E. Nesbit
Encyclopedia
Edith Nesbit was an English author and poet whose children's works were published under the name of E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on over 60 books of fiction for children
, several of which have been adapted for film and television. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society
, a precursor to the modern Labour Party
.
, Surrey
(now part of Greater London
), the daughter of an agricultural chemist, John Collis Nesbit
, who died in March 1862, before her fourth birthday. Her sister Mary's ill health meant that the family moved around constantly for some years, living variously in Brighton
, Buckinghamshire
, France (Dieppe, Rouen
, Paris, Tours
, Poitiers
, Angoulême
, Bordeaux
, Arcachon
, Pau, Bagnères-de-Bigorre
, and Dinan
in Brittany
), Spain and Germany, before settling for three years at Halstead Hall in Halstead
in north-west Kent
, a location which later inspired The Railway Children
(this distinction has also been claimed by the Derbyshire
town of New Mills
).
When Nesbit was 17, the family moved again, this time back to London, living variously in South East London at Eltham
, Lewisham
, Grove Park and Lee
.
A follower of William Morris
, 19-year-old Nesbit met bank clerk Hubert Bland
in 1877. Seven months pregnant, she married Bland on 22 April 1880, though she did not immediately live with him, as Bland initially continued to live with his mother. Their marriage was a ménage à trois
: Bland also continued an affair with Alice Hoatson which produced two children (Rosamund in 1886 and John in 1899), both of whom Nesbit raised as her own. Her own children were Paul Bland (1880–1940), to whom The Railway Children
was dedicated; Iris Bland (1881-1950s); and Fabian Bland (1885–1900), who died aged 15 after a tonsil
operation, and to whom she dedicated Five Children And It
and its sequels, as well as The Story of the Treasure Seekers
and its sequels.
Nesbit and Bland were among the founders of the Fabian Society
in 1884. Their son Fabian was named after the society. They also jointly edited the Society's journal Today; Hoatson was the Society's assistant secretary. Nesbit and Bland also dallied briefly with the Social Democratic Federation
, but rejected it as too radical. Nesbit was an active lecturer and prolific writer on socialism during the 1880s. Nesbit also wrote with her husband under the name "Fabian Bland", though this activity dwindled as her success as a children's author grew.
Nesbit lived from 1899 to 1920 in Well Hall House, Eltham
, Kent (now in south-east Greater London), which appears in fictional guise in several of her books, especially The Red House. She and her husband entertained a large circle of friends, colleagues and admirers at their grand "Well Hall House".
On 20 February 1917, some three years after Bland died, Nesbit married Thomas "the Skipper" Tucker, a ship's engineer on the Woolwich Ferry
. She was a guest speaker at the London School of Economics
, which had been founded by other Fabian Society members.
Towards the end of her life she moved to a house called "Crowlink" in Friston
, East Sussex
, and later to St Mary's Bay
in Romney Marsh
, East Kent. Suffering from lung cancer
, she died in 1924 at New Romney
, Kent, and was buried in the churchyard of St Mary in the Marsh
.
According to her biographer Julia Briggs, Nesbit was "the first modern writer for children":
"(Nesbit) helped to reverse the great tradition of children's literature inaugurated by [Lewis] Carroll
, [George] MacDonald
and Kenneth Grahame
, in turning away from their secondary worlds to the tough truths to be won from encounters with things-as-they-are, previously the province of adult novels." Briggs also credits Nesbit with having invented the children's adventure story
. Noël Coward
was a great admirer of hers and, in a letter to an early biographer Noel Streatfeild
, wrote "she had an economy of phrase, and an unparalleled talent for evoking hot summer days in the English countryside."
Among Nesbit's best-known books are The Story of the Treasure Seekers
(1898) and The Wouldbegoods (1899), which both recount stories about the Bastables, a middle class
family that has fallen on relatively hard times. Her children's writing also included numerous plays and collections of verse
.
