The Phoenix and the Carpet

The children find an egg in the nursery carpet, hatch a Phoenix in the fire, and learn that the carpet grants three wishes a day — which is enough for a French tower, a treasure island, a burglary and a cow in a lecture hall. Nesbit wrote the middle book of the Psammead trilogy for a magazine, a chapter a month, and the deadline shows in the best possible way. The Phoenix is the most conceited creature in English children's books and knows it. Fifty-two plates from Wilkie to Cassatt, 1812 to 1907, gather the children at play and at the hearthside, the domestic world the carpet quietly overturns.