Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards 35 min read

'Once upon a time, and a good time it was, there lived a king,' whose kingdom lay somewhere between Ashantee and Holland; so begins a garland of whimsical nonsense tales for children.

Laura E. Richards's 1885 collection gathers charming, funny fairy tales by a beloved children's author. Playful, musical, delightfully absurd. Read it for a treasury of genial nonsense, the golden-breasted kootoo, Hokey Pokey, an ambitious rocking-horse, from the author famed for 'Eletelephony' and her gift for happy silliness.

In its time

Published in 1885, during the 1880s, lost races and dying earths.

Reading it

35 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Edmund H. Garrett