Nesbit acknowledges this in her narration, without offering any explanation. In each of their time-jaunts, the children are magically able to speak and comprehend the contemporary language. Jane's childish prattling about the glories of England persuades Caesar to invade after all. In one chapter, they meet Julius Caesar on the shores of Gaul, just as he has decided that Britain is not worth invading.
Among the ancient realms they visit are Babylon, Egypt, the Phoenician city of Tyre, a ship to "the Tin Islands" (ancient Cornwall), and Atlantis just before the flood.
In the course of the novel the Amulet transports the children and the Psammead to times and places where the Amulet has previously existed, in the hope that - somewhen in time - the children can find the Amulet's missing half. Yet it can serve as a portal, enabling time travel to find the other half. By itself, it cannot grant their hearts' desire. But this Amulet is only the surviving half of an original whole. Guided by the Psammead the children purchase an ancient amulet in the shape of an Egyptian Tyet (a small amulet of very similar shape to the picture can be seen in the British Museum today ), which should be able to grant them their hearts' desire: the safe return of their parents and baby brother. Using a ruse, the children persuade the shopkeeper to sell them the "mangy old monkey," and they free their old friend. The terrified creature cannot escape, for it can only grant wishes to others, not to itself. It had been captured by a trapper, who failed to recognise it as a magical being. In one of these shops the children find the Psammead. During the course of the book, the children get to know the "poor learned gentleman" and befriend him and call him Jimmy.Ĭook's house is in Fitzrovia, the district of London near the British Museum, which Nesbit accurately conveys as having bookstalls and shops filled with unusual merchandise. Her only remaining boarder is a scholarly Egyptologist who has filled his bedsit with ancient artifacts. The children are living with an old Nurse who has set up a boardinghouse in central London. Their mother has gone to Madeira to recuperate from an illness, taking with her their younger brother, the Lamb. At the beginning of this book the children's father, a journalist, has gone overseas to cover the war in Manchuria.
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