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This is how it all began'. From "A Necklace of Raindrops" to "The Patchwork Quilt", here are eight classic stories to treasure and enjoy. Beginning and ending with a birthday, this spell-binding collection conjures up a world filled with magic, where wishes can come true. A necklace of raindrops that keeps its owner dry in the heaviest rainstorm; a tiger that runs faster than the wind; a huge floating apple pie with a piece of sky in it; a baker's cat who swells to the size of a whale when his mistress feeds him yeast; and, a house that stands on one leg - these are just some of the objects and characters that figure in these delightful stories.

Contents:

• A Necklace of Raindrops - short fiction
• The Baker's Cat - short story
• The Cat Sat on the Mat - short fiction
• The Elves in the Shelves - short fiction
• The Patchwork Quilt - short fiction
• The Three Travellers - short fiction
• There's Some Sky in This Pie - short fiction
• A Bed for the Night - short fiction
• A Necklace of Raindrops and Other Stories - interior artwork by Jan Pienkowski

This short story originally appeared in the collection The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories (2008). It can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Three (2009), edited by Jonathan Strahan.

This story first appaered in the collection The Monkey's Wedding and Other Stories (2011).

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Here is the whisper in the night, the creak upstairs, that half-remembered ghost story that won't let you sleep, the sound that raises gooseflesh, the wish you'd checked the lock on the door before it got really, really dark. Here are tales of suspense and the supernatural that will chill, amuse, and exhilarate...

This story can be found in the collection The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories (2016).

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Joan Aiken's stories captivated readers for fifty years. They're funny, smart, gentle, and occasionally very, very scary. The stories in The Monkey's Wedding are collected here for the very first time and include six never before published, as well as two previously published under the pseudonym Nicholas Dee. Here you'll find the story of a village for sale... or is the village itself the story? There's an English vicar who declares on his deathbed that he might have lived an entirely different life. After his death, a large, black, argumentative cat makes an appearance....

This hugely imaginative collection of incongruous, light, and unexpected stories features Shelley Jackson's spooky and eyecatching cover painting inspired by the story "A Mermaid Too Many" and includes introductions by Joan Aiken as well by her daughter, Lizza Aiken.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Joan Aiken
• Introduction by Lizza Aiken
• Girl in a Whirl
• Hair
• Harp Music
• Honeymaroon
• Octopi in the Sky
• Reading in Bed
• Red-Hot Favourite
• Second Thoughts
• Spur of the Moment
• The Fluttering Thing
• The Magnesia Tree
• The Monkey's Wedding
• The Paper Queen
• The Sale of Midsummer
• Water of Youth
• Wee Robin
• A Mermaid Too Many
• Model Wife

Here is the whisper in the night, the dog whose loyalty outlasted death, the creak upstairs, that half-remembered ghost story that won't let you sleep, the sound that raises gooseflesh, the wish you'd checked the lock on the door before dark fell. Here are tales of suspense and the supernatural that will chill, amuse, and exhilarate. Features a new introduction by the late author's daughter, Lizza Aiken.

Best known for The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Joan Aiken (1924-2004) wrote over a hundred books and won the Guardian and Edgar Allan Poe awards. After her first husband's death, she supported her family by copyediting at Argosy magazine and an advertising agency before turning to fiction. She went on to write for Vogue, Good Housekeeping, Vanity Fair, Argosy, Women's Own, and many others. Visit her online at joanaiken.com.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Kelly Link
• "The Power of Storytelling: Joan Aiken's Strange Stories" by Lizza Aiken
• Cold Flame
• The Dark Streets of Kimball's Green
• Furry Night
• Hope
• Humblepuppy
• The Lame King
• The Last Specimen
• A Leg Full of Rubies
• Listening
• Lob's Girl
• The Man Who Had Seen the Rope Trick
• The Mysterious Barricades
• Old Fillikin
• The People in the Castle
• A Portable Elephant
• A Room Full of Leaves
• She Was Afraid of Upstairs
• Some Music for the Wicked Countess
• Sonata for Harp and Bicycle
• Watkyn, Comma

In the small town of Pennygaff, where Owen has been sent to live after his mother's death, a legendary golden harp has been found. Knowing of the prophesy of the Harp of Teirtu, Owen must prevent the magic harp from falling into the evil clutches of its reputed owner, the sinister and diabolical Lord Mayln. But it won't be easy. Owen and his friend Arabis are plunged into a hair-raising adventure of intrigue, kidnapping, exotic underground worlds, savage beasts... even murder.

