Young Lionel happened to be building a Palace with his bricks one day when there was a knock at the door and Nurse came in and said, "Master Lionel, dear, they've come to fetch you to be King.""

Such is the surprising beginning to "The Book of Beasts," the first story in E. Nesbit's collection of dragon tales, tales that mix the everyday with the incredible and bring ordinary life into fairyland.

E. Nesbit's dragon stories first began appearing in 1899 in The Strand Magazine, and over the years the dragons were collected until there were eight stories in all, published as The Book of Dragons. But even after the author's death the dragons were not finished and in 1925 a final tale, "The Last of the Dragons," was unearthed by the author's daughter and appeared in Five of Us and Madeline.

Now for the first time all nine stories appear in one volume, illustrated with great delicacy and wit by Erik Blegvad.

From the dust jacket