×
Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date.
For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now.

The Wonderful O: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
96
by James Thurber, Marc Simont (Illustrator), Ransom Riggs (Introduction)James Thurber
17.0
In Stock
Overview
Great American humorist James Thurber’s beloved, madcap, and eerily timely fairy tale about an island society robbed of the wonders of the letter O—in a stunning Deluxe Edition featuring flaps, deckle-edged paper, and the original, full-color illustrations
Littlejack has a map that indicates the existence of a treasure on a far and lonely island, and Black has a ship to get there. So the two bad men team up and sail off on Black’s vessel, the Aeiu. The name, Black explains, is all the vowels except for O—which he hates since his mother got wedged in a porthole: They couldn’t pull her in, so they had to push her out. Black and Littlejack arrive at the port and demand the treasure. No one knows anything about it, so they have their henchmen ransack the place—to no avail. But Black has a better idea: He will take over the island and purge it of O. (“I'll issue an edict!”)
The harsh limits of a life sans O (where shoe is she and woe is we) and how finally with a little luck and lots of pluck the islanders shake off their overbearing interlopers and discover the true treasure for themselves (Oh yes—and get back their O’s)—these are only some of the surprises that await readers of James Thurber’s timelessly zany fairy tale about two louts who try to lock up the language—and lose. It is a tour de force of wordplay that will delight fans of Lewis Carroll, Dr. Seuss, Edward Lear, and Roald Dahl, and a timely reminder of how people can band together in the name of freedom to overthrow a tyrant.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Littlejack has a map that indicates the existence of a treasure on a far and lonely island, and Black has a ship to get there. So the two bad men team up and sail off on Black’s vessel, the Aeiu. The name, Black explains, is all the vowels except for O—which he hates since his mother got wedged in a porthole: They couldn’t pull her in, so they had to push her out. Black and Littlejack arrive at the port and demand the treasure. No one knows anything about it, so they have their henchmen ransack the place—to no avail. But Black has a better idea: He will take over the island and purge it of O. (“I'll issue an edict!”)
The harsh limits of a life sans O (where shoe is she and woe is we) and how finally with a little luck and lots of pluck the islanders shake off their overbearing interlopers and discover the true treasure for themselves (Oh yes—and get back their O’s)—these are only some of the surprises that await readers of James Thurber’s timelessly zany fairy tale about two louts who try to lock up the language—and lose. It is a tour de force of wordplay that will delight fans of Lewis Carroll, Dr. Seuss, Edward Lear, and Roald Dahl, and a timely reminder of how people can band together in the name of freedom to overthrow a tyrant.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780143130420 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Penguin Publishing Group |
Publication date: | 06/06/2017 |
Series: | Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition Series |
Edition description: | Deluxe |
Pages: | 96 |
Sales rank: | 280,691 |
Product dimensions: | 5.60(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.30(d) |
Age Range: | 8 - 12 Years |
About the Author
James Thurber (1894–1961) was one of the preeminent American humorists and cartoonists of the twentieth century. Most famous for his widely anthologized short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” he was a contributor to The New Yorker for more than thirty years and wrote nearly forty books—collections of essays, short stories, fables, and children’s stories, including The 13 Clocks and the Caldecott Medal winner Many Moons.
Marc Simont (illustrations; 1915–2013) illustrated nearly a hundred books, among them James Thurber’s The 13 Clocks and a 1990 edition of Thurber’s Many Moons. He worked with such authors as Marjorie Weinman Sharmat (on the Nate the Great series) and Margaret Wise Brown and won both a Caldecott Honor and a Caldecott Medal for his illustrations of children’s books.
Ransom Riggs (introduction) is the author of the multimillion-copy #1 New York Times bestseller Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children—now a major motion picture by Tim Burton—as well as its bestselling sequels Hollow City and Library of Souls and the companion volume Tales of the Peculiar. He grew up in Florida and now lives in Los Angeles.
Marc Simont (illustrations; 1915–2013) illustrated nearly a hundred books, among them James Thurber’s The 13 Clocks and a 1990 edition of Thurber’s Many Moons. He worked with such authors as Marjorie Weinman Sharmat (on the Nate the Great series) and Margaret Wise Brown and won both a Caldecott Honor and a Caldecott Medal for his illustrations of children’s books.
Ransom Riggs (introduction) is the author of the multimillion-copy #1 New York Times bestseller Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children—now a major motion picture by Tim Burton—as well as its bestselling sequels Hollow City and Library of Souls and the companion volume Tales of the Peculiar. He grew up in Florida and now lives in Los Angeles.
Customer Reviews
Related Searches
Explore More Items
For the centennial of its original publication, a beautiful Deluxe Edition of one of Joyce’s ...
For the centennial of its original publication, a beautiful Deluxe Edition of one of Joyce’s
greatest works—featuring an introduction by Karl Ove Knausgaard, author the New York Times bestselling six-volume autobiographical novel My Struggle, which has been likened to a 21st-century ...
In a perfect pairing of talent, this volume blends twenty illustrations by Peter S's with ...
In a perfect pairing of talent, this volume blends twenty illustrations by Peter S's with
Jorge Luis Borges's 1957 compilation of 116 strange creatures conceived through time and space by the human imagination, from dragons and centaurs to Lewis Carroll's ...
Joseph Conrad's enduring portrait of the ugliness of colonialism in a deluxe edition with a ...
Joseph Conrad's enduring portrait of the ugliness of colonialism in a deluxe edition with a
gripping cover by Hellboy artist Mike Mignola. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American ReadHeart of Darkness is the thrilling tale ...
“Wilson sat on the balcony of the Bedford Hotel with his bald pink knees thrust ...
“Wilson sat on the balcony of the Bedford Hotel with his bald pink knees thrust
against the ironwork... Graham Greene's masterpiece, The Heart of the Matter, tells the story of a good man enmeshed in love, intrigue, and evil in a ...
Keith Haring is synonymous with the downtown New York art scene of the 1980's. His ...
Keith Haring is synonymous with the downtown New York art scene of the 1980's. His
artwork-with its simple, bold lines and dynamic figures in motion-filtered in to the world's consciousness and is still instantly recognizable, twenty years after his death. ...
“[Sigrid Undset] should be the next Elena Ferrante.” —Slate The turbulent historical masterpiece of Norway’s ...
“[Sigrid Undset] should be the next Elena Ferrante.” —Slate The turbulent historical masterpiece of Norway’s
literary masterA Penguin Classic In her great historical epic Kristin Lavransdatter, set in fourteenth-century Norway, Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset tells the life story of ...
A beautiful new Deluxe Edition of Alcott's beloved novel, with a foreword by National Book ...
A beautiful new Deluxe Edition of Alcott's beloved novel, with a foreword by National Book
Award-winning author and musician Patti Smith. Nominated as one of America’s most-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.Little Women is recognized as one of the best-loved classic ...
The award-winning, nationally bestselling translation, by Lydia Davis, of one of the world’s most celebrated ...
The award-winning, nationally bestselling translation, by Lydia Davis, of one of the world’s most celebrated
novelsEmma Bovary is the original desperate housewife. Beautiful but bored, she spends lavishly on clothes and on her home and embarks on two disappointing affairs ...