This story started so well we regretted not reading this sooner. Edred and Elfrida are orphans and visit their ancestral castle only to learn of a rhyme that if said before your 8th birthday can reveal the missing treasure. Being poor orphans they decide to find the treasure and restore the Arden house to it's former glory.This book starts really well, we love the brother/sister relationship and the way the challenge of being nice to each other for a whole day was unachievable. There was a lovel...

American mid-twentieth-century author Edward Eager was so smitten by Edwardian British author E. Nesbit that, in middle of his classic magical adventures, he would stop the action and encourage his young readers to investigate her books. It was from Nesbit's interlocking tales of time-travel, The House of Arden and Harding's Luck, that he paid homage to Nesbit by playing around with the central premise of the two works, when the adventures of one of his sets of protagonists dovetail with the adv...

A bit convoluted. I am glad to have read this (finally) as it enhances appreciation of the Edward Eager series. Nesbit seems to flit from here to there and all over and would probably be improved with a better over-arching plot. She has her underlying setup of seeking lost treasure and eventually the mechanisms to do time travel, but she could have made better use of characters such as Richard and Betty Lovell, who appear a couple of times, but not consistently. A villain might help to create so...

Not as compelling or well-developed as the Psammead books, but not bad, either. I doubt many kids today would have the patience to get through this; it's been on my bookcase since I was a kid, and now I'm finally getting around to reading it at 33. It's one of the key weaknesses of stories where people go back in time: if the book is around long enough, the "present" of the story seems like an awfully big leap into the past already, and when they go back in time from there it loses a lot of its ...

Much overlooked E. Nesbit series. This is followed by Harding’s Luck. One of my favorites.

There's something intriguing about reading a book that is over 100 years old, and about two children who go back in time, first 100 years from their point in time, then even further back. They see the past in comparison to their 'modern' perspective, whereas from our perspective their present is now 100 years in the past ...She writes that it is hard for us to understand the fear that those who lived in the time of the Napoleonic Wars did - that they could be invaded any day. Our perspective kno...

This is one of E. Nesbit's less well-known books, though I must say I prefer it to, say, "The Treasure-Seekers'.Edred and Elfrida Arden, aged 10 and 12 respectively, find themselves the last heirs of the noble house of Arden, which is a step up from being the children of a seaside lodging house, but not as much of a step up as it might be, given all the Arden lands have long since been sold, and basically what they (or rather Edred) have inherited is a ruined castle and a couple of fields.But th...

A kid's book from the turn of the last century. Nesbit deserves a wider audience a hundred years on, and hopefully this edition from the New York Review of Books will help. Nesbit's slightly ornate style, uncramped by the strictures of Strunk and White, flows beautifully. For best results, read out loud.

If I had to list my favorite books as a child, or even my favorite Childrens Books today, this novel wouldn't make the cut. That said, of all the books I read as a child, this one most influenced my literary preferences. It was the first time travel story I ever read. I was completely fascinated by the Guy Fawkes rhyme being important political intelligence.

Ever after I have been, and will always be, a fan of the genre.

Edred and Elfrida are the last of their line, the proud House of Arden, and are too young to have previously understood the family has fallen on hard times financially. Once they realize it is up to them to find the legendary treasure that will restore the family fortunes, they embark on a series of magical adventures with the help of the dour Mouldiwarp. Along with Harding's Luck, a related novel, these are my favorite Nesbits.