She created an innovative body of work that combined realistic, contemporary children in real-world settings with magical objects - what would now be classed as contemporary fantasy
- and adventures and sometimes travel to fantastic worlds. In doing so, she was a direct or indirect influence on many subsequent writers, including P. L. Travers
(author of Mary Poppins
), Edward Eager
, Diana Wynne Jones
and J. K. Rowling
. C. S. Lewis
wrote of her influence on his Narnia
series and mentions the Bastable children in The Magician's Nephew
. Michael Moorcock
would go on to write a series of steampunk
novels with an adult Oswald Bastable (of The Treasure Seekers) as the lead character.
Nesbit also wrote for adults, including eleven novels, short stories, and four collections of horror stories.
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
, several of which have been adapted for film and television. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...
, a precursor to the modern Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
.
Biography
Nesbit was born in 1858 at 38 Lower Kennington Lane in KenningtonKennington
Kennington is a district of South London, England, mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth, although part of the area is within the London Borough of Southwark....
, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
(now part of Greater London
Greater London
Greater London is the top-level administrative division of England covering London. It was created in 1965 and spans the City of London, including Middle Temple and Inner Temple, and the 32 London boroughs. This territory is coterminate with the London Government Office Region and the London...
), the daughter of an agricultural chemist, John Collis Nesbit
John Collis Nesbit
John Collis Nesbit was an English agricultural chemist.-Family life and education:Nesbit was born on 12 July 1818 at Bradford, Yorkshire, the son of Anthony Nesbit, a teacher and land surveyor...
, who died in March 1862, before her fourth birthday. Her sister Mary's ill health meant that the family moved around constantly for some years, living variously in Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
, Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
, France (Dieppe, Rouen
Rouen
Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...
, Paris, Tours
Tours
Tours is a city in central France, the capital of the Indre-et-Loire department.It is located on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the alleged perfection of its local spoken French, and for the...
, Poitiers
Poitiers
Poitiers is a city on the Clain river in west central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department and of the Poitou-Charentes region. The centre is picturesque and its streets are interesting for predominant remains of historical architecture, especially from the Romanesque...
, Angoulême
Angoulême
-Main sights:In place of its ancient fortifications, Angoulême is encircled by boulevards above the old city walls, known as the Remparts, from which fine views may be obtained in all directions. Within the town the streets are often narrow. Apart from the cathedral and the hôtel de ville, the...
, Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
, Arcachon
Arcachon
Arcachon is a commune in the Gironde department in southwestern France.It is a popular bathing location on the Atlantic coast southwest of Bordeaux in the Landes forest...
, Pau, Bagnères-de-Bigorre
Bagnères-de-Bigorre
Bagnères-de-Bigorre is a French commune in the south-western Hautes-Pyrénées department, of which it is a sub-prefecture.-Notable people:Bagnères-de-Bigorre was the birthplace of:*Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke...
, and Dinan
Dinan
Dinan is a walled Breton town and a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in northwestern France.-Geography:Its geographical setting is exceptional. Instead of nestling on the valley floor like Morlaix, most urban development has been on the hillside, overlooking the river Rance...
in Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
), Spain and Germany, before settling for three years at Halstead Hall in Halstead
Halstead, Kent
Halstead is a village and civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. The parish is located on the North Downs, 3 miles south of Orpington and 5 miles north of Sevenoaks....
in north-west Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, a location which later inspired The Railway Children
The Railway Children
The Railway Children is a children's book by Edith Nesbit, originally serialised in The London Magazine during 1905 and first published in book form in 1906...
(this distinction has also been claimed by the Derbyshire
Derbyshire
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...
town of New Mills
New Mills
New Mills is a town in Derbyshire, England approximately south-east of Stockport and from Manchester. It is sited at the confluence of the rivers Goyt and Sett, on the border of Cheshire. The town stands above the Torrs, a deep gorge, cut through Woodhead Hill Sandstone of the Carboniferous period...
).
When Nesbit was 17, the family moved again, this time back to London, living variously in South East London at Eltham
Eltham, London
-Parks and open spaces:There is a large variety of open green space in Eltham, in the form of parkland, fields and woodland.*Avery Hill Park is large, open parkland, situated to the east of Eltham. It is most notable for its Winter Garden, a hothouse containing tropical trees and plants from around...
