The Story of the Amulet profits greatly from Nesbit's deep research into ancient civilisations in general and that of ancient Egypt in particular. The book is dedicated to Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, the translator of the Egyptian Book of the Dead and Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities of the British Museum, with whom she met to discuss the history of the ancient Near East while writing the book. The Amulet is sentient and is named Ur Hekau Setcheh; this is a genuine Ancient Egyptian name. The hieroglyphics written on the back of the Amulet are also authentic. Amulet coincidentally appeared the same year as the first instalment of another story involving children viewing different periods of history, Rudyard Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill.
《护身符的故事》的主人公还是《五个孩子和沙地精》里的四个孩子和那个怪物。为什么少了一个孩子呢?因为他们的母亲去外地休养,把最小的小娃娃弟弟带走了。这一回,这四个兄弟姐妹寄住在伦敦一位老保姆家里。有一次,他们在宠物商店偶然遇到了分别一年的沙地精,它正可怜巴巴地等着被卖掉。于是,他们把它救了出来。孩子们希望沙地精能像过去那样实现他们的愿望,让他们的爸爸、妈妈和小弟弟早日回家。可是这回办不到了,因为在《五个孩子和一个怪物》的结尾,当沙地精救他们摆脱困境的时候,他们保证过不再向沙地精提出任何愿望要它实现。沙地精于是介绍他们去买一个有魔法的护身符,没想到买来的护身符只有半个。半个护身符实现不了他们的希望,但可以带他们到任何地方去。于是,他们凭借这半个护身符去寻找另外半个护身符,又开始了他们的历险——回到“过去”。他们去的地方很多,有八千年前的远古埃及和后来的古埃及,有两千五百年前的巴比伦,有早已沉入海底的亚特兰蒂斯,有公元前55年的不列颠和高卢,有以染布闻名于世的古推罗。有一次,他们还到了未来的伦敦……等到他们终于找到完整的护身符, 当然,他们的愿望也就实现了——爸爸、妈妈和小弟弟都回来了。
The Story of the Amulet is a novel for children, written in 1906 by English author Edith Nesbit. At the beginning of this book the children's father, a journalist, has gone overseas to cover the war in Manchuria. Their mother has gone to Madeira to recuperate from an illness, taking with her their younger brother, the Lamb. The children are living with an old Nurse who has set up a boardinghouse in central London. Her only remaining boarder is a scholarly Egyptologist who has filled his bedsit with ancient artefacts. During the course of the book, the children get to know the "poor learned gentleman" and befriend him and call him Jimmy. Cook's house is in Fitzrovia, the district of London near the British Museum, which Nesbit accurately conveys as having bookstalls and shops filled with unusual merchandise. In one of these shops the children find the Psammead. It had been captured by a trapper, who failed to recognise it as a magical being. The terrified creature cannot escape, for it can only grant wishes to others, not to itself. Using a ruse, the children persuade the shopkeeper to sell them the "mangy old monkey," and they free their old friend.
- CHAPTER 1. THE PSAMMEAD
- CHAPTER 2. THE HALF AMULET
- CHAPTER 3. THE PAST
- CHAPTER 4. EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS AGO
- CHAPTER 5. THE FIGHT IN THE VILLAGE
- CHAPTER 6. THE WAY TO BABYLON
- CHAPTER 7. 'THE DEEPEST DUNGEON BELOW THE CASTLE MOAT'
- CHAPTER 8. THE QUEEN IN LONDON
- CHAPTER 9. ATLANTIS
- CHAPTER 10. THE LITTLE BLACK GIRL AND JULIUS CAESAR
- CHAPTER 11. BEFORE PHARAOH
- CHAPTER 12. THE SORRY-PRESENT AND THE EXPELLED LITTLE BOY
- CHAPTER 13. THE SHIPWRECK ON THE TIN ISLANDS
- CHAPTER 14. THE HEART'S DESIRE
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