I have been trying to find this book for years. I read it back in the late 70s or early 80s. I think the title was Tower of Tebuthra, or The Tower of Tebuthra, though I might have the last word wrong, it’s been so long. I can’t find any mention of it anywhere and have no idea who the author was.
The story involved a girl whose brother was lost (or abducted) in an alternate dimension that they got to through a television set in the attic. She follows him into the other world to try and get him back, and arrives at some place within the world wet, cold, and hungry. She’s bathed, clothed and fed at the order of the master of the place, who tries to seduce her into joining him. At some point she discovers that everything in his place is an illusion, including the bath, clothing and food he’s offered her. I don’t remember any of the story after that, except that she rejects his attempts to recruit her and continues to search for her brother.
I think you might be thinking of “The Tower of Geburah”, by John White. It definitely has the alternate world, and the television sets in the attic. If I remember it right, the girl goes through first, finding herself in the prison cell of the rightful king, but at some point the dark sorceror holding the king prisoner does offer her luxuries to seduce her to his side - and the luxuries are all illusions. She has two brothers, who have to go through a different television to enter the alternate world at a different place to go find her.
And looking at the wiki page for the series, it appears that there are two Anthropos books that have come out since I stopped reading the series!
And I still, for some reason, can remember the entire rhyming verse that prints out on the gateway televisions when they turn on, before they each start showing a picture of a different part of the new adventure:
“Look all thou wilt at the pictures and see,
List’ to whatever they say to thee.
The pictures you see are but one, not four,
And each to the others may serve as a door.
Once mayst thou enter by passing the frame.
Once mayst thou enter but never again.
Once, yet I pray thee to shatter that bond,
And pass through the glass - to what lies beyond.”
I’m so glad somebody knew what I was talking about!
