The Shadow Cage, and Other Tales of the Supernatural

by Philippa Pearce, Janet Archer (Illustrator), Mal Peet (Introduction)

A collection of stories, both haunting and mysterious, created from everyday life and ordinary things. The author also wrote Tom's Midnight Garden, The Way to Sattin Shore and What the Neighbours Did and Other Stories.

Contents:
The shadow-cage. --
Miss Mountain. --
Guess. --
At the river-gates. --
Her father's attic. --
The running-companion. --
Beckoned. --
The dear little man with his hands in his pockets. --
The dog got them. --
The strange illness of Mr. Arthur Cook.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Horror, Childrens, Ghosts, Anthologies, Supernatural

144 pages, Paperback

First published April 14, 1977

About the author

Philippa Pearce was an acclaimed English author of children’s literature, best remembered for her classic time-slip novel Tom’s Midnight Garden, which won the 1958 Carnegie Medal and remains a staple of British children’s fiction. Raised in Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, in the Mill House by the River Cam, Pearce drew lifelong inspiration from her rural upbringing. Educated at the Perse School for Girls and Girton College, Cambridge, she studied English and History before working as a civil servant and later producing schools’ radio programmes for the BBC.
Her debut, Minnow on the Say (1955), inspired by local landscapes and a childhood canoe trip, was a Carnegie runner-up and later adapted for television. Tom’s Midnight Garden, also rooted in her childhood environment, became her most celebrated work, inspiring multiple adaptations for stage, screen, and television. Pearce went on to publish over thirty books, including A Dog So Small, The Squirrel Wife, The Battle of Bubble and Squeak, and The Way to Sattin Shore, with several earning further Carnegie commendations.
Married briefly to Martin Christie, with whom she had a daughter, Pearce returned to Great Shelford in 1973, where she lived until her death in 2006. Her legacy continues through the annual Philippa Pearce Lecture, celebrating excellence in children’s literature.

Reviews

[Alwynne]

Ten, short, supernatural tales for children firmly rooted in the horrors that may reside in domestic, everyday realities. Traces of looming monstrous or fantastical beings are scarce here, the truly malevolent creatures are human, and family members may be more dangerous than strangers. Philippa Pearce’s themes range from the legacy of childhood trauma, the extremes of sibling rivalry, the lingering impact of childhood grief and loss, and the fault lines beneath a veneer of urban community. Only The Shadow-Cage approaches a traditional eldritch tale, with its focus on witchcraft, cursed objects and the suggestion of disembodied evil. There are some haunting passages in Pearce’s stories but, apart from The Running-Companion which I thought had an unsettling air of genuine malice, the pieces here are quite muted and disappointingly mundane, particularly compared to the sophisticated narratives produced by authors like Frances Hardinge. Although it was Frances Hardinge’s lecture Peopling the Darkness, which includes The Shadow-Cage in a broader discussion of menace in children’s fiction, that led me to Pearce’s collection.

Peopling the Darkness http://www.pearcelecture.com/the-lect...

[Manuel Alfonseca]

ENGLISH: I had read before three of the tales in this collection of ten strange stories: The story of the title, a weird witch story where we never learn who are the whistlers; "At the river gates", where the ghost of a dead soldier helps his father in his need; and "Her father's attic," a good representative of several of the stories in this book, where past shocks become permanent haunting.

One of the best is "Beckoned," which reminds me Dombey and Son by Dickens, although the conflict provoked by an obstinate man is solved in a different way by the ghost of his dead wife.

In several stories, Pearce explains little and expects the reader to discover what is happening. Although she doesn't say so, in "The dog got them" I came to the conclusion that "they" were two DT visions of a drunkard.

ESPAÑOL: Ya había leído tres de los cuentos de esta colección de diez cuentos raros: El que le da título a la colección, una historia de brujas en la que no llegamos a saber quiénes son los silbadores; "En las esclusas del río", donde el fantasma de un soldado muerto ayuda a su padre en un momento de necesidad; y "El ático de su padre", que representa bien el tema de varios de los cuentos de este libro, en los que los traumas del pasado se convierten en obsesiones persistentes.

