When the clock struck thirteen

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When the clock struck thirteen is a children's book by Philippa Pearce . It was published in 1958 under the English title Tom's Midnight Garden and received the prestigious Carnegie Medal for Literature that same year . The book is considered a masterpiece of English children's and youth literature . It has been translated into several languages ​​and adapted for radio, television, cinema and theater.

Summary

When Tom Long's brother Peter fell ill with measles , the vacation plans fell through: Instead of building a tree house in the garden, Tom had to go to quarantine with Uncle Alan and Aunt Gwen so that he wouldn't get infected. They live in a small apartment in a former mansion that has no garden, as Tom discovers with disappointment. The landlady is the elderly, withdrawn Mrs. Bartholomew. There is nothing for him to do but do crossword puzzles, put puzzles together, and read Aunt Gwen's old girls' books. That is why he is incredibly bored, and since he is also not allowed to leave the house in order not to infect anyone, he feels unhappy and locked up. Aunt Gwen spoils him with delicious meals, but that only means that he cannot sleep at night because of his full stomach and lack of exercise. He often lies awake for hours, and when he hears the old grandfather clock on first floor 13 one night, he goes downstairs and finds that the back entrance no longer leads into the small back yard, but into a large, sunny garden. There he meets another lonely child named Hatty, who is the only one who can see him. They play together in the garden. Tom discovers that he can walk through doors and walls and won't be injured if he falls from a tree; Hatty therefore thinks he's a ghost. During their adventures together, he gradually realizes that they are taking place in the Victorian Age . Hatty is sometimes younger and sometimes older during Tom's visits, but as the story progresses she slowly develops into a young woman. Tom's brother Peter is getting well, but Tom is now trying to delay returning so that he can continue playing with Hatty in the garden. Shortly before returning home, he met Hatty for the last time: they were skating on the frozen River Cam ; since he has no ice skates himself, Hatty left them in his closet. The story ends with Tom finally visiting Mrs. Bartholomew, who he met in the garden as little Hatty.

History of origin

In the late 1950s, the mill house where Pearce grew up had to be sold. Pearce worried that neither the garden nor the house would survive. She wandered the garden, making notes of everything that grew there. She then wrote When the Clock Struck Thirteen, drawing on her father's stories of his own childhood to bring the past to light. He was Hatty's age when he skated the River Cam from Cambridge to Ely during the frost of 1894-95 . Tom and Hatty make the same trip in the book.

Allusions and references

The historical part of the book takes place on the property of a mansion, which in some details resembles the house in which the author grew up: the mill house in Great Shelford , near Cambridge. Cambridge becomes Castleford in the book, but without a university. At the time she wrote the book, the author was again living in Great Shelford, just across from the Mill House. The Kitsons' house is believed to be based on a Cambridge house near which Pearce studied during her time at university.

The book deals with questions about space, time and reality. We are in the dark for a while about who exactly the ghost is; It is always daytime in the garden and the weather is usually fine; Hatty develops into a young woman, but Tom is always the same age; Hatty and Tom disagree as to which of them is a ghost and who is a living person; in the end the impression arises that the garden is an old woman's childhood memories that have become reality. These subjects appear in her other books, especially those on ghosts. The meeting between Tom, still a child, and the aged Hatty, which finally takes place, is considered to be one of the most moving moments in children's literature.

The theories about time used in the book go back in part to JW Dunne's influential work An Experiment with Time , which also inspired other authors such as JB Priestley .

Awards and nominations

The book with illustrations by Susan Einzig won the prestigious Carnegie Medal in 1958 . In 2007 it was listed by the Carnegie Medal judges as one of the ten most influential children's books of the past 70 years.

Film, television and theater

The BBC filmed the book three times, in 1968, 1974 and 1988 (first broadcast in 1989). A film starring Anthony Way was produced by BS24 and Hyperion Pictures in 1999. In 2000 David Wood adapted the book for the stage.

German editions

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ LibraryThing: Copies and editions of Tom's Midnight Garden
  2. ^ Telegraph: Philippa Pearce
  3. ^ A b Nicholas Tucker: Philippa Pearce (obituary) , The Independent. December 23, 2006. Archived from the original on January 8, 2007. Retrieved June 28, 2020. 
  4. ↑ CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Anniversary Top Tens ( Memento from October 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Tom's Midnight Garden, Adapted for the stage by David Wood
    The Playwrights Database: David Wood, Tom's Midnight Garden