"Once upon a time, in a gloomy castle on a lonely hill, where there were thirteen clocks that wouldn't go, there lived a cold, aggressive Duke, and his niece, the Princess Saralinda. She was warm in every wind and weather, but he was always cold. His hands were as cold as his smile, and almost as cold as his heart. He wore gloves when he was asleep, and he wore gloves when he was awake, which made it difficult for him to pick up pins or coins or the kernels of nuts, or to tear the wings from nightingales."" So begins James Thurber's sublimely revamped fairy tale, The 13 Clocks, in which a wicked Duke who imagines he has killed time, and the Duke's beautiful niece, for whom time seems to have run out, both meet their match, courtesy of an enterprising and very handsome prince in disguise. Readers young and old will take pleasure in this tale of love forestalled but ultimately fulfilled, admiring its upstanding hero (""He yearned to find in a far land the princess of his dreams, singing as he went, and possibly slaying a dragon here and there"".) and unapologetic villain (""We all have flaws,"" the Duke said. ""Mine is being wicked"".) , while wondering at the enigmatic Golux, the mysterious stranger whose unpredictable interventions speed the story to its necessarily happy end."

 

There are 128 pages in this book. This book was published 2015 by The New York Review of Books, Inc .

Neil Gaiman won both Newbery and Carnegie Medals for The Graveyard Book. Coraline was made into an Academy award-nominated film. He has also won the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award. James Thurber (1894-1961), one of America's most renowned humorists, was a staff writer and regular contributor to the New Yorker, where his short stories, essays, and cartoons were published for over 30 years. He wrote several books for children. Marc Simont has illustrated children's books since 1939. He won the Caldecott Medal for 'A Tree is Nice'. He lives in West Cornwall, Connecticut, with his wife, Sara.