, Lewisham
Lewisham
Lewisham is a district in South London, England, located in the London Borough of Lewisham. It is situated south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-History:...
, Grove Park and Lee
Lee, London
Lee is a district of south London, England, located mostly in the London Borough of Lewisham and partly in the London Borough of Greenwich. The district lies to the east of Lewisham, one mile west of Eltham, and one mile south of Blackheath village...
.
A follower of William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
, 19-year-old Nesbit met bank clerk Hubert Bland
Hubert Bland
Hubert Bland was an early English socialist and one of the founders of the Fabian Society.Born in Woolwich, south-east London, Bland wanted to join the army but instead became a bank clerk. In 1877, he met 19-year-old Edith Nesbit, a follower of William Morris. They married on 22 April 1880 with...
in 1877. Seven months pregnant, she married Bland on 22 April 1880, though she did not immediately live with him, as Bland initially continued to live with his mother. Their marriage was a ménage à trois
Ménage à trois
Ménage à trois is a French term which originally described a domestic arrangement in which three people having sexual relations occupy the same household – the phrase literally translates as "household of three"...
: Bland also continued an affair with Alice Hoatson which produced two children (Rosamund in 1886 and John in 1899), both of whom Nesbit raised as her own. Her own children were Paul Bland (1880–1940), to whom The Railway Children
The Railway Children
The Railway Children is a children's book by Edith Nesbit, originally serialised in The London Magazine during 1905 and first published in book form in 1906...
was dedicated; Iris Bland (1881-1950s); and Fabian Bland (1885–1900), who died aged 15 after a tonsil
Tonsil
Palatine tonsils, occasionally called the faucial tonsils, are the tonsils that can be seen on the left and right sides at the back of the throat....
operation, and to whom she dedicated Five Children And It
Five Children and It
Five Children and It is a children's novel by English author Edith Nesbit, first published in 1902; it was expanded from a series of stories published in the Strand Magazine in 1900 under the general title The Psammead, or the Gifts. It is the first of a trilogy...
and its sequels, as well as The Story of the Treasure Seekers
The Story of the Treasure Seekers
The Story of the Treasure Seekers is a novel by E. Nesbit. First published in 1899, it tells the story of Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noel, and Horace Octavius Bastable, and their attempts to assist their widowed father and recover the fortunes of their family; its sequels are the The...
and its sequels.
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...
in 1884. Their son Fabian was named after the society. They also jointly edited the Society's journal Today; Hoatson was the Society's assistant secretary. Nesbit and Bland also dallied briefly with the Social Democratic Federation
Social Democratic Federation
The Social Democratic Federation was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman, and had its first meeting on June 7, 1881. Those joining the SDF included William Morris, George Lansbury and Eleanor Marx. However, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx's long-term...
, but rejected it as too radical. Nesbit was an active lecturer and prolific writer on socialism during the 1880s. Nesbit also wrote with her husband under the name "Fabian Bland", though this activity dwindled as her success as a children's author grew.
Nesbit lived from 1899 to 1920 in Well Hall House, Eltham
Eltham, London
-Parks and open spaces:There is a large variety of open green space in Eltham, in the form of parkland, fields and woodland.*Avery Hill Park is large, open parkland, situated to the east of Eltham. It is most notable for its Winter Garden, a hothouse containing tropical trees and plants from around...
, Kent (now in south-east Greater London), which appears in fictional guise in several of her books, especially The Red House. She and her husband entertained a large circle of friends, colleagues and admirers at their grand "Well Hall House".
On 20 February 1917, some three years after Bland died, Nesbit married Thomas "the Skipper" Tucker, a ship's engineer on the Woolwich Ferry
Woolwich Ferry
The Woolwich Free Ferry is a boat service across the River Thames, London, UK, which is licensed and financed by London River Services, the maritime arm of Transport for London...
. She was a guest speaker at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
, which had been founded by other Fabian Society members.