For only too late will Owen learn that Lord Mayln will stop at nothing to have the golden harp.

Wicked wolves and a grim governess threaten Bonnie and her cousin Sylvia when Bonnie's parents leave Willoughby Chase for a sea voyage. Left in the care of the cruel Miss Slighcarp, the girls can hardly believe what is happening to their once happy home. The servants are dismissed, the furniture is sold, and Bonnie and Sylvia are sent to a prison-like orphan school. It seems as if the endless hours of drudgery will never cease.

With the help of Simon the gooseboy and his flock, they escape. But how will they ever get Willoughby Chase free from the clutches of the evil Miss Slighcarp?

In this hilarious classic adventure, an innocent boy and his friends must stop a plot to topple the King of England.

Simon, the foundling from The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, arrives in London to meet an old friend and pursue the study of painting. Instead he finds himself unwittingly in the middle of a wicked crew's fiendish caper to overthrow the good King James and the Duke and Duchess of Battersea.

With the help of his friend Sophie and the resourceful waif Dido, Simon narrowly escapes a series of madcap close calls and dangerous run-ins. In a time and place where villains do nothing halfway, Simon is faced with wild wolves, poisoned pies, kidnapping, and a wrecked ship. This is a cleverly contrived tale of intrigue and misadventure.

Having had enough of life on board the ship that saved her from a watery grave, Dido Twite wants nothing more than to sail home to England. Instead, Captain Casket's ship lands in Nantucket, where Dido and the captain's daughter, Dutiful Penitence, are left in the care of Dutiful's sinister Aunt Tribulation. In Tribulation's farmhouse, life is unbearable. When mysterious men lurk about in the evening fog, the resourceful Dido rallies against their shenanigans with help from Dutiful, a cabinboy named Nate, and a pink whale.

Dido Twite uncovers a devious plot against the king in this classic children's adventure set in an alternate Victorian England.

Dido Twite, a roving ambassador to the King of England, is on her way home to London when her friend Captain Hughes is injured in a stagecoach accident. When Dido seeks help, she encounters the odd inhabitants of Tegleaze Manor: strange old Lady Tegleaze, her nephew, Tobit, and his wizened, witchy nurse, Sannie. Soon suspicious things happen.

A priceless miniature is stolen. Tobit is framed and then kidnapped. A twin sister is found. And when Dido catches a glimpse of her rascally father in Petworth, she is sure she's in the midst of another Hanoverian plot. Can she get to London to warn the king and save St. Paul's Cathedral from sliding into the Thames?

In this fantasy adventure, a young girl visits a land where birds carry off men, fish eat human flesh, and she must rescue a pilfered lake.

Readers who have followed Dido Twite's escapades in Black Hearts in Battersea and Nightbirds on Nantucket will welcome her return in her wildest escapade yet.

Now back in print, The Cuckoo Tree and The Stolen Lake continue the Wolves Chronicles, the exhilarating and imaginative series that stemmed from Joan Aiken's classic The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.

A dazzling piece of dramatic, snowballing adventure, The Stolen Lake is full of fantastical details: revolving palaces, witches who are also court dressmakers, an apocalyptic volcanic eruption, and an infernal country with a noticeable lack of female children. On her way back to London aboard the British man-of-war Thrush, twelve-year-old Dido Twite finds herself and the crew summoned to the aid of the tyrannical queen of New Cumbria. A neighboring king has stolen the queen's lake and is holding it for ransom, and it's up to Dido and the crew to face fire, flood, execution, and wild beasts to get the lake back--or else.

A teenage adventurer gets wrapped up in her father's dastardly schemes in this children's novel by the author of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.

Dido Twite is finally back in London and reunited with her old friend Simon, now the Duke of Battersea and a favorite of King Richard. But no sooner does Dido start to settle in than her rascally father, Abednago, appears and drags her off into the night.

