Carbonel series

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The Carbonel trilogy is a children's book series by Barbara Sleigh, published between 1955 and 1978, and inspired by the British folk tale "The King of the Cats". It comprises three books: Carbonel (1955), The Kingdom of Carbonel (1959), and Carbonel and Calidor (1978). Carbonel was named a "Book of the Month" by The Young Elizabethan magazine, and described as a "most sensible, it-could-easily-have-happened fairy story". [1]

Contents

Carbonel was illustrated by V. H. Drummond, The Kingdom of Carbonel by D. M. Leonard (though subsequent editions were illustrated by Richard Kennedy), and Carbonel and Calidor by Charles Front. In the United States, the first book was given the title Carbonel: The King of the Cats. The 50th anniversary Puffin edition was titled Carbonel: The Prince of Cats.

Premise

The plot concerns a girl named Rosemary who buys a broom and a cat from an untidy woman in the marketplace. When the cat starts talking to her she learns that she has encountered a witch, selling up to start a new career. Moreover, the cat, Carbonel, just happens to be King of the Cats, presumed missing by his subjects ever since the witch Mrs. Cantrip abducted him. Unfortunately he cannot return to his throne until the enslavement spell Mrs. Cantrip cast on him is undone, and so Rosemary, together with her friend John, have to learn a little witchcraft and track down Mrs. Cantrip for her, at best ambivalent help.[ citation needed ]

Analysis

The first two books are more closely linked than the third.[ citation needed ]

Carbonel has been said to have few real cat characteristics; he is more like Edith Nesbit's Psammead in Five Children and It (1902), speaking "with the voice of tart and faintly impatient adulthood". [2]

Cats (albeit non-speaking ones) are also central to Sleigh's stand-alone novel No One Must Know (1962), about children hiding a cat and her kittens from a landlord who has banned pets. [3]

Publishing history

References

  1. ↑ "Barbara Sleigh" Archived October 25, 2012, at the Wayback Machine . Alienor's Words Page; Deep Purple Cat (ntlworld.com/alienor). Retrieved 10 December 2011.
  2. ↑ Susan Ang, "'Carbonel' Series", The Cambridge Guide to Children's Books in English (Cambridge: CUP, 2001). Online copy. Retrieved 23 June 2011.
  3. ↑ "Other books by Barbara Sleigh". Alienor's Words Page; Deep Purple Cat (ntlworld.com/alienor). Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  4. ↑ Sleigh, Barbara (1955). Carbonel. Internet Archive. London : M. Parrish.
  5. ↑ Sleigh, Barbara (1960). The kingdom of Carbonel. Internet Archive. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill.
  6. ↑ Sleigh, Barbara (1971). The Kingdom of Carbonel. Internet Archive. Harmondsworth : Puffin. ISBN   978-0-14-030494-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  7. ↑ Barbara Sleigh (1980). Carbonel and Calidor: Being the Further Adventures of a Royal Cat (Puffin Books). Internet Archive. Penguin USA (P). ISBN   978-0-14-031187-7.
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