Half Magic

Edward McMaken Eager (June 20, 1911 – October 23, 1964) was an American lyricist, dramatist, and writer of children's fiction. His children's novels followed Edith Nesbit in featuring the appearance of magic in the lives of ordinary children. Most of the Magic series is contemporary low fantasy.

Eager was born in and grew up in Toledo, Ohio and attended Harvard University class of 1935. After graduation, he moved to New York City where he lived for 14 years before moving to Connecticut. He married Jane Eberly in 1938 and they had a son Fritz. Eager was a childhood fan of L. Frank Baum's Oz series, and started writing children's books when he could not find stories he wanted to read to his own young son. In his books, Eager often acknowledges his debt to E. Nesbit, whom he thought of as the best children's author of all time. A well-known lyricist and playwright, Eager died on October 23, 1964 in Stamford Connecticut at the age of fifty-three.

Mouse Manor is told from the viewpoint of Miss Myrtilla the mouse, sole occupant of the manor which she has inherited from her mother. She keeps house faithfully, dusting the family portraits and baking a bag pudding for her solitary Christmas dinner.

Omnibus edition: Edward Eager's Tales of Magic (2000)

A dull summer is improved when Katharine, Mark, Jane and Martha find a magical coin-like talisman. The catch is that it grants half of any wish made by its bearer—a wish to be on a desert island sends them to the Sahara desert, and their mother ends up halfway home when she wishes to return home during a dull visit to her relatives. That "half magic" is a challenge, sometimes comical, until the children learn to double their wishes.

Half Magic was a number one seller in America. Anthony Boucher, comparing the novel to Nesbit, described it as "gay and charming, yet rigidly governed fantasy in the Unknown manner."

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