The Midnight Folk (Kay Harker)

Product Information

In 1895, Masefield returned to sea on a windjammer destined for New York City. However, the urge to become a writer and the hopelessness of life as a sailor overtook him, and in New York, he deserted ship. He lived as a vagrant for several months, before returning to New York City, where he was able to find work as an assistant to a bar keeper. Hely-Hutchinson: The BBC man who created the ultimate Christmas music". About the BBC. 13 December 2016. Young Kay (whom we may imagine as around seven) inhabits a magic realist world midway between dreams, imagination and daily life, one inhabited by a combination of guardians and governesses, servants and smugglers, wild animals and witches, knights and toys, ancestors and archvillains.

When freed from lessons he explores and investigates the surroundings of his ancestral home of Seekings, uncovering a nefarious plot to steal some long-lost treasure, thus following up family traditions and living up to the family name. The Harker shield displays three oreilles couped proper (that is, three disembodied flesh-coloured ears) and so, true to form, Kay eavesdrops, harkening to conversations and learning from what he overhears. The opening and closing title music features an orchestral arrangement of " The First Nowell" extracted from the third movement of the Carol Symphony by Victor Hely-Hutchinson. It had been used for earlier radio adaptations and has become synonymous with the story. [5] Big Finish 2021 [ edit ] There are three treasures (smuggled goods, a highwayman's plunder, and the aforementioned Spanish gold), three principal hidey holes (caves, the highwayman's lair, and under a hearthstone), three prime locations (Seekings, Trigger Hall in the North of England and Santa Barbara in South America), not forgetting three groups of friends for Kay (his old toys, the animals at Seekings, and Arthur's knights); there are even three generations of the truly sinister villain, each one called Abner Brown. Caroline Louisa is installed as Kay's guardian at the end of The Midnight Folk, having appeared earlier in the novel as one of Kay's supernatural helpers. She remains Kay's guardian throughout The Box of Delights. A disappointment (so why 3 stars rather than 2? Bumped up for historical importance and author's literary qualities ... but for sheer pleasure it gave me, it's really a 2). Even Madeleine L'Engle, who wrote an afterword for it, damned it with faint praise (paraphrasing, but basically "it's over-complicated and confusing but kids ought to be able to figure it out nonetheless).Kay's toys (known as "the guards") have been taken away from him at the start of the book, apparently because they will remind him of his parents; there is a strong implication that Kay's parents are deceased. The guards play little part in the main narrative but have a critical role in the final recovery of the treasure. Part of my own ease comes from remembering myself at the same age, with the same sense of life being a dreamscape where reality was of one substance with imaginings. Maybe a lot of the novel's strange-yet-familiar quality comes from the author's own remembered past being a kind of foreign country, where "they do things differently". Mr. Masefield has written the sort of book that grown-up people like to give a child for Christmas, and then enjoy reading for themselves. The Midnight Folk is a story to be read aloud in the traditional Winter fireside setting….The style is imaginative and glamorous…Children will like to hear their elders read the tale.”– The New York Times Piers Torday (30 November 2017). "Long before Harry Potter, The Box of Delights remade children's fantasy". The Guardian . Retrieved 7 January 2018.

Will still try the next book ( Box of Delights) which is apparently more of a classic and perhaps the author learned lessons from book one and applied them to book two. Fingers crossed! I know 'The Box of Delights' is equally bonkers and arguably just as much a series of episodes strung together, but surely it has more of a sense of plot? I haven't read it: perhaps the BBC adaptation is more of a rescue job that it is given credit for. I can see the potential for adaptation in this one, with its imaginative and visual sensibility and many a vivid character to enjoy (though the fact that several of them speak with an idiom as incoherent as the overall storyline doesn't help). What I can't imagine is reading this to a child, less still a child reading it for themselves. He has written a book which will be a source of delight to children of future generations well as his own, one that ranks with such masterpieces in this genre The Water Babies, Alice in Wonderland and Sylvie and Bruno. — The Northern Whig, 1927 [1]

