The Last of the Dragons and Some Others

A wonderful collection of surprisingly modern stories for children and adults about dragons, full of humor and unexpected turns of events. It's to believe all but the last of these were published in one year, and that year was 1899. There's little in common between the dragons in each story, though they are almost always more a pest than something scary. In one story, there is a plague of dragons, ranging from tiny insect-side lizards to the large classic fire-breathing behemoths. Several have iron scales, predating Swanwick's iron dragons by a century.

Two lines made me laugh out loud and show the humor that permeates these tales. In "The Dragon Tamers", a blacksmith and his family live in a long-abandoned castle with a dungeon and a show more crumbling stairway leading deeper. "Even the lords of the castle in the good old times had never know where those steps led to, but every now and then they would kick a prisoner down the steps in their light-hearted, hopeful way, and, sure enough, the prisoner never came back".

The other quote kicks of the last and weakest story, The Last of the Dragons". "Of course you know that dragons were once as common as motorized omnibuses are now, and almost as dangerous."

Highly recommended, especially if you're a fan of authors such as Diana Wynne Jones. show less

This was another book I read aloud with my kids. They love dragons for some reason, and they really enjoyed these stories. They have a fairy tale feel to them, with moral lessons, (somewhat) gruesome endings, and all. My children especially liked the baby that would cry and cry and cry whenever its mother was asleep. (No real surprise that my daughter felt a kinship with that particular character.) I especially liked that the princesses weren't all just waiting to be rescued and that so many of the dragons' scales clattered like metal. I like the idea that perhaps a dragon sounds a bit like a very large wind chime.

Maybe these stories will act as a gateway to other Edith Nesbit books that my children might finally allow me to read to show more them. Sure, I could read children's literature to myself, but it just feels more efficient to read it aloud to my kids since I read to them constantly anyway. It could also be a good introduction to The Hobbit. show less

Besides the stories in "The Book of Dragons" also contains "The Last Dragon". "The Last Dragon" is charming, wry, and feminist.

I think this was a really good book! I had to read it for on of my classes! I loved it! Great story! The book also has a really good moral (lesson)! Check it out!!

Publ. as The book of dragons (1900), except The last of the dragons, which appeared in The five of us -- and Madeline (1925), rptd. from The Strand (1899).