The 13 Clocks
By James Thurber Illustrated by Marc Simont Introduction by Neil Gaiman
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Online price: £9.99
This title is currently availableHardback, 128pp Published: 7th May 2009 Category: Fiction 10+ Interest age, years: From 7 To 10
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A wonderful folk-fairy tale construction telling of a duke and a conundrum over time with witty twists and turns. - School Librarian
Thurber's coinages for sound-effects, the eccentric logic of the characters' deductions, and the slipping in and out of rhyme all make the story ask to be read aloud, promising great fun for both adult and child readers. - Carousel
Profound, witty and terrific to read aloud. - Irish Post
An unequivocal children's classic. Exquisitely resurrected by the New York Review Children's Collection, this attractive facsimile is a rare treat. Written in the true tradition of fairy tales, it features a handsome hero, an outrageously barbarous villain, an enigmatic henchman, and a captive princess. James Thurber's audacious and lyrical writing is a complete joy to read aloud. Not to be missed. - Bookseller
The 13 Clocks is James Thurber's sublimely revamped fairy tale, in which a wicked Duke who imagines he has killed time, and the Duke's beautiful niece, for whom time seems to have run out, both meet their match, courtesy of an enterprising and very handsome prince in disguise. Readers young and old will take pleasure in this tale of love forestalled but ultimately fulfilled, admiring its upstanding hero ("He yearned to find in a far land the princess of his dreams, singing as he went, and possibly slaying a dragon here and there") and unapologetic villain ("We all have flaws," the Duke said. "Mine is being wicked"), while wondering at the enigmatic Golux, the mysterious stranger whose unpredictable interventions speed the story to its necessarily happy end.
128 pages
