The kids from Five Children and It are back, and so is "It," their magical friend. While poking around a Camden Town pet shop, Robert, Anthea, Cyril, and Jane reencounter It, who directs them to half of a powerful amulet that will allow them to travel through time. If the children can find the other half, the amulet will grant their heart's desire: the safe return of their parents and baby brother from abroad. So begins a series of fantastical journeys that transport the kids from Edwardian London to ancient Egypt, the lost island of Atlantis, and a utopian future. They meet a Babylonian queen, who returns with them to the present to reclaim her property from the British Museum, and they chat with Julius Caesar, who's contemplating his invasion of Britain. Generations of readers have fallen under the spell of E. Nesbit's witty tales of supernatural adventures, and The Story of the Amulet continues to enchant readers of all ages. Edith Nesbit wrote more than 40 books for children, several of which have been adapted many times for film, including Five Children and It and The Railway Children . She is best known for her collections and re-tellings of classics such as Stories from Shakespeare for Young Readers , also available from Dover. The Story of the Amulet By E. Nesbit, H. R. Millar Dover Publications, Inc. Copyright © 2018 E. Nesbit All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-486-82251-8 Contents 1. The Psammead, 1, 2. The Half Amulet, 20, 3. The Past, 36, 4. Eight Thousand Years Ago, 51, 5. The Fight in the Village, 72, 6. The Way to Babylon, 91, 7. "The Deepest Dungeon Below the Castle Moat", 112, 8. The Queen in London, 136, 9. Atlantis, 164, 10. The Little Black Girl and Julius Cæsar, 188, 11. Before Pharaoh, 210, 12. The Sorry-Present and the Expelled Little Boy, 237, 13. The Shipwreck on the Tin Islands, 264, 14. The Heart's Desire, 287, CHAPTER 1 THE PSAMMEAD There were once four children who spent their summer holidays in a white house, happily situated between a sandpit and a chalkpit. One day they had the good fortune to find in the sandpit a strange creature. Its eyes were on long horns like snail's eyes, and it could move them in and out like telescopes. It had ears like a bat's ears, and its tubby body was shaped like a spider's and covered with thick soft fur — and it had hands and feet like a monkey's. It told the children — whose names were Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane — that it was a Psammead or sand-fairy. (Psammead is pronounced Sammy-ad.) It was old, old, old, and its birthday was almost at the very beginning of everything. And it had been buried in the sand for thousands of years. But it still kept its fairylikeness, and part of this fairy-likeness was its power to give people whatever they wished for. You know fairies have always been able to do this. Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane now found their wishes come true; but, somehow, they never could think of just the right things to wish for, and their wishes sometimes turned out very oddly indeed. In the end their unwise wishings landed them in what Robert called "a very tight place indeed," and the Psammead consented to help them out of it in return for their promise never never to ask it to grant them any more wishes, and never to tell any one about it, because it did not want to be bothered to give wishes to any one ever any more. At the moment of parting Jane said politely — "I wish we were going to see you again some day." And the Psammead, touched by this friendly thought, granted the wish. The book about all this is called "Five Children and It," and it ends up in a most tiresome way by saying — "The children did see the Psammead again, but it was not in the sandpit; it was — but I must say no more —" The reason that nothing more could be said was that I had not then been able to find out exactly when and where the children met the Psammead again. Of course I knew they would meet it, because it was always a beast of its word, and when it said a thing would happen, that thing happened without fail. How different from the people who tell us about what weather it is going to be on Thursday next, in London, the South Coast, and Channel! The summer holidays during which the Psammead had been found and the wishes given had been wonderful holidays in the country, and the children had the highest hopes of just such another holiday for the next summer. The winter holidays were beguiled by the wonderful happenings of "The Pheonix and the Carpet," and the loss of these two treasures would have left the children in despair, but for the splendid hope of their next holiday in the country. The world, they felt, and indeed had some reason to feel, was full of wonderful things — and they were really the sort of people that wonderful things happen to. So they looked forward to the summer holiday; but when it came everything was different, and very, very horrid. Father had to go out to Manchuria to