Philip Ardagh Books In Order

A House Called Awful End

Prepare for gales of laughter and showers of clever merriment as this ‘scrumptious cross between Dickens and Monty Python’ The Guardian grandly appears in paperback. When both of Eddie’s parents catch a diseas that makes them turn yellow, , it’s agreed he should go away and stay wioth relatives at their house, Awful End. Alas for Eddie, those relatives are Mad Uncle Jack and Even Madder Aunt Maud and the journey to Awful End will take him to everywhere from St. Horrid’s Hone for Grateful Orphans to an audience with The Empress of All China. They never actually make it to Awful End, but that’s okay. The hilarious, nefarious, precarious journey is well worth its weight in wonderful and wacky words.

Dreadful Acts

Ah, life is never easy for Eddie Dickens. In this brave and hearty installment of the Eddie Dickens Trilogy, he narrowly avoids being blown up, trampled by horses, hit by a hot-air balloon, and arrested – only to find himself falling heels over head for a girl with a face like a camel’s. He also falls into the hands of a murderous gang of escaped convicts. They have ‘a little job’ for him to do. All the old favorites are here – including Mad Uncle Jack and Malcolm or it is Sally? the stuffed stoat – along with some worrying-looking new ones. A good time will be had by all. Except Eddie.

Terrible Times

The third and final or is it? installment in the fabulous Eddie Dickens Trilogy!

‘America?’ said Eddie Dickens in amazement. ‘You want me to go to America?’

In the third installment of the Eddie Dickens saga, Eddie, our steadfast hero, finds himself en route to North America aboard the sailing ship Pompous Pig along with a cargo hold full of left shoes, the world famous Dog’s Bone Diamond, and some of the most disreputable traveling companions anyone might have the misfortune to share a berth with. A mysterious stowaway and some familiar faces from Eddie’s past only complicate matters, as does being tied up and set adrift in a leaky rowboat. Will Eddie ever reach America?

The Fall of Fergal

The very last words young Fergal McNally heard in his life were: ‘Don’t lean out of that window!’ The very last sounds were probably the air whistling past his sticky out ears as he fell the fourteen stories, the honk of traffic horns below getting nearer and nearer, of course, and possibly the ‘SP’ of the ‘SPLAT!’ he himself made as he hit the pavement. Fergal certainly wouldn’t have heard more than the ‘SP,’ though, because by the time the ‘LAT!’ part had followed, he would have been well and truly dead. The first in a darkly hilarious new series from the bestselling author of the Eddie Dickens TrilogyPhilip Ardagh’s Unlikely Exploits series chart the extraordinary changes in fortune of the downtrodden McNally family, beginning with The Fall of Fergal. The setting is an unidentified country suffering from an unexpected breakout of large holes. The McNally children find themselves in the Dell Hotel, the venue for the final of the Tap ‘n’ Type typing competition, surrounded by a strange assortment of characters ranging from Twinkle Toes Tweedy, the house detective, to Mr. Peach, a ventriloquist with a very large mustache. With young Fergal McNally falling to his death on page one, the only way for the McNallys is up…

Heir of Mystery

First and foremost, this is a book about death. Okay, so it doesn’t start with an actual death like the Unlikely Exploit which precedes it…
but you’ll find a lot of it about. Life’s like that, though, I’m afraid. Then again, if we didn’t have death, this little planet would be a very overcrowded place. Not only that, most buildings would be old people’s homes and entire continents would be taken up with retirement village after retirement village, populated by some very old and wrinkled people indeed.

The second in the darkly hilarious new series that started with The Fall of Fergal

In this, the second Unlikely Exploit, Fergal McNally’s brain last seen in a pickling jar in the baseme*nt of the Sacred Heart Hospital is stolen, and the remaining McNally children are mysteriously drawn to Fishbone Forest and the forgotten crumbling mansion which lies at its heart. Here they meet the terrifying teddy bear clutching Mr. Maggs who is planning to make sweeping changes to the world…
which is all rather unlikely, isn’t it?

Packed with humor and excitement, this is another surefire winner.

