The Children's Book (2009) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Characters/People edit see section history

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• Olive Wellwood: Successful authoress of magical tales for children who writes individualized fairy stories for her growing brood of children. She adores the quaint Kent farmhouse, Todefright, where they host whimsical midsummer parties for their eccentric and radical friends and children. Daughter of a coal-miner, her childhood memories haunt her, and two stories remain locked away in a waxed and sealed bundle. She hides other secrets as well. Children: Tom-13, Dorothy-11, Phyllis-9, Hedda-5, Florian-3, baby Robin, and ...
• Humphry Wellwood: Husband of Olive, younger brother of Basil. Oxford trained to have a class/social conscience of sin/guilt, a banker who writes subversive, satirical editorials on the evils and corruption of the banking system as The March Hare. He gives university extension lectures on English Literature, Ideals of Democracy, philosophy, politics, history, Sanitation, help for the poor and downtrodden where he met his wife, one of the deserving poor. He is not entirely trustworthy around impressionable young women in his lectures or elsewhere
• Violet Grimwith: Spinster sister of Olive, is the manager and caretaker of all in Todefright. She considers herself the "real" mother to all of her sister's children. A skilled dressmaker.
• Tom Wellwood: 13-Oldest surviving son of Olive and Humphry, most beloved of his mother. Owl-like in his glasses, home tutored with gift for maths and languages. Amiable, and aimless, kind and gentile. the Tree House is his escape to be alone. Loves being in the woods and out on the Downs.
• Dorothy Wellwood: 11- Clever, thoughtful, introspective, careful child. Solemn. Wants to be a doctor. Knows what people are thinking, and wary of giving her love.
• Basil Wellwood: Stuffy older brother of Humphry. A broker in family business. Supports Gold Standard & opposes Humphry's views on banking and investments. Married to Katherina. Children: Charles-14 and Griselda-11. Vetchey Manor.
• Philip Warren: Runaway discovered drawing and hiding in a London museum. Son of potters - his father died in a kiln accident and his mother paints porcelain to keep his remaining 4 siblings alive. Artistically talented Philip wants to create his own pots — not load the kilns he's run away from. Becomes an apprentice to Benedict Fludd
• Benedict Fludd: Gifted but manic/depressive potter, who is subject to violent religious fits that dominate his inanimate family living in isolation and poverty at decrepit old Purchase House.Wife Seraphita (formerly Sarah-Jane, a Margate "stunner" painted by Burne-Jones and Rossetti.) Children: Imogene-16, Geraint-14 good at maths wants to earn a comfortable living, not be an artist like his father, and Pomona-13
• Prosper Cain: Special Keeper of Precious Metals at the South Kensington Museum in London. Collects little treasures from all over, including a collection of clever fakes. He has a penchant for highly ornate artistic items. The "Old Pirate." Elizabethan manor — Iwade House, hung with Flemish needlework and William Morris tapestries. A widower with 2 children: Julian-15 wants to work in a museum or gallery, and Florence-12
• Toby Youlgreave: Cambridge friend of Humphry's writing dissertation on Ovid, but with a love of the English Fairy Mythology. Believes our world interpenetrated with other creatures in heaven and earth than we can imagine or remember
• Arthur Dobbin: failed, clumsy apprentice of Benedict Fludd. Hopes to found a commune of craftsmen in the salt marshes of Kent, with classes in business practices to aid them be successful. Frien od the parson,
• Augustus Steyning: Nutcracker Cottage - sparsely furnished in William Morris styleA theater director, and sometimes playwright interested in German drama and tales.
• Anselm Stern: German master puppetmaster of glove puppets and marionettes. Married to Angela, an artist/sculptor and they have two sons: Wolfgang and Leon, who help with their father's work.
• Frank Mallett: Pastor of a Anglo-Catholic Marsh church of a declining population. Works with Dobbins and feminist Patty Dace to organize a series of local lectures.
• Herbert Methley: Author and lecturer on Back to Nature and Truth whose work has been banned. Believes in Rights of Women, Sexual freedom/Free Love, Pagan unity of Nature. He has experience to know which women are "in need, potential wild girls." Unconventional marriage.
• Griselda Wellwood: Daughter of Basil Wellwood, a very pretty scholar. Dorothy's cousin and close friend.
• Elsie Warren: Phillip's sister
• Geraint Fludd: Benedict Fludd's son who goes to work in the city.
• Julian Cain: son of Prosper Cain
• Hedda Wellwood: An angry child that never seems to fit in- and thus gains her identity through rebellion.
• Imogen Fludd: Add a description of this character.
• Phyllis Wellwood
• Toni
• Wolfgang Stern: Anselm's son
• Katharina
• Gerald
• Karl
• Marian Oakeshott
• Joachim Susskind
• Robin
• Ann
• Marlowe
• Florence Cain: daughter of Prosper Cain, and Julian's sister.
• Leon Stern: Anselm's son
• Palissy
• Leslie Skinner
• Thomas
• Harry: Olive's youngest child