Uno de los mejores es "Beckoned", que me recuerda mucho a Dombey and Son de Dickens, aunque el conflicto provocado por un hombre obstinado se resuelve de una manera diferente, gracias a la acción del fantasma de su difunta esposa.

En varios de sus cuentos, Pearce explica poco y espera que el lector descubra lo que está pasando. Aunque no lo dice así, en "El perro los atrapó" llegué a la conclusión de que "ellos" eran dos visiones del Delirium Tremens de un borracho.

[Mathew]

A cracking collection of short stories which Pearce herself was known to enjoy telling children. With about nine stories in all, all based mainly in semi-rural locations but with an intriguing balance of child and adult protagonists, Pearce calls on both people and place to great effect here (as it what makes many great 'supernatural' stories so successful. As an adult reader I didn't feel that many of the endings ended on a concerning note but rather were either touched with melancholy or closure and explored more the idea of restless spirits caught within the realm of the living seeking a release.

[Tom]

Collection of short supernatural themed stories for children. Notable for the title story which features a witch bottle.

★ The Shadow Cage
★ Miss Mountain
★ Guess
★ At the River Gate
★ Her Father's Attic
★ The Running Companion
★ Beckoned
★ The Dear Little Man with His Hands in His Pockets
★ The Dog Got Them
★ The Strange Illness of Mr. Arthur Cook

[Emkoshka]

Tom's Midnight Garden was one of my favourite books as a child, and so when I spied this short story collection by Philippa Pearce in a little free library last year, I snapped it up. And then I had to wait nine months until a suitably wintry day to start reading it, limiting myself to one story a day in an attempt to better absorb and appreciate each story (as opposed to ripping through the whole collection in two days, as I did recently with Salt Slow). I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the stories; there wasn't a clunker among them. While they weren't overtly scary, several were chilling in that delightfully creepy way of old folk tales, in which darkness has a tangible presence and negative emotions linger in a place. In that way, they felt very timeless and universal. My favourites were 'At the River-Gates', 'Her Father's Attic' and 'The Strange Illness of Mr Arthur Cook' though honestly, they were all great; those were just the three stories that either moved me the most or had the chills creeping up my spine. Such an enjoyable read; I wish all short story collections were this strong.

[Doodles McC]

I liked as a young child, we read this in class. Ten, short, supernatural tales for children firmly rooted in the horrors that may reside in domestic, everyday realities. The truly malevolent creatures are human, and family members may be more dangerous than strangers. Philippa Pearce’s themes range from the legacy of childhood trauma, the extremes of sibling rivalry, the lingering impact of childhood grief and loss, and the fault lines beneath a veneer of urban community. Only The Shadow-Cage approaches a traditional eldritch tale, with its focus on witchcraft, cursed objects and the suggestion of disembodied evil.

[Eleanor Blair]

I borrowed this from the library on the grounds that not only is she a local author but that I love her most well known book (Tom's Midnight Garden). Anyway I had no idea what to expect - I hadn't even noticed it was a book of short stories. Turns out to be an utterly charming set of ghost stories, and delightfully varied in style. Scary, heart-wrenching, funny - brilliant. Devoured in an hour and a half flat.

[PrettyFlamingo]

I couldn't find the version of the book I read. It is 1977 Puffin with a front cover illustration by Stephen McDonald and illustrations within by Chris Molan.

Collection of spooky and curious tales, aimed at older children, but still creepy enough for adults to like! Read as part of my spooky season but I had so many to get through, I left it until November - still dark and creepy enough!

[Georgie]

Fantastic collection of tales which are varying degrees of creepy. My favourite (and by far the creepiest) was 'The Running-Companion' which has a distinct M.R. James-ish flavour to it.

Other particularly good ones were

-The Shadow Cage
-Beckoned
-The Dog Got Them

[Liz Chapman]

A rather nice collection of supernatural stories , not horror , to the usual Philippa Pearce standard. The characters were well formed and the stories came into your head like little films. Rather enchanting I thought.

[Leon RE]

Classic creepy and spine-chilling ghost tales, perfect for reading out loud. Great for kids but would probably give adults a few goosebumps as well.