Towards the end of her life she moved to a house called "Crowlink" in Friston
East Dean and Friston
East Dean and Friston is a civil parish in the Wealden District of East Sussex, England.The two villages in the parish are in a dry valley on the South Downs - between Eastbourne three miles to the east and Seaford an equal distance to the west. The main A259 road goes through both village centres...
, East Sussex
East Sussex
East Sussex is a county in South East England. It is bordered by the counties of Kent, Surrey and West Sussex, and to the south by the English Channel.-History:...
, and later to St Mary's Bay
St Mary's Bay, Kent
St Mary's Bay is a coastal village in Kent, England. On the coast, situated on Romney Marsh, St Mary's Bay has a long sandy beach which stretches north to Dymchurch and south to Littlestone-on-Sea. It has a station on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway. Local website -History:During the...
in Romney Marsh
Romney Marsh
Romney Marsh is a sparsely populated wetland area in the counties of Kent and East Sussex in the south-east of England. It covers about 100 mi ² .-Quotations:*“As Egypt was the gift of the Nile, this level tract .....
, East Kent. Suffering from lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
, she died in 1924 at New Romney
New Romney
New Romney is a small town in Kent, England, on the edge of Romney Marsh, an area of flat, rich agricultural land reclaimed from the sea after the harbour began to be silted up. New Romney was once a sea port, with the harbour adjacent to the church, but is now more than a mile from the sea...
, Kent, and was buried in the churchyard of St Mary in the Marsh
St Mary in the Marsh
St Mary in the Marsh is a village near New Romney in Kent, England, situated in the heart of Romney Marsh in one of its least populated areas, but with New Romney just 3 miles away, there are plenty of amenities close by....
.
Literature
Nesbit published approximately 40 books for children, including novels, collections of stories and picture books. Collaborating with others, she published almost as many more.According to her biographer Julia Briggs, Nesbit was "the first modern writer for children":
"(Nesbit) helped to reverse the great tradition of children's literature inaugurated by [Lewis] Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
, [George] MacDonald
George MacDonald
George MacDonald was a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister.Known particularly for his poignant fairy tales and fantasy novels, George MacDonald inspired many authors, such as W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, E. Nesbit and Madeleine L'Engle. It was C.S...
and Kenneth Grahame
Kenneth Grahame
Kenneth Grahame was a Scottish writer, most famous for The Wind in the Willows , one of the classics of children's literature. He also wrote The Reluctant Dragon; both books were later adapted into Disney films....
, in turning away from their secondary worlds to the tough truths to be won from encounters with things-as-they-are, previously the province of adult novels." Briggs also credits Nesbit with having invented the children's adventure story
Adventure novel
The adventure novel is a genre of novels that has adventure, an exciting undertaking involving risk and physical danger, as its main theme.-History:...
. Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
was a great admirer of hers and, in a letter to an early biographer Noel Streatfeild
Noel Streatfeild
Mary Noel Streatfeild OBE , known as Noel Streatfeild, was an author, most famous for her children's books including Ballet Shoes . Several of her novels have been adapted for film or television.-Biography:...
, wrote "she had an economy of phrase, and an unparalleled talent for evoking hot summer days in the English countryside."
Among Nesbit's best-known books are The Story of the Treasure Seekers
The Story of the Treasure Seekers
The Story of the Treasure Seekers is a novel by E. Nesbit. First published in 1899, it tells the story of Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noel, and Horace Octavius Bastable, and their attempts to assist their widowed father and recover the fortunes of their family; its sequels are the The...
(1898) and The Wouldbegoods (1899), which both recount stories about the Bastables, a middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
family that has fallen on relatively hard times. Her children's writing also included numerous plays and collections of verse
Verse (poetry)
A verse is formally a single line in a metrical composition, e.g. poetry. However, the word has come to represent any division or grouping of words in such a composition, which traditionally had been referred to as a stanza....
.
She created an innovative body of work that combined realistic, contemporary children in real-world settings with magical objects - what would now be classed as contemporary fantasy
Contemporary fantasy
Contemporary fantasy, also known as modern fantasy or indigenous fantasy, is a sub-genre of fantasy, set in the present day. It is perhaps most popular for its sub-genre, urban fantasy.-Definition and overview:...
