What's more, we want the 13 castle clocks to whir and tick and tell us that the time is NOW. In a comic and poetic way, this story makes us all want to love a Princess and to be a Prince. The only warmth he understands is the warm hands of Princess Saralinda, his fair niece, whom he cherishes and protects from suitors. He is a wicked Duke who has hands cold enough to choke a bull. The Duke of the castle ignores time and pays no attention to temperature either.

James Thurber's enduring story of life in a castle where time stands still on every clock at 10 minutes to five.

124pp, illustrated, illustrated endpapers. 2' loss to top of front jacket and spine neatly repaired with strip of blue marbled paper, edge wear, chipping and short closed tears to top and bottom of back jacket and spine, corners and folds rubbed with small loss, some time staining to back jacket, not price clipped (9s 6d), no inscriptions, internally clean tight and square, overall a reasonable copy. Jacket and illustrations by Mark Simont (illustrator). Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.Hardcover. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. It is published here with Marc Simont’s enchanting, full-color illustrations from the first edition. Since it was first published in 1950, James Thurber’s sublimely whimsical fairy tale of love forestalled but ultimately fulfilled has delighted readers of all ages. But when the bold Prince Zorn of Zorna arrives, disguised as a wandering minstrel, and helped by the enigmatic Golux, the cold Duke may at last have met his match.

To thwart that fate, he sets impossible tasks for Saralinda’s suitors. The Duke fancies he has frozen time, for he is afraid that one day a Prince may come and win away the hand of the Princess-the only warm hand in the castle. A giant of American humor makes his Penguin Classics debut with “probably the best book in the world” (Neil Gaiman, from the Introduction), in a stunning Deluxe Edition featuring the original, full-color illustrations The hands of all thirteen clocks stand still in the gloomy castle on a lonely hill where a wicked Duke lives with his niece, the beautiful Princess Saralinda.

The 13 Clocks by James Thurber