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The Magic Fishbone

Downloads: Under 100
First published: 1868
Pages: 19

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About this book

Royal titles do little to ease the household worries of King Watkins the First. His nineteen children need clothes, his pay is still far off, and Princess Alicia, the eldest, keeps the family going. After a visit to the fishmonger, the king meets Fairy Grandmarina, who tells him that a fishbone from Alicia's supper will grant one wish at the right moment. Yet when the queen falls ill, Alicia turns first to ordinary acts of care.

Charles Dickens presents this humorous fairy tale as a story written by seven-year-old Alice Rainbird. Its palace has the troubles of a crowded family home: meals to prepare, younger children to comfort and very little help. Alicia confides in a doll she regards as a duchess, while her father puzzles over her unused gift. Her practical resourcefulness and the narrator's playful repetitions give readers an account of responsibility, imagination and patience.

About the author

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English writer and journalist. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius.