The Magic City

 

Not the cover of my copy, which is a hardcover without a dust jacket, so it's plain orange -- I chose this one to post because it's the most colourful. The Magic City is unusual in that it's an Edith Nesbit novel that I'd never read, and it's marvellous, up there with the classics like The Phoenix and the Carpet or Five Children and It. 

Philip is upset because his older sister (ahem, mother figure in all but name) is marrying another man, who is fortunately rich and lovely and already has a daughter about Philip's own age. But Philip won't make friends with Lucy and occupies himself with building an enormous model city out of blocks and vases and books and various household objects, which then magically comes to life. Philip and Lucy become trapped there and have to defeat the almighty Destroyer, Lucy's nurse, who wants to pull down the whole fabulous construction. The Destroyer/Pretenderette is ultimately beaten, but she's not a totally unsympathetic figure, pointing out her own rotten experience in being a servant, and unloved, and her fate is not such a terrible one.

The illustrations by H.R. Millar are generally wonderful as usual, except that the two dogs, clearly described in the text as daschunds, are drawn for some reason as dalmatians?? Otherwise this is a lovely old-fashioned escapist fantasy with a comforting happy ending and an appealing pair of protagonists (because of course Lucy turns out to be brave, loyal and much cleverer than Philip, and they end up becoming friends after all). E. Nesbit truly is the master from whom all the rest of us can learn.