decidedly one of Edith Nesbit’s more obscure children’s novels. The three Cs refer to the main protagonists of the book: idealistic, responsible Caroline; passionate Charlotte, and curious and occasionally sulky Charles, three siblings whose parents are away in India. Thanks to this, the children are shuffled off to a Mysterious Great Uncle Charles (generally called “Uncle” in the book to prevent any confusion), but not before getting a book that might just might be magical, especially when combined with other books: The Language Of.This is not, as you might be and I was hoping, the language of elves, but rather of flowers, that complicated Victorian system of conveying messages in bouquets, something that Nesbit covers with a touch of humor and a certain fierce glee in this book; careful readers might even learn what various flowers supposedly “mean.” But the three Cs are less interested in sending messages, and more interested in working spells.And they have reason to try. On their way to their uncle’s, they meet up with a troubled, sulky boy named Rupert, travelling with his tutor, whose parents are also in India. Rupert is clearly in need of help. As is their uncle, who is trying to finish a book while searching for some lost ones. And an old woman about to be turned out of her home to serve the needs of wealthy weekend visitors, Rupert’s tutor, and a leopard. So the three Cs gather flowers and other plants together (and in one case, mashed potatoes, to serve as “potato”) to weave their spells. ................. the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He is best known for his illustrations of children's books and fantasy literature.......................ith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland; 15 August 1858 – 4 May 1924) was an English author and poet; she published her books for children under the name of E. Nesbit.She wrote or collaborated on more than 60 books of children's literature. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, a socialist organisation later affiliated to the Labour Party. BiographyNesbit was born in 1858 at 38 Lower Kennington Lane in Kennington, Surrey (now classified as Inner London), the daughter of an agricultural chemist, John Collis Nesbit, who died in March 1862, before her fourth birthday.[2] Her sister Mary's ill health meant that the family travelled around for some years, living variously in Brighton, Buckinghamshire, France (Dieppe, Rouen, Paris, Tours, Poitiers, Angoulême, Bordeaux, Arcachon, Pau, Bagnères-de-Bigorre, and Dinan in Brittany), Spain and Germany, before settling for three years at Halstead Hall in Halstead in north-west Kent, a location which later inspired The Railway Children (this distinction has also been claimed by the Derbyshire town of New Mills).[3]When Nesbit was seventeen, the family moved back to London, living in South East London at Eltham, Elswick Road in Lewisham, Grove Park and Lee.At eighteen, Nesbit met the bank clerk Hubert Bland, who was her elder by three years, in 1877. Seven months pregnant, she married Bland on 22 April 1880, though she did not immediately live with him, as Bland initially continued to live with his mother. Their marriage was a tumultuous one. Early on Nesbit discovered that another woman believed she was Hubert's fiancee and had also borne him a child. A more serious blow came later when she discovered that her good friend, Alice Hoatson, was pregnant with Hubert's child. She had previously agreed to adopt Hoatson's child and allow Hoatson to live with her as their housekeeper. After she discovered the truth, they quarrelled violently and she suggested that Hoatson and the baby should leave; her husband threatened to leave Edith if she disowned the baby and its mother. Hoatson remained with them as a housekeeper and secretary and became pregnant by Bland again 13 years later. Edith again adopted Hoatson's child...

It was Caroline’s birthday, and she had had some very pleasant presents. There was a blotting-book of blue leather (at least, it looked like leather), with pink and purple roses painted on it, from her younger sister Charlotte; and a paint-box—from her brother Charles—as good as new. ‘I’ve hardly used it at all,’ he said, ‘and it’s much nicer than anything I could have bought you with my own money, and I’ve wiped all the paints clean.’ ‘It’s lovely,’ said Caroline; ‘and the beautiful brushes, too!’ ‘Real fitch,’ said Charles proudly. ‘They’ve got points like needles.’ ‘Just like,’ said Caroline, putting them one after the other into her mouth, and then holding them up to the light. Besides the paint-box and the blotting-book, a tin-lined case had come from India, with a set of carved chess-men from father, and from mother some red and blue scarves, and, most glorious of imaginable gifts, a leopard-skin.

E. Nesbit, as usual, transports us back to the hazy summer days of a well-to-do Edwardian childhood, liberally spiced with magic, humour and lessons learned. Published exactly 100 years ago, this is one of her least-known children's books, out of print for many years, and with no text available online at the time of recording. Yes, it's dated. Yes, it's politically incorrect. But it is delightful nonetheless. As Gore Vidal once wrote: "...though a reading of E. Nesbit is hardly going to change the pattern of a nation, there is some evidence that the child who reads her will never be quite the same again, and that is probably a good thing

"The Wonderful Garden" tells the story of the Stanmore children, who spend the summer holidays with their Great-Uncle Charles in his beautiful old house. They find out an astonishing and exciting family secret from one of the Great-Uncle's stories - that they have a witch for an ancestor! The kids manage to find a secret book of magic and learn to use all kinds of plants and flowers in spells. They start to make some good luck charms on people around them...