Day after day Philip goes on with his building, putting into it almost everything you can think of.

He makes steps of the dominoes, and a terrace of the domino-box. He gets bits of wood from the garden to stick into cotton-reels, which make lovely pots -- and the results look like ornamental trees in tubs. Brass finger-bowls serve for domes -- and the lids of brass kettles and coffee-pots make minarets of dazzling splendour

It is a city -- a fabulous, exotic, miniature city Just to look upon it seemed magical enough -- but even Philip had no clue just how magical it might turn out to be.

Edith Nesbit (1858-1924) is considered the first to write fantasy for children with a modern sensibility, giving inspiration to such others as Charles Williams and C.S. Lewis.