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The Twenty-two Lettrs
'Look, your Majesty, even you could read it in a few minute if I showed you. Only twenty-two letters!' Beth doesn't know that she' describing the invention of the alphabet or that she's living at a time when civilization i taking several huge steps forward. And that's just the beginning of this dramatic and exciting story.
1 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1966
5 people are currently reading
59 people want to read
About the author
Clive King
35 books25 followersDavid Clive King was born in Richmond, Surrey in 1924. In 1926 he moved with his parents to Oliver's Farm, Ash, Kent, on the North Downs, alongside which was an abandoned chalk-pit. His early education was at a private infant school where one of the teachers, Miss Brodie, claimed to have taught Christopher Robin Milne, and introduced Clive to stories about Stone Age people. Thereafter he went to King's School, Rochester, Downing College, Cambridge, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, London.
From 1943 to 1947 he served in the Royal Navy, voyaging to Iceland, twice to the Russian Arctic, to India, Sri Lanka, Australia, East Indies, Malaysia and Japan, where he observed the ruins of Hiroshima within months of its destruction. Civilian postings as an officer of the British Council took him to Amsterdam, Belfast, Aleppo, Damascus (styled as Visiting Professor to the University), Beirut, Dhaka and Madras, and gave opportunities for independent travel between these places and England. Several of these exotic places provided material for his nineteen children's stories, but his best-known book STIG OF THE DUMP he wrote in an educational job at Rye, East Sussex. The BBC broadcast a new television adaptation in early 2002.
Married, divorced and married again, Clive King has three children, seven grandchildren and a great-grandchild.
From 1943 to 1947 he served in the Royal Navy, voyaging to Iceland, twice to the Russian Arctic, to India, Sri Lanka, Australia, East Indies, Malaysia and Japan, where he observed the ruins of Hiroshima within months of its destruction. Civilian postings as an officer of the British Council took him to Amsterdam, Belfast, Aleppo, Damascus (styled as Visiting Professor to the University), Beirut, Dhaka and Madras, and gave opportunities for independent travel between these places and England. Several of these exotic places provided material for his nineteen children's stories, but his best-known book STIG OF THE DUMP he wrote in an educational job at Rye, East Sussex. The BBC broadcast a new television adaptation in early 2002.
Married, divorced and married again, Clive King has three children, seven grandchildren and a great-grandchild.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 12, 2015
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2522932.html
Clive King is best known to my generation of readers for Stig of the Dump, in which a modern (ie 1963) boy makes friends with a caveman who has mysteriously appeared in the neighbourhood via a never-explained timeslip. It must be forty years since I last read it. It may be forty years also since I last read The Twenty-Two Letters, in which a family living in a city-state on the coast of what is now Lebanon about 3,500 years ago is torn apart by war and natural disaster, and start to rebuild their society by inventing the alphabet. The author worked for the British Council in Syria in 1951-55 and Lebanon from 1960 to 1966, when the book was published; and his fascination for the history of the region, and how it fed into world culture, is a warm underpinning for the slightly didactic themes of how three technological innovations (writing, celestial navigation an horse-riding) come together with the Thera eruption to create the foundations for Western civilisation.
It was a good book when I read it in the 1970s, and it's a good book now. There are some lovely asides, some of which I picked up at the time (the character who is obviously a Hebrew, without that word ever being used; the casual racist disdain of the sophisticated Mediterranean types for the incomprehensible pale-skinned northern Europeans) and some of which I was able to get only now with help from the Internet (the Serabit el-Khadim inscriptions). The copy I had as a child had some beautiful internal illustrations by Richard Kennedy; unfortunately the more recent reprint that I have now has only the cover and chapter headers. It would be worth getting an old paperback for the sake of the art.
Clive King is best known to my generation of readers for Stig of the Dump, in which a modern (ie 1963) boy makes friends with a caveman who has mysteriously appeared in the neighbourhood via a never-explained timeslip. It must be forty years since I last read it. It may be forty years also since I last read The Twenty-Two Letters, in which a family living in a city-state on the coast of what is now Lebanon about 3,500 years ago is torn apart by war and natural disaster, and start to rebuild their society by inventing the alphabet. The author worked for the British Council in Syria in 1951-55 and Lebanon from 1960 to 1966, when the book was published; and his fascination for the history of the region, and how it fed into world culture, is a warm underpinning for the slightly didactic themes of how three technological innovations (writing, celestial navigation an horse-riding) come together with the Thera eruption to create the foundations for Western civilisation.
