Other editions of book Puck of Pook's Hill

Puck of Pook's Hill is a fantasy book by Rudyard Kipling, published in 1906, containing a series of short stories set in different periods of English history. It can count both as historical fantasy – since some of the stories told of the past have clear magical elements, and as contemporary fantasy – since it depicts a magical being active and practising his magic in the England of the early 1900s when the book was written.The stories are all narrated to two children living near Burwash, in the High Weald of Sussex, in the area of Kipling's own house Bateman's, by people magically plucked out of history by the elf Puck, or told by Puck himself. (Puck, who refers to himself as "the oldest Old Thing in England", is better known as a character in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream.) The genres of particular stories range from authentic historical novella (A Centurion of the Thirtieth, On the Great Wall) to children's fantasy (Dymchurch Flit). Each story is bracketed by a poem which relates in some manner to the theme or subject of the story.Donald Mackenzie, who wrote the introduction for the Oxford World's Classics edition of Puck of Pook's Hill in 1987, has described this book as an example of archaeological imagination that, in fragments, delivers a look at the history of England, climaxing with the signing of Magna Carta.Puck calmly concludes the series of stories: "Weland gave the Sword, The Sword gave the Treasure, and the Treasure gave the Law. It's as natural as an oak growing."The stories originally appeared in the Strand Magazine in 1906 with illustrations by Claude Allen Shepperson, but the first book-form edition was illustrated by H. R. Millar. Arthur Rackham provided four colour plates for the first US edition. Puck of Pook's Hill was followed four years later by a second volume, Rewards and Fairies, featuring the same children in the following summer.

Puck of Pook's Hill is a fantasy book by Rudyard Kipling, published in 1906, containing a series of short stories set in different periods of English history. It can count both as historical fantasy – since some of the stories told of the past have clear magical elements, and as contemporary fantasy – since it depicts a magical being active and practising his magic in the England of the early 1900s when the book was written.◆ The stories are all narrated to two children living near Burwash, in the area of Kipling's own house Bateman's, by people magically plucked out of history by the elf Puck, or told by Puck himself. (Puck, who refers to himself as "the oldest Old Thing in England", is better known as a character in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream.) The genres of particular stories range from authentic historical novella (A Centurion of the Thirtieth, On the Great Wall) to children's fantasy (Dymchurch Flit). Each story is bracketed by a poem which relates in some manner to the theme or subject of the story.Donald Mackenzie, who wrote the introduction for the Oxford World's Classics edition of Puck of Pook's Hill in 1987, has described this book as an example of archaeological imagination that, in fragments, delivers a look at the history of England, climaxing with the signing of Magna Carta.Puck calmly concludes the series of stories: "Weland gave the Sword, The Sword gave the Treasure, and the Treasure gave the Law. It's as natural as an oak growing."The stories originally appeared in the Strand Magazine in 1906 with illustrations by Claude Allen Shepperson, but the first book-form edition was illustrated by H. R. Millar. Arthur Rackham provided four colour plates for the first US edition. Puck of Pook's Hill was followed four years later by a second volume, Rewards and Fairies, featuring the same children in the following summer.

Published in 1906, Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling is a collection of fantasy tales that take the reader to various ages in history, the only common element being that they all take place in England.The book comes with a framework story – the tales are narrated to Dan and Una, two kids living near Burwash, by an elf called Puck or by people taken by Puck out of history. Puck has extensive knowledge of history because he calls himself the oldest Old Thing in England and being an elf, he is also a master of magic. The stories in the book range from historical accounts, such as On the Great Wall, to fantasy stories for young children, such as the one entitled Dymchurch Flit, and each of them comes framed by a short poem that relates to the story.There are altogether ten stories in the book, the first being told by Puck himself about how pagan gods were worshipped in England. The next few stories are told by a Norman knight, who came to England with William the Conqueror in 1066, then the narration is taken up by Parnesius, a Roman soldier born in Britain. The role of the storyteller returns to Puck in the story before the last to tell the story of how fairies fled Britain during the Reformation and the last story is related by a Jewish doctor who tells the kids about persecution after the Magna Charta was signed in 1215.The stories are compact, educative and entertaining at the same time, real Kipling masterpieces. Whether the story being told is a fairy tale or an account rooted in real events, the storytelling is always vibrant and engaging, making the book highly enjoyable not only for young readers, but for adult readers as well.

The children were at the Theatre, acting to Three Cows as much as they could remember of Midsummer Night’s Dream. Their father had made them a small play out of the big Shakespeare one, and they had rehearsed it with him and with their mother till they could say it by heart. They began where Nick Bottom the weaver comes out of the bushes with a donkey’s head on his shoulder, and finds Titania, Queen of the Fairies, asleep. Then they skipped to the part where Bottom asks three little fairies to scratch his head and bring him honey, and they ended where he falls asleep in Titania’s arms. Dan was Puck and Nick Bottom, as well as all three Fairies. He wore a pointy-eared cloth cap for Puck, and a paper donkey’s head out of a Christmas cracker—but it tore if you were not careful—for Bottom. Una was Titania, with a wreath of columbines and a foxglove wand. The Theatre lay in a meadow called the Long Slip. A little mill-stream, carrying water to a mill two or three fields away, bent round one corner of it, and in the middle of the bend lay a large old fairy Ring of darkened grass, which was their stage. The mill-stream banks, overgrown with willow, hazel, and guelder rose made convenient places to wait in till your turn came; and a grown-up who had seen it said that Shakespeare himself could not have imagined a more suitable setting for his play.