Become a Member

At seventeen Masefield was living as a vagrant in America. He found work as a bar hand but eventually secured employment at a carpet factory. Thinking that journalism might allow him to write for a living, Masefield returned to England in 1897. You must be the master in your own house. Don't let a witch take the charge of Seekings. This is a house where upright people have lived. Let's have no Endorings nor Jezebellings in Seekings." -- Grandmamma Harker's message to Kay. Masefield doesn't put any distance between Kay, his surreal adventures, and the reader. They just happen, don't question it. Don't overthink it either: channel your Inner Rich Orphan and indulge in some dream logic. There aren't even any chapters to break it all up, so when you're in, you're in. Young Kay Harker lives in an old house in the country, filled with portraits of his ancestors. His only companions are his unpleasant guardian Sir Theopompus and his governess Sylvia Daisy Pouncer (who, Kay suspects, has stolen all his toys). Life is lonely and dull, until one night Kay’s great-grandpapa Harker, a sea captain, steps out of his portrait to tell him about a stolen treasure that belongs to Kay’s family. The evil Abner Brown is searching for it too, but Kay is helped by the midnight folk: creatures like Nibbins the cat and Rollicum Bitem Lightfoot the fox, and even his lost toys, who will join him on his dangerous quest.

a b Kingsley, Madeleine (17 November 1984), "A Box Full of Magic", Radio Times, pp.101–103 , retrieved 14 October 2017 Interestingly, early on in the book, Kay reads the names of his long-lost toys ('The Guards') and among them are the names Jemima, Maria, Susan and Peter which of course are the names of the Jones children in The Box of Delights written years later. The Midnight Folk introduces readers to Kay Harker, the orphaned boy who is also the hero of John Masefield’s classic Christmas fantasy, The Box of Delights. Kay lives in a vast old country house, and is looked after by an unpleasant duo: the oily and egregious Sir Theopompous and the petulant and punitive Sylvia Daisy Pouncer. In her zeal to educate Kay on the finer points of Latin grammar, Sylvia Daisy has even taken away all of Kay’s toys. Life seems very dull, until out of an old family portrait steps Kay’s great-grandfather, a sea captain, who, if legend is to be believed, made off with a fabulous treasure. John Masefield is growing younger every year. He was old in Multitude and Solitude. He had grown appreciably younger in Sard Harker. He is a child among the children in "The Midnight Folk,” which is incomparably the best book of its kind that has appeared since Mrs. Hubert Bland died. — Illustrated London News, 1927. [2]Sylvia Daisy Pouncer dishonourably leaves her role as Kay's governess at the end of The Midnight Folk, only to return as Abner Brown's wife in The Box of Delights. Masefield the children’s writers is unbeatable… The Midnight Folk is a truly remarkable book.”– Daily Telegraph (London)

In 1885 orphan Kay Harker finds himself under the guardianship of the distant Sir Theopompous and the stern tutelage of an unnamed governess. His former companions, a collection of stuffed toys, have evidently been removed, their place taken by the declension of Latin adjectives for 'sharp', and by exercises in French, Divinity and the like. Christmas Eve" ( Noch pered Rozhdestvom, 1832) by Nikolai Gogol (from Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka) However the way in which Kay is suddenly able to be transformed into a being who can swim with the otters, fly with the bats, listen in on foxes conversations etc is genuinely delightful and I can see how this story will have inspired many other authors. I’m told that this was written by John Masefield, a well-known and highly respected poet in his adult years. Perhaps so, but I’m pretty sure that in addition to channeling his inner child, he must have had a willing collaborator of tender years to help him work the magic, follow the merry chase and find his way home.

Success!

A Visit from St. Nicholas" (also known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas", 1823) attributed to Clement Clarke Moore The current owner of the box is an old Punch and Judy man called Cole Hawlings whom Harker meets at the railway station. They develop an instant rapport, which leads Hawlings to confide that he is being chased by a magician called Abner Brown and his gang, which includes Harker's former governess. For safety, Hawlings (who turns out to be the medieval philosopher and alleged magician Ramon Llull) entrusts the box to Harker. The schoolboy then goes on to have many adventures as he protects the box from those who wish to use it for bad deeds. I thought it was interesting, but as a historical artifact, "fancy, that used to be the sort of book one would give a child and expect them to enjoy it!"