Edward Eager

The Tales of Magic contain many references to the children's novels of E. Nesbit (1890s to 1910s); Knight's Castle pays explicit tribute to Nesbit's The Magic City.

It also refers explicitly to the cartoons of Charles Addams.

Edward McMaken Eager (June 20, 1911 – October 23, 1964) was an American lyricist, dramatist, and writer of children's fiction.

His children's novels were largely contemporary low fantasy, featuring the appearance of Magic in the lives of ordinary children.

Half Magic and Magic by the Lake are set in the 1920s, much earlier than the other Tales.

They draw on Eager’s own childhood in that period, including vacations at Hamilton Lake in northern Indiana (the setting for Magic by the Lake).

Martha's children, Roger and Ann, and their cousins, Aunt Katharine's children Eliza and Jack, find that the combination of a toy castle, Scott's Ivanhoe, and a little Magic can build another wonderful series of adventures.

Eager was born in and grew up in Toledo, Ohio and attended Harvard University class of 1935.

After graduation, he moved to New York City, where he lived for 14 years before moving to Connecticut.

He married Jane Eberly in 1938 and they had a son, Fritz.

Eager was a childhood fan of L. Frank Baum's Oz series, and started writing children's books when he could not find stories he wanted to read to his own young son.

In his books, Eager often acknowledges his debt to E. Nesbit, whom he thought of as the best children's author of all time.

(Half Magic includes a reference to a short story by Saki.) Knight's Castle won the Ohioana Book Award for Juvenile Literature in 1957.

Eliza, Jack, Roger, and Ann find an herb garden where thyme grows, which lets them travel through time (until the thyme is ripe).

They are assisted by the Natterjack.

On one adventure they rescue their Aunt Jane, Uncle Mark and their mothers from an adventure they took as children.

This gives an alternate view of one of the adventures in Magic by the Lake.

This book was influenced by C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle, where one of the children is separated from the Magic land, and The Magician's Nephew, in which Uncle Andrew's attitude makes him unable to hear any but animal noises from the talking animals.

This happens to Jack, who is unable to sense the Magic because he has discovered a different kind of Magic, in girls.

Eager is more hopeful than Lewis, however: in a final picture, all the children are shown but Jack’s picture is replaced with his name and a heart drawn round it.

Laura, James, and their wonderful new neighbors, Kip and Lydia, wish up some summer adventures when the well in their new yard is more than they imagined.

Where the first four Tales of Magic and the last one feature unambiguously magical events, Magic or Not? and its sequel The Well-Wishers differ in tone.

Eager died of lung cancer on October 23, 1964, in Stamford, Connecticut, aged 53.

Mouse Manor is told from the viewpoint of Miss Myrtilla the mouse, sole occupant of the manor which she has inherited from her mother.

She keeps house faithfully, dusting the family portraits and baking a bag pudding for her solitary Christmas dinner.

All seven books were illustrated by N. M. Bodecker and published by Harcourt, Brace (finally Harcourt, Brace & World).

The series name may date from the 2000 boxed set of books 1–4, Edward Eager's Tales of Magic (Odyssey/Harcourt Young Classic; ISBN 0-15-202546-4).

The first book, Half Magic, comes earliest in the series' chronology.

Magic by the Lake is its direct sequel, in that it features the same children in further adventures at about the same age.

The second book, Knight's Castle, is set one generation later, and The Time Garden is its direct sequel.

Magic or Not? features different children, and The Well-Wishers is its direct sequel.

Seven-Day Magic features a fourth set of children.

A dull summer is improved when Katharine, Mark, Jane and Martha find a magical coin-like talisman.

The catch is that it grants half of any wish made by its bearer—a wish to be on a desert island sends them to the Sahara desert, and their mother ends up halfway home when she wishes to return home during a dull visit to her relatives.

That "half Magic" is a challenge, sometimes comical, until the children learn to double their wishes.

Half Magic was a number one seller in America.

Anthony Boucher, comparing the novel to Nesbit, described it as "gay and charming, yet rigidly governed fantasy in the Unknown manner."

Here are the further adventures of Martha, Jane, Mark, and Katharine from Half-Magic.

Their summer vacation is enlivened by an entire Magic lake, channeled through a talking, and somewhat grumpy, box turtle.

They are stranded on a desert island, visit Ali-Baba's cave, and end up rescued by some children the reader sees in the next book.