''The 13 Clocks'' is a fantasy tale written by

James Thurber James Grover Thurber (December 8, 1894 – November 2, 1961) was an American cartoonist, writer, humorist, journalist, and playwright. He was best known for his gag cartoon, cartoons and short stories, published mainly in ''The New Yorker'' an ...

in 1950, while he was in Bermuda completing one of his other novels. It is written in a unique cadenced style, in which a mysterious prince must complete a seemingly impossible task to free a maiden from the clutches of an evil duke. It invokes many

fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, household tale, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful bei ...

motifs. The story is noted for Thurber's constant, complex wordplay, and his use of an almost continuous internal meter, with occasional hidden rhymes — akin to

blank verse Blank verse is poetry written with regular metre (poetry), metrical but rhyme, unrhymed lines, usually in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th cen ...

, but with no line breaks to advertise the structure. Other fantasy books by Thurber, such as '' Many Moons'', '' The Wonderful O'' (published 1958), and particularly '' The White Deer'', also contained hints of this unusual prose form, but here it becomes a universal feature of the text, to the point where it is possible to predict the word order for a given phrase (for example, "the Golux said" vs. "said the Golux") by looking at the pattern of emphasis in the preceding phrase. By the time he wrote this book, Thurber was blind, so he could not draw cartoons for the book, as he had done with ''The White Deer'' five years earlier. He enlisted his friend

Marc Simont Marc Simont (November 23, 1915 – July 13, 2013) was a Paris-born American artist, political cartoonist, and illustrator of more than a hundred children's books. Inspired by his father, Spanish painter Joseph Simont, he began drawing at an earl ...

to illustrate the original edition. The Golux is said to wear an "indescribable hat". Thurber made Simont describe all his illustrations, and was satisfied when Simont was unable to describe the hat. When it was reissued by

Puffin Books Puffin Books is a longstanding children's imprint of the British publishers Penguin Books. Since the 1960s, it has been among the largest publishers of children's books in the UK and much of the English-speaking world. The imprint now belongs to ...

, it was illustrated by

Ronald Searle Ronald William Fordham Searle (3 March 1920 – 30 December 2011) was an English artist and satirical cartoonist, comics artist, sculptor, medal designer and illustrator. He is perhaps best remembered as the creator of St Trinian's School and f ...

. The book has been reprinted by

The New York Review Children's Collection The New York Review Books Children's Collection (currently published under the label NYRB Kids) is a series of children's books released under the publishing imprint New York Review Books. The series was founded in 2003 to reintroduce some of the m ...

, with original illustrations by

and an introduction by

Neil Gaiman Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman (; born Neil Richard Gaiman; 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, audio theatre, and screenplays. His works include the comic series ''The Sandman (comic book), The Sandma ...

Plot summary

The evil Duke of Coffin Castle lives with his good and beautiful niece, the princess Saralinda, in a castle so cold that all the clocks have frozen at ten minutes to five. Several suitors have tried to court the Princess, but the Duke's policy is to test their eligibility by assigning them impossible tasks. A few days before Saralinda's twenty-first birthday, Prince Zorn of Zorna arrives in the town disguised as a minstrel named Xingu. He falls in with an enigmatic guide known as the Golux. Soon after, he is arrested for singing mocking songs about the Duke in public. The Duke learns "Xingu"'s true identity, and decides to allow him to court Saralinda. The Duke assigns Zorn the task of finding a thousand jewels, and sets a deadline 99 hours hence, which is too little time for Zorn to obtain the jewels from the kingdom of Zorna. In addition, the Duke demands that Zorn must also find a way to restart the thirteen frozen clocks. Zorn and the Golux travel to the home of Hagga, a woman who had been given the magical ability to weep jewels rather than tears. She tells them that she has wept so much, in order to provide jewels for others, that she can no longer weep from sadness; the only time she weeps is when she weeps from laughing. She adds that such jewels, produced by weeping with laughter, will turn back into tears a fortnight (fourteen days) later. Undeterred by this, the Golux and Zorn obtain a thousand of these short-lived jewels of laughter from her. The Prince and Golux return to the castle, with the jewels. With the help of Saralinda, the Golux finds a way to restart the clocks as required. Presented with the thousand jewels and the sound of the thirteen clocks striking, the Duke is forced to admit defeat. Zorn and the Princess happily depart by ship, first to the kingdom of Yarrow (where Saralinda's father lives) and then on to the Prince's homeland of Zorna. A fortnight later, while the Duke is gloating over his jewels, they transform back into tears. The angry Duke, deprived of his vengeance and his profit, is then killed by a nightmarish monster called the Todal, sent by the Devil as punishment for failing to do sufficient evil.

Reception

Boucher and McComas praised the book as "magically adorned with touches of modern humor, hints of dark Jacobean terror, and gleams of pure poetry.". The USA's

Common Core State Standards Initiative The Common Core State Standards Initiative, also known as simply Common Core, was an American, multi-state educational initiative begun in 2010 with the goal of increasing consistency across state standards, or what K–12 students throughout th ...

includes ''The 13 Clocks'' as a text exemplar for second and third grades.

