The Enchanted Castle

By: Edith Nesbit

Narrated by: Johanna Ward

"I'm going to believe in magic as hard as I can," said Gerald firmly when they found the beautiful garden with its lake, its yew hedges, and its roses. After which it seemed only natural to find a princess lying asleep in this enchanted place, and for Jimmy to wake her with a kiss (Gerald having declined that honor with some disgust).

"I haven't had anything to eat for a hundred years," said the Princess, whose name was Mabel, and she invited them into her castle to share her repast, though strangely enough the only food she could offer was bread and cheese and water! Next she led them to her treasure chamber and showed them all her jewels, removing their last lingering doubts of the magic by putting on a ring of invisibility - and promptly disappearing!

(P)1993 by Blackstone Audiobooks

A wonderful discovery, give it a chance!

I am so glad that I decided to purchase this book! It was a wonderfully delightful story that will now be included with my favorite classics such as C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series. The story is full of fun and humor as you follow the misadventures of four children and a magic ring. The Narrator is also particularly good and did a perfectly wonderful job telling the story.

meh

struggled to finsh this one. normally I do my best to finsh a series or a single novel before casting a judgement. I just couldn't stay intrested in this one.

Favorite book in the world!! I love it!

I love it lots I love it lots I love it lots I love it lots I love it lots I love it because it's so nice!

Wonderful!

What made the experience of listening to The Enchanted Castle the most enjoyable?

Just loved this book and the narration is wonderful. My 5 and 7 year old children enjoyed this book.

An E Nesbit classic!

performance is exceptional! the characters come alive with Johanna ward's excellent narration. worth every penny

Delightful!

This whole story was magical, sweet, and full of hilarious moments. I loved the reader and absolutely everything she brought to the story! The children are so adorable!

A Comical, Scary, Sublime, and Imperfect Fantasy

The heroes of E. Nesbitt’s fantasy novel The Enchanted Castle (1907), Gerald (Jerry), Kathleen (Kathy/Cat), and James (Jimmy) are three British West Country siblings who go to unisex boarding schools and can only meet on the weekends at some house where they can't play (“You know the kind of house” says the narrator). Luckily one thing leads to another, and the boys get to spend the holiday at Kathleen's girls’ school in Littlesby while all the other girls are gone. The kids are wanting an adventure—Kathleen even suggests writing a book, but the boys refuse that fatiguing work—when out hunting caves in the woods they stumble upon (and into) one that leads to what appears to be an enchanted castle with an enchanted garden with an enchanted princess lying there waiting to be kissed awake. Princess, garden, and castle all turn out to be not exactly enchanted in the way the kids (and reader) were expecting.

The ensuing plot has the kids making a good new friend in Mabel Prowse, the daughter of the housekeeper of Yalding Towers, the estate the kids found, and getting to know through increasingly fraught trial and error the properties of what turns out to be a tricky magic ring. Is it a ring of invisibility? Or a wishing ring? Or whatever one wants it to be? Like certain other later more famous magic rings, this one has a tendency to drop off your finger at unexpected moments and to seduce you into using it the wrong way.

**You can see the influence Nesbit must have had on C. S. Lewis here: two boys and two girls having fantastic adventures driven by magical artifacts, marked by the interface between the “real” world and fantasy, and flavored by pagan deities (though Nesbitt blessedly is not writing Christian allegory).

There’s lots of fantasy in the novel! Comedy scenes, like Gerald disguising himself in brown-face to become an India Indian conjurer at the town fair (this is offensive today). Disturbing horror developments, as when an audience fashioned from coats, pillows, broomsticks, and hats comes to life as “Ugly-Wuglies,” or as when to prove a point Mabel (foolishly!) wishes the ring made people four yards tall, or as when Kathleen (foolishly!) wishes she could be a statue, or as when James (foolishly!) wishes he were rich. Interspersed through the disturbing moments shine sublime ones, like a celestial picnic featuring animated statues of pagan gods and a moment of total revelation and understanding outside time and space and without need of words, when it seems “that the whole world lay like a magic apple in the hand of each listener and that the whole world was good and beautiful.”

Throughout all of the fantasy, Nesbit runs her “realism,” which involves giving plenty of money and food details, demystifying or mundaning certain fantasy elements (like sleeping beauties and enchanted castles) while freshly and imaginatively utilizing others (like magic rings), and frequently addressing her readers to for instance challenge them to do things like make their own Ugly-Wuglies to see how scary they can really be and generally to pose as a real person who’d met the siblings and gotten their story from them (she archly tells us that she believes everything she’s been told, including the story we’re reading). She also uses relatable similes, like “... looking as unreal as the wrong answer to a sum in long division.” And she has her kids use then current British slang, like “I've had a rum dream,” and “What a ripping book!” and refer to then popular literature like Sherlock Holmes.

She also inserts at one point an American millionaire who, suitably, likes saying “great” and shooting his gun (which he lovingly carries on his person).

Gerald is a neat character, good at currying favor with adults by being attentive and polite to them, a natural born general who takes charge of the other kids and bucks them up when their morale flags, an articulate lad who likes narrating their activities as though he’s the narrator of an adventure novel as well as its hero, with the other kids being his minions. The other kids are not as interesting but still individual enough. There are points where they do unbelievably stupid and out of character (the kids are anything but stupid) things with the ring to create suspenseful complications.

Johanna Ward gives a fine reading of the Audiobook.

Unfortunately, Nesbit shoves into the story an unconvincing and excrescent fairy tale-like romance involving the French governess “Mademoiselle” who’s supposedly keeping an eye on the kids during their holidays. And, like Gerald posing as an Indian conjurer, some things don’t wear well today, as in lines like, “Even though you’re French you must know that British gentlemen always keep their word.”

But the novel is worth reading for psychologically interesting and true moments like when the kids reveal their awareness that grownups play with them to please them without knowing that kids play with them to please them, and for some potent fantasy writing, like this:

"There is a curtain, thin as gossamer, clear as glass, strong as iron, that hangs forever between the world of magic and the world that seems to us to be real. And when once people have found one of the little weak spots in that curtain which are marked by magic rings, and amulets and the like, almost anything may happen."

And like this:

“The two little girls kissed in the kind darkness, where the visible and the invisible could meet on equal terms.”

Enchanting indeed

This is a classic tale of magic and adventure mixed with ordinary life of late 19th century children. It is very much of the time when it was written, but is nevertheless charming and occasionally spooky as well.

Beautiful Children’s Tale

Very creative and entertaining story that is sure to delight your kids (and you)! Nicely recorded and easy to follow.

better than most fairy tales

probably good bedtime reading for young readers. moral lessons and all. some scary parts but quickly resolved.