- and adventures and sometimes travel to fantastic worlds. In doing so, she was a direct or indirect influence on many subsequent writers, including P. L. Travers
P. L. Travers
Pamela Lyndon Travers OBE was an Australian novelist, actress and journalist, popularly remembered for her series of children's novels about the mystical and magical nanny Mary Poppins...
(author of Mary Poppins
Mary Poppins
Mary Poppins is a series of children's books written by P. L. Travers and originally illustrated by Mary Shepard. The books centre on a magical English nanny, Mary Poppins. She is blown by the East wind to Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane, London and into the Banks' household to care for their...
), Edward Eager
Edward Eager
Edward McMaken Eager was an American lyricist, playwright, and author of books for children. Eager's works for children were distinctive in their use of the theme of magic making an appearance in the lives of ordinary children - what would now be classed as contemporary fantasy...
, Diana Wynne Jones
Diana Wynne Jones
Diana Wynne Jones was a British writer, principally of fantasy novels for children and adults, as well as a small amount of non-fiction...
and J. K. Rowling
J. K. Rowling
Joanne "Jo" Rowling, OBE , better known as J. K. Rowling, is the British author of the Harry Potter fantasy series...
. C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
wrote of her influence on his Narnia
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven fantasy novels for children by C. S. Lewis. It is considered a classic of children's literature and is the author's best-known work, having sold over 100 million copies in 47 languages...
series and mentions the Bastable children in The Magician's Nephew
The Magician's Nephew
The Magician's Nephew is a fantasy novel for children written by C. S. Lewis. It was the sixth book published in his The Chronicles of Narnia series, but is the first in the chronology of the Narnia novels' fictional universe. Thus it is an early example of a prequel.The novel is initially set in...
. Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
would go on to write a series of steampunk
Steampunk
Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain or "Wild West"-era United...
novels with an adult Oswald Bastable (of The Treasure Seekers) as the lead character.
Nesbit also wrote for adults, including eleven novels, short stories, and four collections of horror stories.
Bastable series
(Some more stories about the Bastables are included in the 1905 story collection Oswald Bastable and Others. The Bastables also appear in the 1902 adult novel The Red House.)- 1899 The Story of the Treasure SeekersThe Story of the Treasure SeekersThe Story of the Treasure Seekers is a novel by E. Nesbit. First published in 1899, it tells the story of Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noel, and Horace Octavius Bastable, and their attempts to assist their widowed father and recover the fortunes of their family; its sequels are the The...
- 1901 The Wouldbegoods
- 1904 The New Treasure Seekers
- 1928 Complete History of the Bastable Family (posthumous omnibus of the three Bastable novels)
Psammead series
- 1902 Five Children and ItFive Children and ItFive Children and It is a children's novel by English author Edith Nesbit, first published in 1902; it was expanded from a series of stories published in the Strand Magazine in 1900 under the general title The Psammead, or the Gifts. It is the first of a trilogy...
- 1904 The Phoenix and the CarpetThe Phoenix and the CarpetThe Phoenix and the Carpet is a fantasy novel for children, written in 1904 by E. Nesbit. It is the second in a trilogy of novels that began with Five Children and It , and follows the adventures of the same five protagonists – Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane and the Lamb...
- 1906 The Story of the AmuletThe Story of the AmuletThe Story of the Amulet is a novel for children, written in 1906 by English author Edith Nesbit.It is the final part of a trilogy of novels that also includes Five Children and It and The Phoenix and the Carpet . In it the children re-encounter the Psammead—the "it" in Five Children and It...
Other children's novels
- 1906 The Railway ChildrenThe Railway ChildrenThe Railway Children is a children's book by Edith Nesbit, originally serialised in The London Magazine during 1905 and first published in book form in 1906...
- 1907 The Enchanted CastleThe Enchanted CastleThe Enchanted Castle is a children's fantasy novel by Edith Nesbit first published in 1907.-Plot summary:The enchanted castle of the title is a country estate in the West Country seen through the eyes of three children, Gerald, James and Kathleen, who discover it while exploring during the school...
