Might I know which it is?
The dinner was a special one. We dined well normally at Carmaliot – too well, I thought – but this particular meal, as I had gathered from a muttered snatch of conversation between two of...
Author: thesylep-dev
A saucy lesson or two
He moved towards the open door of the hut, attempting to draw me after him. I was shocked again by the full realization of his intentions, now undisguised. At the same time I understood that...
Arthur’s country
We had walked on the drive itself, with gravel softly crunching under our feet, but suddenly Sir Donald put a hand under my elbow and steered me on to the lawn. The grass was heavy...
More – or less – beastly
A significant character in A Bride for Bedivere is Beast, the ugly cowering mutt whom Jane befriends and who – like many of the others she meets at Carmaliot – turns out to be not...
Disdain at first sight
Sir Donald asked: ‘Have you taken your Chlorodyne?’ ‘Doctor Roberts brought me some mixture of his own.’ ‘Then you should have taken them both,’ Sir Donald declared. ‘I have sent away for some pulmonic wafers,...
My four-legged friend
The figure rose out of the ground in front of me, a shorter distance away than the bird had been. I stopped, my hand on my breast. It was a man: wild, dirty, menacing. He...
Why I wrote THE LOTUS CAVES – Part 2
John Christopher (also the author of SARNIA and A BRIDE FOR BEDIVERE) resumes his account of the writing of THE LOTUS CAVES. First published in 1969, republished on November 4th this year by Simon &...
Why I wrote THE LOTUS CAVES – Part 1
In 1971, two years after its publication, John Christopher (alias Hilary Ford, alias Sam Youd) published an article in the children’s magazine ‘Puffin Post’ to explain his reasons for writing THE LOTUS CAVES — recently...
Beauty and Beast
I came on him unexpectedly, the morning after my arrival. Walking in the garden I turned the corner of a high box hedge and saw him lying in my path, dozing in the wintry sun....
The eldest cousin
‘Here is Michael at last. Jane, permit me to introduce you to the eldest of your cousins.’ I stared as he bowed in greeting. It was true Sir Donald had said nothing of his appearance,...
