The Psammead Trilogy by E. Nesbit
The Psammead Trilogy, written by Edith Nesbit, consists of three interconnected children's stories: *Five Children and It*, *The Phoenix and the Carpet*, and *The Story of the Amulet*. The series follows the adventures of five siblings—Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane, and their baby brother, The Lamb—who encounter magical beings and face the consequences of their wishes. In *Five Children and It*, the children discover a sand-fairy, or Psammead, in a gravel pit, which grants them wishes that last until sundown, leading to both delightful and troublesome outcomes.
The second book, *The Phoenix and the Carpet*, introduces a magical carpet and a Phoenix that takes the children on various escapades, but complications arise from their reckless wishes. In the final installment, *The Story of the Amulet*, the children seek to reunite with their parents using a half-destroyed amulet that allows time travel, leading them on a quest through different historical periods. Throughout the trilogy, themes of childhood curiosity, the impact of desire, and the importance of family and responsibility are explored, making it a celebrated classic in children's literature.
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The Psammead Trilogy
First published:Five Children and It (1905; serial form as The Psammead, The Strand Magazine, 1902), The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904; serial form, The Strand Magazine, 1903-1904), and The Story of the Amulet (1906; serial form, The Strand Magazine, 1905-1906)
Type of work: Novels
Type of plot: Fantasy—Magical Realism
Time of work: About 1902-1903, with excursions to antiquity and the future
Locale: London and Kent, England, and various other locations on Earth
The Plot
The Psammead Trilogy was written as three separate commissioned serials for The Strand Magazine. Although The Story of the Amulet was finished and published last, Edith Nesbit began work on it before The Phoenix and the Carpet. Five Children and It contains eleven adventures that begin when five children (in order by age), Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane, and their baby brother called The Lamb, go to the Kentish countryside for a summer vacation. While exploring an abandoned gravel quarry, the children find a psammead (pronounced Sammy-add) or sand-fairy. The Psammead, a tubby, furry creature with bat’s ears and telescoping eyes, proves capable of granting wishes that last until sundown. A grudging and cantankerous ally at best, soon the Psammead bargains that wishes be restricted to one a day. Among other wishes, the children wish to be as beautiful as the day, to be rich beyond the dreams of avarice, to have wings, to be in a besieged castle, and for The Lamb to be grown up. Each wish, wild and wonderful as its consequences are, proves troublesome and disconcerting. When the most ill-considered wish of all plants burgled jewels in their mother’s bedroom, the children get the Psammead to grant immediately all the wishes needed to set things right in return for their promise to leave him alone and never to ask him for another wish. The Psammead includes in the last wishes Anthea’s polite hope to see him again one day.
The Phoenix and the Carpet takes place the following fall, with the five children back in London. Their new adventures begin when their ruined nursery carpet is replaced with a secondhand Persian carpet in which a phoenix egg is wrapped. When the children accidentally knock the egg into the fireplace, the flames cause it to hatch. The Phoenix informs them that the carpet is, in fact, a magical wishing carpet that can take them anywhere. Accompanied by the vain but agreeable Phoenix, the children wish themselves to a tower in France that contains a hidden treasure, to a southern shore where one cannot possibly have whooping cough, and to a bazaar in India. These adventures also are fraught with difficulties. Worse embarrassments occur when the Phoenix accompanies them around London, especially because, when excited, it is apt to start fires. Furthermore, the children’s hard use of the carpet is causing it to wear out. Precisely when the children decide they must ask the Phoenix to leave, it informs them that a few months with them have been as wearying as its usual five-hundred-year life span. With relief, they grant its request to immolate itself and have the carpet transport itself and the Phoenix’s egg to a place where they will not be found for two thousand years.
The Story of the Amulet is set during the following summer. The children’s father is away working as a war correspondent, and their mother, taking The Lamb with her, has gone to Madeira to recuperate from an illness. The children are staying in London at the home of their old nurse. They find the Psammead caged and up for sale in a pet store. The children rescue him by buying him. He still cannot grant them wishes, but in gratitude, he offers to help them to their hearts’ desire, which is the safe return home of their parents and brother. He directs them to buy a magic amulet in a secondhand shop. The amulet, when whole, grants one’s heart’s desire, but half of it was long ago crushed to dust. The remaining half, however, has the power to take the children through time so that they can look for it in its whole state. The children learn how to pronounce its inscription from Jimmy, a learned gentleman living in rented rooms upstairs. They search for the whole amulet in ancient Egypt, Babylon, Tyre, and England of the future. On a separate quest, they also travel in time to England at the time of Julius Caesar’s invasion. The queen of Babylon, through a wish granted her by the Psammead, visits them in their own time. With the unwitting help of Jimmy and the self-interested help of Rekh-marā, a priest of Amen-Rā, they eventually succeed in finding the amulet. Their hearts’ desire granted, they give the amulet to Jimmy. Jimmy and Rekh-marā also find their hearts’ desire, in great learning.