Spring-heeled Jack

Pullman, Philip

ISBN 10: 0385269757 / ISBN 13: 9780385269759

Published by Doubleday, 1989

About this Item

Most items will be dispatched the same or the next working day. A copy that has been read but remains in clean condition. All of the pages are intact and the cover is intact and the spine may show signs of wear. The book may have minor markings which are not specifically mentioned. Ex library copy with usual stamps & stickers.

Seller Inventory # wbs4262252880

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Spring-heeled Jack
• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication Date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0385269757
• ISBN 13: 9780385269759
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

Deep in the murkiest back streets of old London town, three children are escaping from an orphanage. But lurking in the fog, watching Rose, Lily and Ned, is a king among villains - Mack the Knife!A dreadful fate looks certain until, from out of nowhere, a figure with glowing, red eyes appears. He leaps through the air like a firework - it's Spring-Heeled Jack, scourge of evil-doers!

Review

"The wisps of fog were whisked aside, and the girls looked up at the stars and saw--The devil? Well, if he wasn't the devil, then who the devil was he?" Philip Pullman can sure tell a story. Spring-Heeled Jack, originally published years ago in the U.K., is an over-the-top Victorian romp in the boisterous vein of the master storyteller's Count Karlstein and I Was a Rat. All the ingredients for an edge-of-seat page-turner are here: three hapless orphans; the brandy-swigging Mr. Killjoy and his horrible assistant, Miss Gasket, at the Alderman Cawn-Plaster Memorial Orphanage; and the greedy, murderous Mack the Knife who awaits them in the dank city of London. Of course, this is no bad-luck Lemony Snicket tale. There's a superhero named Spring-Heeled Jack to save the day! Pullman is at his tongue-in-cheek best here, telling half the happy-ending tale with a sooty, dramatic Dickensian spin, and the other half with David Mostyn's artful cartoons, undercutting the mock-heavy-handed drama at every turn. Readers will find plenty of Pullman's characteristic wit and wordplay amid the nonstop, rip-roaring adventure. Excellent! (Ages 8 to 14) --Karin Snelson