Nightbirds on Nantucket
AuthorJoan Aiken
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
GenreChildren's novel
Publication date
1966
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Preceded byBlack Hearts in Battersea 

Nightbirds on Nantucket is a children's novel by Joan Aiken first published in 1966, in which the waifish Dido Twite awakens on board a whaling ship and subsequently arrives in Nantucket, where she stumbles upon a sinister plot. It continues the series of alternate-history books that began with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, set in a slightly altered historical England in the early 1800s where King James III reigns.

Plot summary edit

In the preceding novel, Black Hearts in Battersea, Dido Twite is lost at sea and presumed drowned. As Nightbirds on Nantucket opens, she has been sleeping for more than ten months aboard the whaling-ship Sarah Casket, which found her in the North Sea.


Characters in "Nightbirds on Nantucket" edit

Dido Twite

Nathaniel "Nate" Pardon

Dutiful Penitence Casket

Aunt Tribulation

Mr Slighcarp

Professor Breadno

Captain Casket


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