It was a good book when I read it in the 1970s, and it's a good book now. There are some lovely asides, some of which I picked up at the time (the character who is obviously a Hebrew, without that word ever being used; the casual racist disdain of the sophisticated Mediterranean types for the incomprehensible pale-skinned northern Europeans) and some of which I was able to get only now with help from the Internet (the Serabit el-Khadim inscriptions). The copy I had as a child had some beautiful internal illustrations by Richard Kennedy; unfortunately the more recent reprint that I have now has only the cover and chapter headers. It would be worth getting an old paperback for the sake of the art.
February 11, 2021
This is a children's book. It gives a fictionalised account of the birth of the alphabet in Gebal-Byblos, a historical town in Phoenicia on what is now the Lebanese coast where the alphabet does indeed seem to have begun. The invention is ascribed to an apprentice scribe called Aleph who is captured and enslaved by Egyptian soldiers. His brother Nun learns the secret of navigating by the stars on a sea voyage to Crete. His other brother Zayin, a general in the army, goes on a scouting mission north and is captured by horsemen..
Despite a surprising amount of description, this has everything a good boys' adventure yarn needs. All three brothers have to escape if they are going to warn their home town about invasion plans. And the stay-at-home sister Beth also has a part to play.
I loved this when I was a kid and even re-reading it there was a moment of catharsis near the end when a lump came to my throat and tears to my eyes. If it can still do that to a cynical sexagenarian it must be a great book.
Some of my favourite moments:
“'Call yourselves soldiers!' Zayin jeered. 'I’ve collected eggs in the farmyard from creatures with more guts than you! I’ve seen them clip wool from animals with as much sense!'" (Ch 2)
"Calculations, to Nun, were a matter of fingers and toes or pebbles, or beads on strings; but the stranger seemed to be able to perform them instantly." (Ch 3)
"The two men exchanged looks in the obscurity, as soldiers do on the battlefield when a casualty occurs." (Ch 10)
“I counted the trees, Father,” (Ch 11): the sniffle moment.
A much-underestimated masterpiece. February 2021
Clive King also wrote Stig of the Dump.
Despite a surprising amount of description, this has everything a good boys' adventure yarn needs. All three brothers have to escape if they are going to warn their home town about invasion plans. And the stay-at-home sister Beth also has a part to play.
I loved this when I was a kid and even re-reading it there was a moment of catharsis near the end when a lump came to my throat and tears to my eyes. If it can still do that to a cynical sexagenarian it must be a great book.
Some of my favourite moments:
“'Call yourselves soldiers!' Zayin jeered. 'I’ve collected eggs in the farmyard from creatures with more guts than you! I’ve seen them clip wool from animals with as much sense!'" (Ch 2)
"Calculations, to Nun, were a matter of fingers and toes or pebbles, or beads on strings; but the stranger seemed to be able to perform them instantly." (Ch 3)
"The two men exchanged looks in the obscurity, as soldiers do on the battlefield when a casualty occurs." (Ch 10)
“I counted the trees, Father,” (Ch 11): the sniffle moment.
A much-underestimated masterpiece. February 2021
Clive King also wrote Stig of the Dump.
May 5, 2022
The Twenty-Two Letters (there's a hyphen missing above!!) was one of the best books I read as a child, a less well-known novel by the author of Stig of the Dump, Clive King.
Although the story starts about 3,500 years ago in Byblos (not its name at the time), it takes in Egypt, the demise of Minoan civilisation, and naturally the beginnings of the alphabet and hints at possible explanations of Atlantis and the Flood.
I've had a look at it recently and although my recollection does seem a bit on the rosy side (I couldn't remember the title and hunted for it for years and years based on the bits I could recall - finally the internet came to my rescue last week), I was captivated by the book's scope as a boy.
I note that Clive King has been praised for his scholarship.
Although the story starts about 3,500 years ago in Byblos (not its name at the time), it takes in Egypt, the demise of Minoan civilisation, and naturally the beginnings of the alphabet and hints at possible explanations of Atlantis and the Flood.
I've had a look at it recently and although my recollection does seem a bit on the rosy side (I couldn't remember the title and hunted for it for years and years based on the bits I could recall - finally the internet came to my rescue last week), I was captivated by the book's scope as a boy.
I note that Clive King has been praised for his scholarship.
November 7, 2020
I read this when I was about eleven. And have just finished reading the same copy to my granddaughter. Brilliant story with lots of adventure and suspense.
May 29, 2023
Didn't get on with it at all.
November 8, 2019
Loved it as a child and put copy fell apart, so lovely to have it safely as an e-book!
October 3, 2021
Not bad for a kids book
Some kids books are fun to read even as an adult. It is not the case with this book unfortunately.
Some kids books are fun to read even as an adult. It is not the case with this book unfortunately.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews