If this chapter were charged with the task of describing twentieth-century English children's fiction, until recently a neglected category in literary histories, novels in trilogies and series would loom large. Imagine a literary history of the children's story without Joan Aiken, the Reverend W. Awdry, Enid Blyton, Susan Cooper, Brian Jacques, Michael de Larrabeiti, C. S. Lewis, Hugh Lofting, A. A. Milne, E. Nesbit, K.M. Peyton, Beatrix Potter, Philip Pullman, Arthur Ransome, J.K. Rowling, Rosemary Sutcliffe, or BarbaraWillard. Imagine never again visiting those countries of the mind where swallows and amazons rove Lakeland; where Harry, Ron, and Hermione attend Hogwarts; where descendants of British Romans witness in the dark ages the coming of a Celtic Arthur; where Mantlemass stands at the heart of Ashdown forest, persisting from the Wars of the Roses through the English CivilWar. Most readers would feel the absence of these dream countries of childhood reading, if they paused to recall the anticipation ignited by the long row of matching covers in a library or bookshop (is this the right summer to begin Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes books?), or the melancholy provoked by the end of a series (still disappointed at Narnia's rolling up like a carpet?), or the bittersweet recognition that they have gotten too grown up to enjoy a series anymore (at least until reading aloud to their own children begins).