Edith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland; 15 August 1858 – 4 May 1924) was an English writer and poet, who published her books for children and others as E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on more than 60 such books. She was also a political activist and co-founder of the Fabian Society, a socialist organisation later affiliated to the Labour Party.
Nesbit was born in 1858 at 38 Lower Kennington Lane, Kennington, Surrey (now classified as Inner London),[a] the daughter of an agricultural chemist, John Collis Nesbit, who died in March 1862, before her fourth birthday. Her mother was Sarah Green (née Alderton).[2]
After Mary's death, Edith and her mother settled for three years at Halstead Hall, Halstead, north-west Kent, a location that inspired The Railway Children, although the distinction has also been claimed by the Derbyshire town of New Mills.[4]
When Nesbit was 17, the family moved back to Lewisham in south-east London. There is a Lewisham Council plaque to her at 28 Elswick Road.[5]
In 1877, at the age of 18, Nesbit met the bank clerk Hubert Bland, her elder by three years. Seven months pregnant, she married Bland on 22 April 1880, but did not initially live with him, as Bland remained with his mother. Their marriage was tumultuous. Early on, Nesbit found that another woman, Maggie Doran, who lived with his mother, believed she was Hubert's fiancée and had also borne him a child. Nesbit's children by Bland were Paul Cyril Bland (1880–1940), to whom The Railway Children was dedicated, Mary Iris Bland (1881–1965), who married John Austin D Phillips in 1907,[6] and Fabian Bland (1885–1900).
A more serious blow came in 1886, when she discovered that her friend Alice Hoatson was pregnant by him. She had previously agreed to adopt Hoatson's child and allow Hoatson to live with her as their housekeeper. After she discovered the truth, she and her husband quarrelled violently and she suggested that Hoatson and the baby, Rosamund, should leave; her husband threatened to leave Edith if she disowned the baby and its mother. Hoatson remained with them as a housekeeper and secretary and became pregnant by Bland again 13 years later. Edith again adopted Hoatson's child, John.[7] Bland's two children by Alice Hoatson, whom Edith adopted, were Rosamund Edith Nesbit Hamilton, later Bland (1886–1950), who married Clifford Dyer Sharp on 16 October 1909,[8] and to whom The Book of Dragons was dedicated, and John Oliver Wentworth Bland (1899–1946) to whom The House of Arden and Five Children and It were dedicated.[9][10] Nesbit's son Fabian died aged 15 after a tonsil operation; Nesbit dedicated several books to him, including The Story of the Treasure Seekers and its sequels. Nesbit's adopted daughter Rosamund collaborated with her on Cat Tales.
E. Nesbit's grave in St Mary in the Marsh's churchyard bears a wooden marker by her second husband, Thomas Terry Tucker. There is also a memorial plaque to her inside the church.
Nesbit admired the artist and Marxian socialist William Morris.[11][12] The couple joined the founders of the Fabian Society in 1884,[13] after which their son Fabian was named,[14] and jointly edited its journal Today. Hoatson was its assistant secretary. Nesbit and Bland dallied with the Social Democratic Federation, but found it too radical. Nesbit was a prolific lecturer and writer on socialism in the 1880s. She and her husband co-wrote under the pseudonym "Fabian Bland",[15] However, the joint work dwindled as her success rose as a children's author. She was a guest speaker at the London School of Economics, which had been founded by other Fabian Society members.
Edith lived from 1899 to 1920 at Well Hall, Eltham, in south-east London,[16] which makes fictional appearances in several of her books, such as The Red House. From 1911 she kept a second home on the Sussex Downs at Crowlink, Friston, East Sussex.[17] She and her husband entertained many friends, colleagues and admirers at Well Hall.[18]
On 20 February 1917, some three years after Bland died, Nesbit married Thomas "the Skipper" Tucker in Woolwich, where he was captain of the Woolwich Ferry.
Although she was the family breadwinner and has the father in The Railway Children declare that "[g]irls are just as clever as boys, and don’t you forget it!", Nesbit did not champion women's rights. "She opposed the cause of women’s suffrage—mainly, she claimed, because women could swing Tory, thus harming the Socialist cause."[19] She is said to have avoided the literary moralising that characterised the age. "And, most crucially, both books are constructed from a blueprint that is also a kind of reënactment of the author’s own childhood: an idyll torn up at its roots by the exigencies of illness, loss, and grief."[19]
Towards the end of her life, Nesbit moved first to Crowlink, then with the Skipper to two conjoined properties which were Royal Flying Corps buildings, 'Jolly Boat' and 'Long Boat'. Nesbit lived in 'Jolly Boat' and the Skipper in 'Long Boat'. Nesbit died in 'The Long Boat' at Jesson, St Mary's Bay, New Romney, Kent, in 1924, probably from lung cancer (she "smoked incessantly"),[20] and was buried in the churchyard of St Mary in the Marsh. Her husband Thomas died at the same address on 17 May 1935. Edith's son Paul Bland was an executor of Thomas Tucker's will.
