Synopsis
Lucy and Charlotte are in the clutches of the Demon Huntsman and their wicked uncle, Count Karlstein. It is up to Hildi, their maid to save them. Told in text and cartoon strip form.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review
"I might have occupied my mind usefully with Improving Thoughts, but the only improvement I could imagine then was a pair of wings, to enable me to fly to freedom. And, of course, a Head for Heights. I cleaned the dust from the window and peered out hopefully, but there was nothing but a Horrid Precipice, with jagged crags several thousands of feet below." Such are the woes of young Charlotte, locked in a tower room of her uncle's gloomy Castle Karlstein in 19th-century Switzerland. Escaping this predicament seems the least of her worries: in a solemn blood pact, her evil uncle, Count Karlstein, has promised to sacrifice his two orphaned nieces, Lucy and Charlotte, to Zamiel the Demon Huntsman--on midnight of All Souls' Eve--in return for his current riches.
First, however, the heartless Count and his "lip-licking, moist-handed, creeping, smarming" secretary, Herr Arturo Snivelwurst, will have to catch Lucy, too--and it is no small task with the headstrong, 14-year-old Hildi Kelmar; her 18-year-old, handsome-in-a-scowling-sort- of-way brother, Peter; and the intrepid English teacher Miss Augusta Davenport on the girls' side. As Miss Davenport herself points out, "an English gentlewoman can rise above any circumstances, given intelligence and a loaded pistol." The events in this delightful gothic farce unfold quickly in a variety of narrative voices, artfully building in suspense to a powerful, terrifying, deeply satisfying stand-off between the Count and the Demon Huntsman of Impenetrable Darkness himself. Subplots and loose ends are gracefully, happily, justly tied up in the light of day, finally allowing readers to exhale.
British novelist Philip Pullman, masterful storyteller and creator of the best-selling adventures The Northern Lights and The Subtle Knife, mesmerizes us again with his playful, suspenseful thriller Count Karlstein. Readers young and old will revel in every angle, twist, and turn of this breathlessly paced, very funny page-turner. --Karin Snelson
Review
"It's whirlwind plotting, manipulated into a pulsing tale of darkened hearts, treachery and at long last, redemption" (Kirkus)
"In this deliciously gothic thriller there are enough demon huntsmen, evil guardians, and brooding castles to please even the most desensitized reader" (School Library Journal)
"Dashing, sparkling, and wildly over the top" (Publishers Weekly)
"Any youngster who likes ghostly tales of the macabre accompanied with much humour will get a lot of fun from this unusual book" (Junior Bookshelf)
"Ingeniously-designed comic-cum-novel, a gothic pastiche that can be read as simple fun or as a literary lesson" (Guardian)
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Search results for Count Karlstein, or the Ride of the Demon Huntsman
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Count Karlstein
Published by
Chatto & Windus, London, 1982
ISBN 10: 0701126493
ISBN 13: 9780701126490
Used
Hardcover
First Edition
Seller: Arapiles Mountain Books - Mount of Alex, Castlemaine, VIC, Australia
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hard Cover. Condition: VG-. Dust Jacket Condition: F-. First Edition. VG-/F-. 8vo. original black boards gilt (ex-library with a few rsms, label etc. to outer leaves, mostly front endpapers, four tape marks to boards, lower section of FFE has been excised leaving scoring in following two leaves, else internally clean & unmarked) in dustwrapper (spine a trifle sunned, marked); pp. [vi (last blank)], 166. A good copy of the author's uncommon first childrens novel in a well preserved dustwrapper. Seller Inventory # 014527
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£ 271.99
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Count Karlstein - SIGNED
Published by
Chatto & Windus, London, 1982
ISBN 10: 0701126493
ISBN 13: 9780701126490
Used
Hardcover
First Edition
Signed
Seller: MintFirsts Ltd ABA, ILAB, PBFA, Macclesfield, CHESH, United Kingdom
Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars
Hardback. Condition: Very good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very good. First edition. First edition. 8vo. Pp. [vi], 165, [1]. Publisher's navy blue cloth boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Jacket illustration by Gavin Rowe (priced £5.50 net to front flap). The first UK printing by Chatto & Windus, published in 1982, and not to be confused with the 1991 Doubleday re-issue. Signed by Author to title page. Ex-library, with a Shropshire County Library stamp to copyright page, evidence of label removal to front end-paper, spine tips and corners pushed-in, textblock edges dusty with some light foxing, else contents clean and bright, in a complete dustwrapper with some light creasing to edges. Pullman's uncommon first children's book and third novel overall. Set in the early nineteenth century, when an evil Count draws up a contract with a Demon involving human sacrifice in order to obtain untold riches. Borrowing elements from Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischütz, and Wilkie Collins' epistolary novel The Moonstone, the story was originally written to be performed as a school play at Bishop Kirk Middle School, Oxford, where the author taught secondary pupils. "Dashing, sparkling and wildly over-the-top fun." -Publishers Weekly. signed. Seller Inventory # 2RC 398