The book “The Daughter of the Inventor of Fireworks”, published in 2005 (Rosman, Moscow), includes three works for children: the oriental fairy tale “The Daughter of the Inventor of Fireworks”, the Gothic fairy tale “The Clockwork, or Everything is Wound Up” and the comic book fairy tale “ Jack Spring Heels." The book contains many beautiful illustrations by contemporary artists. In the homeland of the writer (F. Pullman), the fairy tales were published separately and in different years; domestic publishers have combined them into a collection, but now we present to your attention one of the fairy tales included in the collection - “The Clockwork, or Everything Is Wound Up.” The Gothic fairy tale “The Clockwork, or Everything Is Wound Up” is a truly creepy story, evocative plots of “Frozen” by W. Hauff, “The Sandman” by E. Hoffmann and even the legend of Doctor Faustus. The spring of the fairy-tale plot is wound so tightly here that every step, as they say in such cases, steadily brings the heroes closer to the fatal denouement. However, the story about clockwork, wind-up toys and the sinister Doctor Kalmenius ends quite happily - precisely because it was “winded up correctly.”