Writing
Career
Nesbit's first published works were poems. She was under 20 in March 1878, when the monthly magazine Good Words printed her poem "Under the Trees".[21] In all she published about 40 books for children, including novels, storybooks and picture books.[22] Works of William Shakespeare adapted by her for children have been translated.[23] She also published almost as many books jointly with others.
Plagiarization allegation
In 2011, Nesbit was accused of taking the plot of The Railway Children from The House by the Railway by Ada J. Graves. The Telegraph reported that the Graves book had appeared in 1896, nine years prior to The Railway Children, and listed similarities between them.[24] However, not all sources agree on this finding:[25] Online magazine Tor.com noted that both books had been released in 1906.[26]
Legacy and influence
Nesbit's biographer Julia Briggs names her "the first modern writer for children", who "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".[27] Briggs also credits Nesbit with inventing the children's adventure story.[28]Noël Coward was an admirer. 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."[29]
Among Nesbit's best-known books are The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899) and The Wouldbegoods (1901), which tell of the Bastables, a middle-class family fallen on relatively hard times. The Railway Children is also popularised by a 1970 film version. Gore Vidal called the time-travel book, The Story of the Amulet, one where "Nesbit's powers of invention are at their best."[30] Her children's writing also included plays and collections of verse.
Edith Nesbit Walk and cycleway runs along the south side of Well Hall Pleasaunce in Eltham.[34]
Lee Green, also in south-east London, has Edith Nesbit Gardens.[35]
A 200-metre footpath in Grove Park south-east London, between Baring Road and Reigate Road, is named Railway Children Walk after the novel,[36] as is one in Oxenhope, a film location on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway used in the 1970 film.[37]
There is a Nesbit Road in St Mary's Bay, Romney Marsh, where Nesbit's home Long Boat & Jolly Boat stands.[38]
Nesbit House, a care home at Badgers Mount, Kent, is located near Halstead Hall where Edith Nesbit lived when she was young.[39]
Nesbit's life inspired a one-act, one-woman play, Larks and Magic, by Alison Neil, in 2018.[44][45][46]
Several of Nesbit's horror short stories were adapted into the anthology play The Shadow in the Dark by Oliver Giggins and Ash Pryce, which also drew on elements of Nesbit's own life and fears taken from her autobiographical writings. The show premiered at the Edinburgh Horror Festival in 2023.[47]
American children's book author Edward Eager considered Nesbit the best children's author of all time; his books have been compared to Nesbit's and his characters are often fans of her work.[48]
Woman of Stone, the Christmas Eve 2024 episode of the BBC's 'A Ghost Story for Christmas' strand, is an adaptation of Nesbit's horror story Man-Size in Marble. The film, written and directed by Mark Gatiss, features Celia Imrie as Nesbit.
Biographies
Aside from an episode of the BBC's 'A Ghost Story for Christmas' from her autobiographical Long Ago When I was Young (published 1966), Nesbit has been the subject of five biographies.
The Complete History of the Bastable Family (1928) is a posthumous omnibus of the three Bastable novels, but does not include the four stories appearing in the 1905 collection Oswald Bastable and Others.[1] The Bastables also feature in the 1902 adult novel The Red House.
