They must overthrow a set of corrupt ministers who are poisoning Irene's father, the king. Irene's grandmother also reappears and gives Curdie a strange gift. A monster called Lina aids his quest.
Louisa May Alcott, James Allen, Hans Christian Andersen, L. Frank Baum, William Blake, Anne Brontë, Willa Cather, Anton Chekhov, G. K. Chesterton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, F. Marion Crawford, Emily Dickinson, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry Van Dyke, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Nikolai Gogol, The Brothers Grimm, Kenneth Grahame, Thomas Hardy, Frances Ridley Havergal, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Felicia Hemans, O. Henry, Oliver Herford, E. T. A. Hoffmann, William Dean Howells, Ben Jonson, Washington Irving, John Keble, James Joyce, Rudyard Kipling, Selma Lagerlöf, Winifred Kirkland, Andrew Lang, Stephen Leacock, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, H. P. Lovecraft, George MacDonald, Charles Mackay, William Topaz McGonagall, Alice Duer Miller, Emily Huntington Miller, Olive Thorne Miller, John Milton, S. Weir Mitchell, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Clement C. Moore, William Morris, Mary Noailles Murfree, John Mason Neale, Thomas Nelson Page, Elia W. Peattie, Marjorie Pickthall, Beatrix Potter, Katharine Pyle, Arthur Quiller-Couch, Mary Darby Robinson, Christina Rossetti, Damon Runyon, Saki, Walter Scott, Edmund Hamilton Sears, William Shakespeare, Nora Archibald Smith, Robert Southwell, Robert Louis Stevenson, Frank Stockton, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Algernon Charles Swinburne, John Addington Symonds, John Banister Tabb, Booth Tarkington, Nahum Tate, Sara Teasdale, Lord Alfred Tennyson, William Makepeace Thackeray, Edward Thring, Henry Timrod, Leo Tolstoy, Anthony Trollope, Thomas Tusser, Mark Twain, Katharine Tynan, Henry Vaughan, Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, Anne Hollingsworth Wharton, Lucy Wheelock, John G. Whittier, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Oscar Wilde, John Strange Winter, George Wither, William Wordsworth, William Butler Yeats, Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, George Orwell, Agatha Christie, F. Scott Fitzgerald, H.P. Lovecraft, Virginia Woolf & EDGAR ALLAN POE
Arthur Conan Doyle, G. K. Chesterton, R. Austin Freeman, Fred M. White, Arthur Cheney Train, Edgar Wallace, Wilkie Collins, Robert Barr, O. Henry, Baroness Emma Orczy, Thomas Hardy, Robert Louis Stevenson, Saki, Sabine Baring-Gould, M. R. James, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens, Fergus Hume, Leonard Kip, Lucie E. Jackson, Catherine Crowe, William Douglas O'Connor, John Kendrick Bangs, Louisa M. Alcott, Frank R. Stockton, Grant Allen, James Bowker, Jerome K. Jerome, Florence Marryat, Katherine Rickford, James Matthew Barrie, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, George MacDonald, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, E. F. Benson & Algernon Blackwood
Hans Christian Andersen, The Brothers Grimm, Andrew Lang, James Matthew Barrie, Lewis Carroll, George MacDonald, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Sharp, Maurice Maeterlinck, Georgette Leblanc, John Ruskin, Carl Sandburg, Marion St. John Webb, Mary Louisa Molesworth, Johnny Gruelle, R. Nisbet Bain, W. R. S. Ralston, Arthur Ransome & L. Frank Baum
Marcel Proust, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William Shakespeare, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Kahlil Gibran, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, P. B. Shelley, Mary Shelley, John Keats, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Elizabeth Von Arnim, D. H. Lawrence, Ann Ward Radcliffe, Bram Stoker, Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph Conrad, Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, Frances Hodgson Burnett, C. S. Lewis, George Weedon Grossmith, H.G. Wells, Wilkie Collins, G. K. Chesterton, E. M. Forster, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, W. B. Yeats, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kenneth Grahame, George MacDonald, James Matthew Barrie, Mark Twain, Jack London, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, Kate Chopin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, James Fenimore Cooper, Henry James, Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Lewis Wallace, L.M. Montgomery, Homer, Plato, Apuleius, Marcus Aurelius, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herman Hesse, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jules Verne, Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert, Gaston Leroux, Honoré de Balzac, Stendhal, Voltaire, Charles Baudelaire, Alexandre Dumas, Émile Zola, Henrik Ibsen, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Gogol, Miguel de Cervantes, Benito Pérez Galdós, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Dante, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli, Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Kalidasa, Valmiki, Laozi, Sun Tzu, Confucius, Cao Xueqin, Princess Der Ling, Inazo Nitobe, Kakuzo Okakura & Soseki Natsume
Jane Austen, C. S. Lewis, H.G. Wells, Herman Melville, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, William Makepeace Thackeray, P. B. Shelley, Mary Shelley, John Keats, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Anne Brontë, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Elizabeth Von Arnim, D. H. Lawrence, Ann Ward Radcliffe, Bram Stoker, Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph Conrad, Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, Frances Hodgson Burnett, George Weedon Grossmith, Willkie Collins, G. K. Chesterton, E. M. Forster, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, W. B. Yeats, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kenneth Grahame, George MacDonald, James Matthew Barrie, Mark Twain, Jack London, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, Kate Chopin, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Kahlil Gibran, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, James Fenimore Cooper, Henry James, Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Lewis Wallace, L.M. Montgomery, Homer, Plato, Apuleius, Marcus Aurelius, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herman Hesse, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jules Verne, Marcel Proust, Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert, Gaston Leroux, Honoré de Balzac, Stendhal, Voltaire, Charles Baudelaire, Alexandre Dumas, Émile Zola, Henrik Ibsen, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ivan Turgenev, Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Gogol, Miguel de Cervantes, Benito Pérez Galdós, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Dante, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli, Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Kalidasa, Valmiki, Laozi, Sun Tzu, Confucius, Cao Xueqin, Princess Der Ling, Inazo Nitobe, Kakuzo Okakura, Soseki Natsume, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Dean Howells, Washington Irving, L. Frank Baum, Theodor Storm, Juan Valera & Rudyard Kipling
H.G. Wells, Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, Edwin A. Abbott, Jack London, Robert Louis Stevenson, George MacDonald, Henry Rider Haggard, William Hope Hodgson, Edward Bellamy, Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Francis Bacon, C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne, Margaret Cavendish, Jonathan Swift, William Morris, Samuel Butler, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, James Fenimore Cooper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ayn Rand, Owen Gregory, Hugh Benson, Fred M. White, Ignatius Donnelly, Ernest Bramah, Milo Hastings, Arthur Dudley Vinton, Robert Cromie, E. M. Forster, Anthony Trollope, Richard Stockham, Irving E. Cox, Cleveland Moffett, Richard Jefferies, Percy Greg, David Lindsay, Edward Everett Hale, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Abraham Merritt, Edgar Wallace, H. Beam Piper, Garrett P. Serviss, Gertrude Barrows Bennett, Philip K. Dick, E. E. Smith, Murray Leinster, Fritz Leiber, Andre Norton, Lester del Rey, August Derleth, Frederik Pohl, Kurt Vonnegut, William Dean Howells, Philip Francis Nowlan, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, George Griffith, Edwin Lester Arnold, John Jacob Astor & Gustavus W. Pope