Nesbit, Edith: Nine Unlikely Tales (Illus). v2. 19 September 2016
 

NINE UNLIKELY TALES
by Edith Nesbit (1858–1924)
With the original illustrations by
Harold R. Millar (1869–1940)
and Claude A. Shepperson (1867–1921)
Annotated

First published in 1901.
The text of this book and Shepperson's illustrations are in the public domain in countries where copyright is “Life+90” or less, Millar's illustrations where copyright is "Life+70" or less. All are public domain in the USA. Additional material and cover art are released under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 4.0 License.

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Edith Nesbit Bland, English author and poet, published approximately 40 books for children under the name of E. Nesbit. Her innovative body of work combined realistic, contemporary children in real-world settings with magical objects and adventures; and influenced many subsequent fantasy writers.

This collection of fairy tales serves up a delicious banquet of fantastical magical adventures, well-seasoned with naughty children, bewildered Kings, an Arithmetic Fairy, a talking bouncing rubber ball, and other wonderful characters. Sprinkles of wry wit and humor, enjoyable by young and old, add spice to the recipe.

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Text and illustrations were obtained from archive.org scan. Punctuation has been formatted and Anglicized (to match the vocabulary). Added a glossary annotating some terms no longer in general use, or in use primarily in Great Britain. Chapter heads are cross-linked to Table of Contents, image captions are cross-linked to List of Illustrations. Original cover art (no clip-art involved). Embedded fonts for titles and drop-caps.

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I had been searching for this book for a long time, and it was posted at archive.org only three weeks ago, so we may have stolen a march on other free libraries. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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EDIT: I just uploaded version two, with an expanded glossary, an improved set of illustrations, and some text-error corrections. Previous downloads: 255.

I have just uploaded version 2, with an expanded glossary, improved (and higher resolution) illustrations, slightly different cover, and some text corrections.

Enjoy!