1925 Five of Us—and Madeline (posthumously assembled and edited by Rosamund E. Nesbit Bland, containing the title novel and two short stories perhaps completed by Nesbit)[54]
Short fiction for adults
As Fabian Bland
"Psychical Research". Longman's Magazine, December 1884
"The Fabric of a Vision". Argosy, March 1885
"An Angel Unawares". Weekly Dispatch, 9 August 1885
"Desperate Conspirator". Weekly Dispatch, 15 May 1887
"A Pot of Money". Weekly Dispatch, 21 August 1887
"Christmas Roses". Weekly Dispatch, 25 December 1887
"High Social Position". Weekly Dispatch, 8 July 1888
"Mind and Money". Weekly Dispatch, 16 September 1888
"Getting into Society". Weekly Dispatch, 30 September 1888
"A Drama of Exile". Weekly Dispatch, 21 October 1888
"A Pious Fraud". Weekly Dispatch, 11 November 1888
"Her First Appearance". Weekly Dispatch, 16 December 1888
"Which Wins?" Murray's Magazine, December 1888
"Only a Joke". Longman's Magazine, August 1889
"The Golden Girl". Weekly Dispatch, 21 December 1890
As E. Bland
"The Third Drug", Strand Magazine, February 1908 (a.k.a. "The Three Drugs")[55]
"A Strayed Sheep". Thetford & Watton Times and People's Weekly Journal, 2 June 1894 (with Oswald Barron)
"The Secret of Monsieur Roche Aymon". Atalanta Magazine, October 1894 (with Oswald Barron)
"The Letter in Brown Ink". Windsor Magazine, August 1899
"'Thirteen Ways Home", 1901
"These Little Ones", 1909
"The Aunt and the Editor". North Star and Farmers' Chronicle, 15 June 1909
"To the Adventurous", 1923
Short story collections for adults
Grim Tales (horror stories), 1893
"The Ebony Frame", "John Charrington's Wedding", "Uncle Abraham's Romance", "The Mystery of the Semi-Detached", "From the Dead", "Man-Size in Marble", "The Mass for the Dead"
Something Wrong (horror stories), 1893
In Homespun (10 stories "written in an English dialect" of South Kent and Sussex), 1896
The Literary Sense (18 stories), 1903
Man and Maid (10 stories), 1906 (some supernatural stories)[c]
Fear (horror stories), 1910
Collected Supernatural Stories, 2000
"Dormant" ("Rose Royal"), "Man-size in Marble", "The Detective", "No. 17", "John Charrington's Wedding", "The Blue Rose", "The Haunted House", "The House With No Address" ("Salome and the Head"), "The Haunted Inheritance", "The House of Silence", "The Letter in Brown Ink", "The Shadow", "The New Samson", "The Pavilion"
From the Dead: The Complete Weird Stories of E Nesbit, 2005
"Introduction" (by S. T. Joshi), "John Charrington's Wedding", "The Ebony Frame", "The Mass for the Dead", "From the Dead", "Uncle Abraham's Romance", "The Mystery of the Semi-Detached", "Man-Size in Marble", "Hurst of Hurstcote", "The Power of Darkness", "The Shadow", "The Head", "The Three Drugs", "In the Dark", "The New Samson", "Number 17", "The Five Senses", "The Violet Car", "The Haunted House", "The Pavilion", "From My School-Days", "In the Dark", "The Mummies at Bordeaux"
The Power of Darkness: Tales of Terror, 2006
"Man-Size in Marble", "Uncle Abraham's Romance", "From the Dead", "The Three Drugs", "The Violet Car", "John Charrington's Wedding", "The Pavilion", "Hurst of Hurstcote", "In the Dark", "The Head", "The Mystery of the Semi-detached", "The Ebony Frame", "The Five Senses", "The Shadow", "The Power of Darkness", "The Haunted Inheritance", "The Letter in Brown Ink", "The House of Silence", "The Haunted House", "The Detective"
"Women and Socialism: from the Middle-Class Point of View". Justice, 4 and 11 April 1885
"Women and Socialism: A Working Woman's Point of View". Justice, 25 April 1885
Wings and the Child, or The Building of Magic Cities, 1913
Long Ago When I Was Young[58] (originally a serial, 'My School-Days: Memories of Childhood', in Girl's Own Paper 1896–1897)[59] Originally appearing as "My School-Days: Memories of Childhood" in The Girl's Own Paper between October 1896 and September 1897, Long Ago When I Was Young finally took book form in 1966, some 40 years after Nesbit's death, with an insightful introduction by Noel Streatfeild and some two dozen pen-and-ink drawings by Edward Ardizzone. The twelve chapters reproduce the instalments.
Poetry
"A Lovers' Petition". Good Words, 17 August 1881
"Absolution". Longman's Magazine, August 1882
"Possibilities". Argosy, July 1884
"Until the Dawn". Justice, 21 February 1885
"Socialist Spring Song". Today, June 1885
"The Dead to the Living". Gentleman's Magazine
"Waiting". Justice, July 1885
"Two Voices". Justice, August 1885
"1857-1885". Justice, 22 August 1885
"The Wife of All Ages". Justice, 18 September 1885
"The Time of Roses", undated (c. 1890)
1886 "Lays and Legends"
1887 "The Lily and the Cross"
1887 "Justice for Ireland!". Warminster Gazette, 12 March 1887
1887 "The Ballad of Ferencz Renyi: Hungary, 1848". Longman's Magazine, April 1887
1887 "The Message of June". Longman's Magazine, June 1887
↑ Lower Kennington Lane is now the northern half of Kennington Lane, between Kennington Road and Newington Butts; the house has been demolished and there is no commemoration. Galvin, in her biography (p. 2), claims that Lower Kennington Lane is now buried deep below a main road and supermarkets. This rests on a confusion between modern Kennington Lane and its constituent former parts, Upper Kennington Lane and Lower Kennington Lane. Lower Kennington Lane still exists, though renamed and renumbered, but most of the houses of the 1850s have gone. An earlier version of the King's Arms public house, now at 98 Kennington Lane, was numbered 44 Lower Kennington Lane. The 1861 census records Edith Nesbit at her father's Agricultural College further along the street. "Find My Past 1861 Census". search.findmypast.co.uk. Retrieved 29 July 2020. That site is now occupied by 20th-century public housing.