Stage, film and audio

The story was set to music by Mark Bucci and appeared in 1953 as the fifth episode of '' The Motorola Television Hour'', with

Basil Rathbone Philip St. John Basil Rathbone MC (13 June 1892 – 21 July 1967) was an Anglo-South African actor. He rose to prominence in the United Kingdom as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in more than 70 films, primarily costume drama ...

as the evil Duke. It was also adapted and produced by Stephen Teeter for use in the 1960s in a production in Berkeley, California. Later it was adapted and produced by

Frank Lowe Frank Lowe (June 24, 1943 – September 19, 2003) was an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist and composer. Biography Born in Memphis, Tennessee, Lowe took up the tenor saxophone at the age of 12. As an adult he moved to San Francisco, where h ...

for stage, and published in 1976 by Samuel French, Inc . In 1968,

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...

hired producer

Mervyn LeRoy Mervyn LeRoy (; October 15, 1900 – September 13, 1987) was an American film director and producer. During the 1930s, he was one of the two great practitioners of economical and effective film directing at Warner Bros., Warner Brothers studios, ...

to make a film of ''The 13 Clocks'', and the

Sherman Brothers The Sherman Brothers were an American songwriting duo that specialized in musical films, made up of brothers Robert Sherman (December 19, 1925 – March 6, 2012) and Richard Sherman (June 12, 1928 – May 25, 2024). Together they received ...

wrote a score. The project was cancelled; the score was released on the ''Unsung Sherman Brothers'' CD. Audio recordings have also been produced, performed by

Lauren Bacall Betty Joan Perske (September 16, 1924 – August 12, 2014), professionally known as Lauren Bacall ( ), was an American actress. She was named the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, 20th-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema by the America ...

(Pathways of Sound, POS 1039 & 1040),

Peter Ustinov Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov (16 April 192128 March 2004) was a British actor, director and writer. An internationally known raconteur, he was a fixture on television talk shows and lecture circuits for much of his career. Ustinov received #Awa ...

(

Caedmon Audio Caedmon Audio and HarperCollins Audio are record label imprints of HarperCollins Publishers that specialize in audiobooks and other literary content. Formerly Caedmon Records, its marketing tag-line was Caedmon: a Third Dimension for the Print ...

, ) and

Edward Woodward Edward Albert Arthur Woodward (1 June 1930 – 16 November 2009) was an English actor and singer. He began his career on stage, appearing in productions in both the West End of London and on Broadway in New York City. He came to wider att ...

(Phoenix Audio, ). The BBC produced a radio version of the story in December 1973, with

Heron Carvic Heron Carvic (born Geoffrey Richard William Harris; 21 January 1913 – 9 February 1980) was an English actor and writer who provided the voice for Gandalf in the BBC Radio version of ''The Hobbit'', and played Caiaphas the High Priest every ti ...

as the Golux and Nigel Lambert as Prince Zorn. A three part

Jackanory ''Jackanory'' was a BBC children's television series which was originally broadcast between 1965 and 1996. It was designed to stimulate an interest in Reading (activity), reading. The programme was first transmitted on 13 December 1965, and the ...

adaptation was broadcast on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...

28–30 December 1983 starring

Colin Jeavons Colin Abel Jeavons (born 20 October 1929) is a British retired actor and TV presenter. He is known for his character roles and has worked in theatre, television and film, especially in literary adaptations and roles related to the works of Char ...

as the Duke,

Roy Kinnear Roy Mitchell Kinnear (8 January 1934 – 20 September 1988) was an English character actor and comedian. He was known for his acting roles in movies such as Henry Salt in the 1971 film ''Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory'', Algernon in The Be ...

as the Golux,

Yolande Palfrey Yolande Anne Elissa Palfrey (29 March 1957 – 9 April 2011) was a British actress. She appeared in many BBC programmes including '' Pennies from Heaven'', ''Measure for Measure'', ''Elizabeth Alone'', '' Wings'', ''Blake's 7'' ("Pressure Point" ...

as Saralinda and Simon Shepherd as Prince Zorn. A musical-theater adaptation, titled "Hooray for Now", was written by New York duo Peter Haas (book and lyrics) and Gene Goldberg (music), in the 1950s, and was presented to Mr Thurber's widow, Helen Wismer, who did not approve it. A song from the show "I Wish You Well" has been covered by Skitch Henderson and several New York cabaret artists. Christopher Theofanidis wrote an opera based on the story in 2002. Visual artist Juan Delcán created a short animated film of the opening chapter of the book, with narration by

References

External links

* "The Motorola Television Hour", 1953

'
''The 13 Clocks'', Juan Delcan, 2011
{{DEFAULTSORT:13 Clocks, The 1950 American novels 1950 fantasy novels American fantasy novels Novels by James Thurber Books illustrated by Marc Simont American children's novels Children's fantasy novels 1950 children's books Children's books set in castles Children's books about princesses