The Box of Delights by John Masefield

First published: 1935; illustrated

Type of work: Fantasy

Themes: Crime, nature, and the supernatural

Time of work: 1935, the Christmas season

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: West-central England

Principal Characters:

• Kay Harker, an adventurous, imaginative orphan, who is entrusted with the box of delights
• Cole Hawlings, a traveling showman in possession of the box, who is really a medieval philosopher
• Ramon Lully, ,
• Abner Brown, a director of a theological college, who is really an evil magician
• Peter Jones, one of the Jones children visiting Kay for Christmas, who accompanies Kay on several adventures
• Arnold of Todi, inventor of the box, a medieval philosopher who is lost in the past through use of the box
• Herne the Hunter, a benevolent nature spirit advising Kay
• A Lady, a maternal nature spirit guiding Kay

The Story

In The Box of Delights, wolves, human and animal, are revealed to be roaming the English countryside. Kay Harker, headed home by train to Seekings House for Christmas, hears of them from a mysterious but kindly old Punch and Judy showman who entrusts Kay with a message. Kay must find a woman wearing a strange ring and tell her that “the wolves are running.” After delivering this message, Kay joins the Jones children at Seekings. They invite the old showman to entertain them that evening. Following the showman’s magical display, the Bishop of Tatchester Cathedral arrives with carolers and invites them all to an entertainment at the bishop’s palace. Strangers appear searching for the showman, who magically escapes into a landscape painting on the wall after assuring Kay that they will meet again.

That evening while returning home, Kay encounters Abner Brown and part of his gang disguised as clergymen. Eavesdropping, Kay learns that this evil magician is pursuing a showman, Cole Hawlings, who carries a magic box that Abner Brown greatly desires. Later that night, Kay magically journeys to an ancient earthwork, Arthur’s Camp, and finds himself in ancient Britain, where Cole Hawlings and inhabitants of a walled settlement counter an attack by wolves. Hawlings entrusts Kay with the “Box of Delights,” which allows one to “go swift,” “go small,” and enter the past.

The following day, Kay and Peter Jones go to Arthur’s Camp and witness the showman’s abduction by four men in a mysterious airplane. Later, aided by the box and a helpful mouse, Kay spies on Abner Brown, learning that the magician poses as the head of a nearby theological college. That evening at the bishop’s party, jewels are stolen from the palace. Kay’s guardian, Caroline Louisa, and later the bishop and others connected with the cathedral begin disappearing, kidnapped by Brown, who believes that one of them possesses knowledge of the box’s whereabouts.

Kay and Peter Jones investigate the theological college in the Chester Hills, and Peter is there captured by the magician’s gang. Returning later assisted by the box, Kay learns much: The gang’s captives are imprisoned in caves beneath the college; Cole Hawlings is really the medieval philosopher Ramon Lully, discoverer of the elixir vitae; the box belongs to another philosopher, Arnold of Todi, who used it to enter the past where he became lost. Having gained this information, Kay uses the box to recover Arnold from the past, bringing him to modern England to reclaim his invention. Kay returns to the college, discovering Abner, whose occult servants have predicted that he will soon possess the box, preparing to depart after flooding the caves to destroy his captives. With help from Cole Hawlings’ powers, the captives are freed, the box is saved, and Abner Brown is drowned in the flood. Kay and the freed prisoners are taken swiftly by magic sleighs to the cathedral in time for midnight Christmas service. As the choir sings a carol, Kay awakes in the train. It has all been a dream.

Context

The Box of Delights is the sequel to Masefield’s other fantasy novel, The Midnight Folk (1927), in which several of its main characters, most notably Kay Harker and Abner Brown, are first introduced. Like its predecessor, The Box of Delights is marked by profuse imaginative flights; an eclectic use of history, adventure, mystery, and the supernatural; and a blending of dream and reality, illusion and truth. In this second fantasy, however, the obliteration of distinctions between dream and reality is halted by Masefield’s somewhat conventional employment of an ending in which Kay discovers his entire adventure to have been a dream.

Both Masefield’s fantasies occupy a position of influence in the twentieth century evolution of this genre. Newbery Medal winner Susan Cooper has noted the influences of The Box of Delights upon her imaginative development. Such influence is particularly evident in The Dark Is Rising (1973), where Cooper dramatically employs the imagery of winter and enlists the folklore of Windsor Forest in an impressive evocation of Herne the Hunter. Author Joan Aiken has also acknowledged the influence of Masefield’s fantasies, which she notes as having provided her with a sense of mystery essential to the best children’s literature. The wolves in Aiken’s The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (1962) are none too distant relations of those that run, mysterious and threatening, through Kay Harker’s adventures.

As an exhilarating novel of adventure, The Box of Delights, like its earlier companion piece, is imbued with much of the characteristically vigorous spirit of Masefield’s other novels. Moreover, Kay is a member of a family first established in Masefield’s Sard Harker (1924) and Odtaa (1926). Like these and others of Masefield’s adventure novels, The Box of Delights possesses what admirers of Masefield have most often valued in his work: sturdy and confident encounters with danger and an energetic reverence for the value of life.