The Rise of the House of McNally

A WORD TO THE WISE There are those of you who were saddened by Fergal’s death in The Fall of Fergal. Now Fergal is back. There are those of you who recoiled at yet more death in Heir of Mystery. This should cheer you up. There are those of you frustrated by not knowing what was causing the terrible outbreak of holes across the land. Your frustration will soon be at an end. There are those of you eager to find out the secret of Mr. Maggs’s teddy bear. The wait is over. And as for LeFay, Albie, and Josh’s particular powers? Just give me time. PHILIP ARDAGHThe third and final Unlikely Exploit!In this, the third and final Unlikely Exploit, the reader is taken on a journey through time in all directions, even revisiting some events from the previous Exploits and traveling back further still to a time before the McNally family’s extraordinary adventures began. And as if that wasn’t ridiculous enough, there’s also a glimpse of the shape of things to come. This is the Exploit where the McNallys’ powers are finally revealed and everything falls into place. Whether it makes sense or not is another matter. It’s all so unlikely!

The Green Man Of Gressingham

Tom Dashwood looks forward to becoming a knight but on his way to start his training, he is kidnapped by Robyn in the Hat and the Green Men of Gressingham, a band of outlaws who are protesting unfair taxes.

Dubious Deeds

The pint sized hero of the best selling Eddie Dickens Trilogy is back in Dubious Deeds, the first of his Further Adventures, and this time he’s many miles from home. In this ridiculous tale of deceit and double dealing, Eddie Dickens is away from Awful End in the highly unlikely highlands of Victorian Scotland. He finds himself amongst a group of vegetarian strangers living in Even Madder Aunt Maud’s Scottish ancestral pile; embroiled in a plot that could rock the very foundations of the British monarchy; and in danger of being late for his tea.

Horrendous Habits

After a serious accident involving a gorse bush, Eddie Dickens finds himself being cared for by monks of the Bertian order, founded by Ethelbert the Funny, and with absolutely no memory of who he is. Back at Awful End, he leaves behind a baby discovered in the bulrushes, his father flattened by a chimney in what was probably a deliberate act, and the fairly well known engineer Fandango Jones playing detective. With more surprises than a bag full of them, ‘Horrendous Habits‘ embraces a whole host of new characters along with firm favourites such as Malcolm the stuffed stoat.

Final Curtain

In this, the third and final of ‘The Further Adventures of Eddie Dickens’, our saucer eyed hero Eddie Dickens finds himself embroiled in an attempt to foil a plot to steal an oil painting of Mad Uncle Jack, mistakenly commissioned by the War Office who thought he was the other Major Dickens. Add to this the explosive mix of Even Madder Aunt Maud and Annabelle, the baby pet crocodile she now leads around on a silver chain; Dr Samuel Moot, besotted by Maud since a young man, having once shot Mad Uncle Jack twice in a duel; Gherkin, a professional dwarf; Eddie’s Uncle Alfie and a surfeit of heather; and all the usual suspects including Malcolm, of course…
and you’re in for another slice of the ridiculous served up in the way that only Ardagh can.

Stinking Rich and Just Plain Stinky

You won’t find Grubtown on any maps. The last time any map makers were sent anywhere near the place they were found a week later wearing nothing but pages from a telephone directory, and calling for their mothers. It’s certainly a town and certainly grubby except for the squeaky clean parts but everything else we know about the place comes from Beardy Ardagh, town resident and author of these tales. Grubtown is full of oddballs from the singing Grumbly girls to a family of duck haters, and an out sized mayor who’s knitting a new house but Manual Org is too repulsive even for them. Getting him to leave town is top priority, until the discovery of a humongous diamond changes everything…

The Year That it Rained Cows

A startled cow falling out of nowhere onto Limbo Goulash while he’s riding Marley Gripe’s bicycle marks the start of a chain of events strange even by Grubtown’s standards. Soon damaged property includes Purple Outing’s Music Shack and Minty Glibb’s attempt at the world’s largest strawberry jelly trifle. With Mayor Flabby Gomez throwing a wobbly, all chief of police, Grabby Hanson, can do is have the cow fearing townsfolk watch the skies. Underground, meanwhile, there lies another big surprise…

Your Body

Did you know that we: Burp at least fifteen times a day? See everything upside down but our brains turn the images right side up? Produce between one and two pints of boogery snot every day? Your Body: Boogers and All contains 64 pages worth of fun and fascinating facts like these…
in a cool and unique flexibound package!

The Scandalous Life of the Lawless Sisters

In The Not So Very Nice Goings On at Victoria Lodge, Philip Ardagh uncovered skulduggery of the murkiest kind lurking within the seemingly innocent illustrations of The Girls’ Own Paper. In ‘The Silly Side of Sherlock Holmes’ he created ‘A Brand New Adventure Using A Bunch of Old Pictures’ from the ‘Strand Magazine’. Now, in ‘The Scandalous Life of the Lawless Sisters‘, he has exposed the antics of one of the Victorian underworld’s most notorious and feared all female gangs by applying new captions to pictures from Punch of 1880.

