Eight dragons and the children who deal with them: a boy-king who opens a forbidden book and lets out the Red Dragon, dragons that arrive as small as gnats, an ice dragon at the North Pole, and a cockatrice in a cave. Nesbit published the collection in 1900 between her better-known books, and the tone is pure invention without a moral in sight. "The Book of Beasts" is the story other writers have been rewriting ever since.

E. Nesbit (1858-1924) was an English writer born in London, a founding member of the Fabian Society, who supported an unreliable husband and their household by writing. She effectively invented the modern children's adventure story. Her works include The Story of the Treasure Seekers, Five Children and It, The Railway Children, and The Enchanted Castle.