Twenty-Two Goblins (1917) (1st ed)

S$94.00

Twenty-Two Goblins (1917) (1st ed)

S$94.00

Title: Twenty-Two Goblins

Author: Arthur W Ryder (trans), Perham W Nahl (illus)

Publisher: J M Dent, 1917. First and only edition.

Condition: Hardcover, green decorative cloth. Spine has closed tears of about 1″ at the bottom, fraying at ends, binding shaken, corners bumped, light rubbing. Interior is good. With 20 illustrations.

An old folk tale translated from Sanskrit, told in the classic “story-within-a-story” mode. The story centers around a king who is commanded by a monk to fetch a dead body from a tree. The king puts the dead body on his back, but the dead body – which is in fact a “goblin” – starts talking and tells the king a tale. At the end of the tale the goblin gives the king a puzzle, with the following conditions:

“If you know and do not tell me the truth, then your head will surely fly into a hundred pieces. And if you give a good answer, then I will jump from your shoulder and go back to the tree.”

The king keeps giving the correct answers, and hence the goblin keeps flying back to the tree, and thus this needs to be done over and over again 22 times.