The Box of Delights
core novel 1935 Kay Harker
Record
| First published | 1935 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.91 (3,887 ratings, collected 2026-11-02) |
| Internal chronology | 2 |
Synopsis
Kay Harker is travelling home from boarding school for the Christmas holidays when an old Punch and Judy man entrusts him with a magical box. The box lets its owner shrink to tiny size, fly swiftly, travel into the past and enter wonders within it. Other people are after the box and would use it for their own ends, among them the wizard Abner Brown, who is already known to Kay from earlier events. Kay has to keep the box safe while the holiday season goes on around him, and to protect the old man who gave it to him. His journeys take him between the ordinary world of a winter town and strange places in other times.
Where it sits
- Universe: Kay Harker
- Series: Kay Harker core; position 2 of 2 in the series' recorded order
- Author: John Masefield
Notes
- Full title: The Box of Delights, or When the Wolves Were Running. First published by Heinemann.
- From the series record (Kay Harker): Two children's fantasy novels in which the boy Kay Harker defends a family treasure and a magical box from a wizard and his witches.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series Kay Harker: position 2 of 2: previous The Midnight Folk (1927)
Sources
← Kay Harker dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.