High in the Clouds

Imagine a land where all the animals are free…
To the creatures of the woodland, the land of Animalia sounds like a dream a tropical island where all the animals live in harmony. They are over shadowed by a much more evil community the polluted Megatropolis, whose dirty skyscrapers block the horizon. And then one day, Wirral the Squirrel’s woodland is destroyed by developers and he is thrown into the nightmare world of Megatropolis. But Wirral believes in Animalia and he joins with Froggo, a world class amphibian balloonist, and Wilhamina, a girl squirrel, to lead the enslaved animals of the city to a new life. So begins an exciting adventure through the mean streets of Megatropolis, over the sea and through the sky. But can Wirral defend Animalia against the wicked Gretsch, who is determined to destroy it once and for all? Developed out of an exceptional fusion of creative talents, this story explodes onto every page. The plot is fast, furious and funny; the illustrations are full of rich depth and colour; and the characters live on long after you have turned the final page. It will delight children of all ages and is sure to become an enduring classic.

History’s Great Inventors

History’s Great Inventors are looked at irreverently in this book, which considers the more spectacular events and people through history. Each double page spread takes one particular person or event, and relates the story with historical background and actual evidence. Archimedes is said to have invented many weapons for the Greek armies but is best known for the Archimedes screw which was used to bail water out of flooded ships. The story goes that Archimedes also worked out a scientific principle while lying in the bath and shouted Eureka the solution. Leonardo da Vinci was an all rounder. He was a painter, a sculptor, an architect, musician, engineer, a scientist as well as one of history’s greatest inventors. John Gutenberg invented the first successful system of moveable type. A lawyer Fust, who had loaned Gutenberg money, saw the money making opportunities the invention had to offer so took Gutenberg to court when he could not repay the money. Gutenberg died penniless. Alexander Bell used his knowledge of the human ear to invent a machine that could carry human speech along a wire and in 1875, the world’s first telephone call was made. He also set up a laboratory that produced the first phonographic record. Charles Babbage, spotted mistakes in the published logarithm tables and built a machine which he hoped would calculate logarithms automatically. He worked on it for 37 years but the technology he needed for the machine to work properly had not been developed. He died frustrated, his dream unrealized. Mary Phelps Jacob designed the first brassiere, which made it possible for women to wear practical clothes instead of long constricting dresses. James Martin invented the ejection seat, which soon very quickly becaome a standard feature of jet fighters and other planes since the 1950s. Marie Curie invented radiotherapy which has been used to kill some cancerous tumours. The book expands the theme of invention with tales of remarkable people including Werner von Braun, Maria the Jewess, Thomas Edison, Galileo Galilei, George Stephenson, Wilbur and Orville Wright, Frank Whittle and Gottlieb Daimler.

History’s Travellers and Explorers

Taking a lively and slightly irreverent look at History’s Travellers and Explorers this book which is one of a series focuses on a particular traveller placing him or her in historical context. Included is actual evidence, plus fact boxes with further information.

Why Don’t Fish Have Fingers?

With a lively approach to the human body and life on earth, this informative book is written from the point of view of a friendly, inquisitive alien. It asks questions many young readers do, like ‘Why do humans’ ears stick out?’ and ‘Why Don’t Fish Have Fingers??’.

Ancient Egypt

The Pharaoh’s stolen treasure is a gripping mystery adventure set in Ancient Egypt where you have to unmask the thief and find the missing treasure. There are clues to spot, suspects to follow and questions that need answers answers that can be found earlier in the pages of Ancient Egypt a fact filled record of life in those fascinating times with full color illustrations reconstructing life in the past, and photographs of the evidence the Egyptians left behind.

The Aztecs

Enemy Spy is an action packed mystery adventure set in the Aztec Empire where you have to unmask the spy who is working against the Aztec general. There are clues to spot, suspects to follow and questions that need answers answers that can be found earlier in the pages of The Aztecs a fact filled record of life in those fascinating times with full color illustrations reconstructing life in the past, and photographs of the evidence The Aztecs left behind.