- 1910 The Magic City
- 1911 The Wonderful Garden
- 1913 Wet Magic
- 1925 Five of Us and Madeline (published posthumously)
Novels for adults
- 1885 The Prophet's Mantle
- 1896 The Marden Mystery (very rare; few if any copies survive)
- 1899 The Secret of the Kyriels
- 1902 The Red House
- 1906 Man and Maid
- 1906 The Incomplete Amorist
- 1909 The House With No Address aka Salome and the Head
- 1909 Daphne in Fitzroy Street
- 1911 Dormant aka Rose Royal
- 1921 The Incredible Honeymoon
- 1922 The Lark
Stories and story collections for children
- 1894 Miss Mischief
- 1895 Tick Tock, Tales of the Clock
- 1895 Pussy Tales
- 1895 Doggy Tales
- 1897 The Children's Shakespeare
- 1897 Royal Children of English History
- 1898 The Book of Dogs
- 1899 Pussy and Doggy Tales
- 1900 The Book of Dragons
- 1901 Nine Unlikely Tales
- 1902 The Revolt of the Toys
- 1903 The Rainbow Queen and Other Stories
- 1903 Playtime Stories
- 1904 The Story of Five Rebellious Dolls
- 1904 Cat Tales
- 1905 Oswald Bastable And Others
- 1905 Pug Peter, King of Mouseland
- 1907 Beautiful Stories from ShakespeareBeautiful Stories from ShakespeareBeautiful Stories from Shakespeare is a collection published by E. Nesbit with the intention of entertaining young readers and telling William Shakespeare's plays in a way they could be easily understood...
(reprint of The Children's Shakespeare) - 1908 The Old Nursery Stories
- 1912 The Magic WorldThe Magic WorldThe Magic World is an influential collection of twelve short stories by E. Nesbit. It was first published in book form in 1912 by Macmillan and Co. Ltd., with illustrations by H. R. Millar and Gerald Spencer Pryse...
- 1982 Melisande (story reprinted from Strand Magazine (1900))
- 1987 The Cockatoucan (story reprinted from Strand Magazine (1900))
Stories and story collections for adults
- 1893 Something Wrong (horror stories)
- 1893 Grim Tales (horror stories)
- 1893 The Pilot
- 1894 The Butler in Bohemia
- 1896 In Homespun
- 1897 Tales Told in Twilight (horror stories)
- 1901 Thirteen Ways Home
- 1903 The Literary Sense
- 1909 These Little Ones
- 1910 Fear (horror stories)
- 1923 To the Adventurous
- 1983 E. Nesbit's Tales of Terror (reprint of selected horror stories)
- 1989 In the Dark: Tales of Terror (expansion of E. Nesbit's Tales of Terror)
- 2005 The Three Mothers (reprint; story originally in Strand Magazine (1908) and These Little Ones)
- 2006 The Power of Darkness: Tales of Terror (expansion of In the Dark: Tales of Terror)
Poetry
- 1885 All Round the Year
- 1885 Many Voices
- 1885 The Rainbow and the Rose
- 1887 The Lily and the Cross
- 1887 Spring Songs and Sketches
- 1894 A Pomander Of Verse
- 1899 Villegiature
Anthologies
- Before Armageddon: An Anthology of Victorian and Edwardian Imaginative Fiction Published Before 1914 Before ArmageddonBefore Armageddon: An Anthology of Victorian and Edwardian Imaginative Fiction Published Before 1914 is a collection of stories, including invasion literature, and one article, all edited by Michael Moorcock. Originally published in hardback by W.H...
(1976)
External links
- http://www.nybooks.com/articles/13132The Writing of E. Nesbit by Gore VidalGore VidalGore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
]
Online texts
- E-texts of works by E. Nesbit (some illustrated)
- Melisande by E. Nesbit, a tale similar to Rapunzel
- My School Days (article series by Nesbit)
- The Magic World
- Free audiobooks by E. Nesbit from LibriVox