The Story of the Amulet. By E. Nesbit. (T. Fisher
Unwin. 6s.)—Here we have what we may call "Alice in Wonderland in excelsis." A. family of children, whose father has gone as a war correspondent, while their mother is on a health voyage, discover a wonderful creature called a Psammead. By his help, together with the amulet which figures in the title, they are transported to various scenes in the past, after the fashion of the King who lived a life while he was dipping his head in a pail of water. They go to pre-dynastic Egypt, when Palaeolithic man was in the Nile Valley ; they see Babylon, whose Queen has an opportunity of expressing her views about social conditions in London ; they see the vanished Atlantis, and Julius Caesar when he was in Britain, and then, by a backward leap, a Pharaoh, one of the special devotees of the Amen-Ha. There are other complications which we have not space to describe, and the general result is a very clever extravaganza, which an intelligent young person will hardly be able to read without acquiring unconsciously, or even against his or her will, a certain amount of knowledge. Miss Nesbit is not new to this kind of writing, and does it very well.
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