Soon Dido finds herself caught in the midst of another dastardly conspiracy: a Hanoverian plot involving a mysterious double for the king, the miraculous healing powers of music, and a spy network made up of abandoned street children called lollpoops. Meanwhile, out in the forest, starving wolves are closing in on the city...

Dido and Pa is the seventh book in the award-winning Wolves Chronicles, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

The children of London are disappearing--can Is solve the mystery before she vanishes too?

Is Twite, younger sister of the daring Dido, is on a desperate mission. An uncle she never knew just showed up at the cottage she shares with her sister Penny. He is being pursued by ravening wolves, and before he dies, the uncle begs her to find his missing son--Is's cousin, Arun.

The quest takes Is to London--a city mysteriously devoid of children, including the king's only son and heir. Is soon finds herself aboard the Playland Express, a secret midnight train that leaves town once a month, just before the new moon. The kids aboard believe they're headed to a far-off kingdom filled with fun and games. In reality, Playland is a freezing underground city ruled by the greedy "Gold Kingy," who has lured the youngsters there under false pretenses. His real objective is to put them to work in the coal mines. But the worst is yet to come: Gold Kingy is none other than Is's other uncle Roy! Now it's up to Is to avoid a terrible fate and use her wits, ingenuity, and powers of telepathic communication to free the children.

Is Underground is the 8th book in the award-winning Wolves Chronicles, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

This ebook features an illustrated personal history of Joan Aiken including rare images from the author's estate.

Is Twite and her cousin, Arun, use their telepathic gifts to find Arun's missing mother in this gripping adventure set in an alternate British kingdom

When Is Twite and her cousin, Arun, return to Cold Shoulder Road in Folkestone after their astonishing adventures in the North, the town is deserted and Arun's mother is missing. Some say she took off with the sect Arun was raised in before he ran away. Known as the Silent Folk, members of the group are not allowed to talk and must communicate through sign language. But there are others who insist that Ruth Twite is a witch. To make matters worse, Is's sister Penny has also vanished, along with the mute Handsel child. The only clue to all of their whereabouts is an elusive stranger called Admiral Fishskin.

When Is and Arun finally track down the cult, Arun discovers that they have new leader. Evil, charismatic Dominic de la Twite plays dangerous mind games and is able to block telepathic communication between Is and Arun. The cousins also find themselves up against a band of smugglers called the Merry Gentry that is using hidden tunnels beneath the city to search for buried treasure.

With its sprawling cast of Dickensian characters and imaginative historical and social setting, this gripping adventure will delight existing fans of the Wolves Chronicles and new readers alike.

Dido Twite is aboard the Thrush, trying to return to England after her adventures in America. But orders have been sent to find Lord Herodsfoot, said to be on Aratu, the Pacific 'Island of the Pearl Snakes'. Snakes are the least of Dido's worries as she and her companions struggle through the jungle. On Aratu she is helped by spirit magic but also meets settlers who will stop at nothing to achieve their ends. And what is this strange royal residence called Limbo Lodge?

Dido and Simon are in danger in this new addition to the Wolves Chronicles. Dido, back in England from America, is almost instantly kidnapped and taken to a derelict mansion surrounded by a deadly moat. The evil baron residing there, who is also a werewolf, wants desperately to know where King Dick is hidden. For the king is dying, and the evil baron wants to put his own demented son on the throne.

Meanwhile Simon is with the ailing king. Not only does King Dick want Simon to paint a portrait of him and his family, but Simon is also next in line for the throne. However, they do need to find the coronet for the ceremony that will crown Simon. Though the coronet is rumored to be in the derelict mansion where Dido is imprisoned, no one can find it. It's one cliffhanging, hair-raising chapter after another in this tongue-in-cheek, devilishly delicious adventure.

Dido Twite's sharp wits are put to the test in this new adventure in the Wolves Chronicles. After King Richard dies, Dido's good pal Simon is put on the English throne, but he hates being cooped up in drafty St. James Palace, and his crusty old advisors won't let him have any fun at all. If only another descendent of the king could be found, Simon would gladly be replaced. Never short a solution, Dido discovers a lead to another member of the royal line. But no one knows exactly who--or where--the child is.

The masterful storyteller Joan Aiken once again invites readers into a spellbinding world of magic, mystery, and mayhem--with a dose of "proper" English hilarity, of course.