Emma's opening sentence, which describes the titular heroine's many advantages, is loaded with foreboding. Discomfort and vexation lie on the horizon, triggered by her penchant for matchmaking. Emma's latest scheme involves finding a suitable husband for ingenue Harriet Smith, and to that end she persuades the latter to reject good-natured farmer Robert Martin, despite a mutual attraction. Harriet must set her sights higher, she exhorts, fixing on...

One night Peter is spotted and, while trying to escape, he loses his shadow. On returning to claim it, Peter wakes Mary's daughter, Wendy Darling. Wendy succeeds in re-attaching his shadow to him, and Peter learns that she knows lots of bedtime stories. He invites her to Neverland to be a mother to his gang, the Lost Boys, children who were lost in Kensington Gardens. Wendy agrees, and her brothers John and Michael go along. Their magical flight to...