↑ The Book of Dragons (1901). This comprised The Seven Dragons, a 7-part serial, and an eighth story, all published 1899 in The Strand Magazine, with a ninth story, "The Last of the Dragons" (posthumous, 1925). It appeared in 1972 as The Complete Book of Dragons and in 1975 as The Last of the Dragons and Some Others. The original title was then used, with contents augmented by "The Last of the Dragons" and material contemporary to the reissue. The title Seven Dragons and Other Stories recurred for a latter-day Nesbit collection.[52]
↑ According to John Clute, "Most of Nesbit's supernatural fiction" contains short stories "assembled in four collections"; namely, Man and Maid and the three noted here as containing horror stories.[56]
Related Research Articles
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Hubert Bland was an English author. He was known for being an infamous libertine, a journalist, an early English socialist, and one of the founders of the Fabian Society. He was the husband of Edith Nesbit.
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Ruth Stiles Gannett Kahn was an American children's writer best known for My Father's Dragon and its two sequels—collectively sometimes called the My Father's Dragon or the Elmer and the Dragons series or trilogy.
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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. The novel's complete name is The Story of the Treasure Seekers: Being the Adventures of the Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune. The original edition included illustrations by H. R. Millar. The Puffin edition (1958) was illustrated by Cecil Leslie. Its sequels are The Wouldbegoods (1901) and The New Treasure Seekers (1904).
Charlotte Eliza Lawson Riddell, known also as Mrs J. H. Riddell, and by her pen name F. G. Trafford, was a popular and influential Irish-born writer in the Victorian period. She was the author of 56 books, novels and short stories, and also became part-owner and editor of St. James's Magazine, a prominent London literary journal in the 1860s.
Harold Robert Millar (1869–1942) was a prominent and prolific Scottish graphic artist and illustrator of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He is best known for his illustrations of children's books and fantasy literature. "His work...has a lively, imaginative charm and a distinctive sense of design."
The Magic World is a 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. The stories, previously printed in magazines such as Blackie's Children's Annual, are typical of Nesbit's arch, ironic, clever fantasies for children.
Henry Brereton Marriott Watson, known by his pen name H. B. Marriott Watson, was an Australian-born British novelist, journalist, playwright, and short-story writer. He worked for the St James's Gazette, was assistant editor of the Black and White and Pall Mall Gazette, and staff member on W. E. Henley's National Observer.
Katharine Pyle was an American illustrator and author, primarily of books for young people, an influential member of the Pyle artistic family, active in Philadelphia during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A native of Wilmington, Delaware, and a social activist, she published several accounts of Delaware's colonial history.
Rosamund Edith Nesbit Bland (1886–1950) was an English author and the adopted daughter of Edith Nesbit. She was the author of the novel The Man in the Stone House (1934) and the co-author of Cat's Tales, a children's book she co-wrote with Nesbit.
↑ Bedson, S. P. (1947). "John Oliver Wentworth Bland (born 6 October 1899, died 10 May 1946)". The Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology. 59 (4): 716–721. doi:10.1002/path.1700590427.
↑ Phillippa Bennett and Rosemary Miles (2010). William Morris in the Twenty-First Century. Peter Lang. ISBN3034301065. p. 136.
↑ "Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 27 September 2013. Retrieved 15 September 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)"Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 27 September 2013. Retrieved 15 September 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)"Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 27 September 2013. Retrieved 15 September 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
↑ Iannello, Silvia (18 August 2008). "Edith Nesbit, la precorritrice della Rowling". Tvcinemateatro―i protagonisti. Silvia-iannello.blogspot.com (reprint 19 September 2011 from Zam (zam.it)). Retrieved 9 August 2012.
↑ Ness, Mari (22 September 2011). "Adventures in Railroads: The Railway Children". Tor.com. Macmillan. [...] although news reports initially said that that The House by the Railway was published in 1896 – ten years before The Railway Children – that turns out to be the publication start of the series that the book appeared in, not the actual book. Both were published in 1906, and then as now, books took some time to get from the typewriter into actual print.
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