Ancient Greece

Death at the Theater is an exciting mystery adventure set in Ancient Greece where it is up to you to find out who killed Haemon at the Theater of Fools. There are clues to spot, suspects to follow and questions that need answers answers that can be found earlier in the pages of Ancient Greece a fact filled record of life in those fascinating times with full color illustrations reconstructing life in the past, and photographs of the evidence the Greek left behind.

The Romans

The paperback edition of The Romans, part of the History Detective series, is a great fact book with an exciting 16 page mystery adventure at the end. The first 48 pages are packed with interesting details of life in ancient Rome and comes complete with full colour illustrations reconstructing Roman life and photographs of evidence they left behind. Using the facts, children have to solve the crime of who has kidnapped Caesar’s son there are clues to spot, suspects to follow, and questions to be answered.

A Hole in the Road

Introducing young readers to the fascinating world of machines, the jobs they do and the roles they fulfil, this book tells the story of how a crane, steamroller and other machines go through the process of mending a road. The book ends with a gatefold which shows all the vehicles in the book.

All at Sea

Introducing young readers to the fascinating world of machines, the jobs they do and the roles they fulfil, this book tells the story of a busy day at the harbour as a tug pulls an ocean liner and fishermen pull up a load of fish. The book ends with a gatefold which shows all the vehicles in the bo

Marie Curie

The seventh book in a series of short, funny biographies of major world figures featuring facts and illustrations. Did you know Marie Curie carried out most of her experiments in a leaky old shed? Or that her husband Pierre Curie, also a famous scientist, was knocked down and killed by a milk cart?

Get a Life!

Three books about the Tudor age in one. Facts and illustrations about the lives of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots.

Inventions That Changed the World

Imagine a world without computers, cars, telephones, or airplanes. Have you ever wondered how these things were invented? From steam trains to underground trains, and from parachutes to space shuttles, this exciting book is bursting with intriguing facts and figures about the inventions that have made the world what it is today.

The Truth About Fairies

This book provides everything you ever wanted to know about fairies. This is a very funny, entertaining and informative book from Philip Ardagh. Find out the truth about fairy rings, fairy godmothers, will-o’-the-wisp and wailing banshees. Learn how to avoid the pranks, jokes and often more sinister traps fairy folk lay for mortals and find out how to take advantage of fairy magic and the fairy realm. Did you know…
– in fairyland, time works on a different scale. 900 human years can pass in a single fairyland night according to some Irish myths; and, fairies love milk which is probably why they have such good teeth. They often milk cows in the field!

The Hieroglyphs Handbook

An entertaining introduction to hieroglyphics which enables children to walk into a museum and translate Ancient Egyptian inscriptions. It provides background history and a practical section explaining how the language works and is written, as well as a glossary phrasebook.

The Archaeologist’s Handbook

‘The Archaeologist’s Handbook‘ takes a look at the role of archaeologists from the discovery of an artefact or archaeological site to the identification, dating, preservation, restoration and understanding of what has been found. This book looks at everything from the most basic archaaeological techniques to the latest technological advances used to assist the modern archaeologist. The book has a glossary of terms in the back and a section on the stories behind the most famous discoveries.

Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

Just in time for the holidays! The 4th annual collection of the grossest, strangest, and most unbelievable facts, acts, and oddities ever recorded it’s Ripley’s Believe It or Not!Are you ready for the gross? The wild? The unimaginable?You haven’t seen anything yet. Turn the pages if you dare. But watch out for…
…
gruesome ghosts that haunt your favorite hangouts!…
disgusting scabies mites that crawl under your skin!…
a belch so loud, it rivals the sound of an airplane taking off!…
and more mummies, crazy cars, and peculiar people than ever!It’s all weird, and it’s all inside Believe It or Not!

Book of absolutely useless lists

This is a brilliant, chunky book packed with incredible facts and figures. It contains a list for every day of the year and here are a few examples of the things you can expect to learn about…
six paintings that look better from a distance, three most likely places to find Tyrannosaurus Rex remains, six of the world’s smelliest cheeses, eight theories that are impossible to prove or disprove, five animals that look like something else and what they look like, eleven of the world’s most poisonous plants, four Runners-up who became more famous than the actual winners, five garments most commonly lost in laundrettes, twelve inventions that bankrupted their inventors, four twentieth century leaders killed by their own side, five of the world’s lowest mountains, ten great balloonists, twenty fictitious characters more famous than their creators, sixteen different types of footwear, seven suggested objects to use as paperweights, eight different types of hat with earflaps and eleven musical instruments most popular with one-man bands.