The Box of Delights

First published in 1935, this children's novel follows Kay Harker, home from school for Christmas, who meets the travelling showman Cole Hawlings, keeper of a magical box that can make its holder swift or small and open a way into the past. The magician Abner Brown and his gang hunt the box, kidnapping clergy and watching Kay's house, Seekings. Kay moves between a snowbound English village, a hidden wolf-run, and earlier centuries. Friends from school and the local police try to keep ordinary Christmas going. The book is a seasonal quest story, not a realistic school novel.

Bound in green pictorial cloth with red title to spine. Red endpapers. Dark green slipcase.