Four Tales brings together four of Philip Pullman's classic fairy tales for younger readers: The Firework-Maker's Daughter, I Was a Rat!, The Scarecrow and his Servant and Clockwork. all wrapped up in a Gothic story-within-a-story, as elegantly crafted as the most intricate clockwork.

Fresh from the field of Waterloo, Matthew Hervey is dispatched on a mission of the secrecy. Leaving behind his fiancee, Lady Henrietta Lindsey, he must journey to India, an exotic land that will test his mettle to the very limit.