Quotes edit see section history

• “"Do not let me disturb you, dear Mrs. Wellwood. No one knows better than myself the horror--the vein freezing unpleasantness--of having the flow of writing disrupted."”

  Herbert Methley

• “"I don't think the real tales do frighten you. I think you accept the rules. They work in a fenced world which isn't the real world, where nothing really changes. Witches get punished, and goose-girls become princesses, and what was lost is restored."”

  Griselda Wellwood

• “Florence began to weep. Gabriel stroked her hair. The child inside stretched its frog-fingers and its stick legs, and put a fine thumb into its unfinished ghost-mouth, and sucked.”

• “They were all equally present because they were all gone.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• The seen and the unseen world were interlocked and superimposed. You could trip out of one and into the other at any moment.

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• An illusion is a complicated thing, and an audience is a complicated creature. Both need to be brought from flyaway parts to a smooth, composite whole.

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• Maybe all steps into the future drew strength from a searching gaze into the deep past.

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• Readers ought not to meet writers, he thought. They are meant not to.

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• You did not so much mind being—conventionally—betrayed, if you were not kept in the dark, which was humiliating, or defined only as a wife and dependent person, which was annihilating.

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• “Grown-ups always think we don’t know things they must have known themselves. They need to remember wrong, I think.”

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• He knew enough about the evil-tempered to know that you had to walk away from them, or they couldn’t give up their wrath, even if they needed to.

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• What angered her was the lie. Those who are lied to feel diminished, set aside, misused.

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• And yet—like Griselda, she did want to think. And she did see her future as, perhaps, the choice between thinking and sex.

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• kobold figures, one in particular with long draggling hair and a mournful gaze. Tom thought immediately that his mother would need to see it. He tried, and failed, to memorise the shapes. Julian explained. It had an interesting history, he said. No one knew exactly what it was made of. It was some kind of gilt alloy. It was probable that it had been made in Canterbury—modelled in wax and cast—but apart from the symbols of the evangelists on the

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• South Kensington Museum - London: Will become the Victoria & Albert Museum - designed so the workingman could see and be enriched by beauty and craftmanship
• Kent: South of London
• Cambridge
• Munich
• Todefright: Wellwood residence
• Garden Of England
• Lydd
• Purchase House
• Paris
• Germany
• Winchelsea
• France
• Portman Square
• Eton
• Puxty
• South Africa
• Manchester, England
• Europe
• Italy
• Newnham
• Great Britain
• Russia
• Belgium
• Berlin
• Bavaria
• Windsor

Organizations edit see section history

• Fabians: Add a description of this organization.
• Grande Exposition Universelle: It was a gigantic, covering 1,500 acres, exposition of arts and crafts. It ranged from toy theaters to weaponry. It had some of the first moving sidewalks to move large groups of people. Each country brought replicas of buildings from their country.
• Art Nouveau, the New Art: It was an art form that was backward looking to the crafts and times of the past. The themes included mythology, fairy tales, and King Arthur. Artist from this period included: Burne-Jones (paintings), Morris (home furnishings, wallpaper), Palissy (pottery).

First Sentence edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

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• Peter Pan, Victorian/Edwardian Play: The premier of this play occurs in the book.
• Victoria and Albert Museum: The building was designed by Aston Webb.
• puppetry/theater: Describe this theme.
• illicit sexual relationships/affairs

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. A. S. Byatt (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• James Tait Black Memorial Prize (2009: Fiction)
• Man Booker Prize (Finalist, 2009, shortlist)
• Amazon.com's Best Books (2009: Editors' Picks, #88)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 823.914

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › British › Historical
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Genre Fiction › Historical
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary