Favourite Children's Authors: E. Nesbit

E. Nesbit: Five Children and It (1902)

I couldn't quite bring myself to head this post with any of the images associated with the two dreadful films lately imposed upon E. Nesbit's classic novel:

John Stephenson, dir.: Five Children and It (2004)

Both are completely without charm, magic, or mystery - the things the original novel abounds in. Eddie Izzard's star-turn as grumpy sand fairy the Psammead in John Stephenson's 2004 effort certainly stresses the creature's obnoxious personality. It lacks any other discernible appeal.

Andy De Emmony, dir.: Four Kids and It (2020)

Bad though Stephenson's film is, though, I would nevertheless have to award the prize for worst Nesbit-adjacent feature film to Andy De Emmony's Four Kids and It. Russell Brand is the token comedic presence in this one, and his prancing antics make Eddie Izzard look like Laurence Olivier.

It is, admittedly, based on a more recent novel "inspired by" E. Nesbit's original - which means that a particularly mawkish and inappropriate love story has been shovelled into the story, complete with couple-surprised-in-the-middle-of-a-shag antics which would make a crow blush.

E. Nesbit: The Adventures of the Five Children (2009)

Does that sound a bit harsh? Both films were, after all, presumably intended for an audience somewhat younger than myself, and it's my own silly fault if I chose to watch them to the end.

I suppose, in my defence, it was because the "Five Children" books - Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet, and The Story of the Amulet - were one of my earliest reading experiences, and the simple elegance of H. R. Millar's illustrations added greatly to their appeal for me at the time.

H. R. Millar: The Children discover the Psammead (1902)

They look a bit old-fashioned now. But then, so are the books. They constitute a little time-capsule of Edwardian attitudes for readers today, but their storytelling backbone remains strong.

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E. Nesbit: The Enchanted Castle (2007)

À propos of Millar's illustrations, a few years after first reading The Enchanted Castle, one of my particular favourites among Nesbit's books, in my parents' old hardback edition, I bought myself a handsome-looking copy from a second-hand shop.

E. Nesbit: The Enchanted Castle (1964)

I was dismayed to discover that it had a new set of illustrations, which almost entirely negated (for me, at least) the powerful atmosphere created by this most magical - and sinister - of her novels.

H. R. Millar: The audience of Ugly-Wugglies

In the crucial scene where the set of hastily assembled dummies created by the children as an audience for their new play comes to life, for instance, the full horror of the situation turned out to have been greatly assisted for me by Millar's illustrations.

H. R. Millar: The Ugly-Wugglies come to life

But the hall was crowded with live things, strange things — all horribly short as broomsticks and umbrellas are short. A limp hand gesticulated. A pointed white face with red cheeks looked up at him, and wide red lips said something, he could not tell what. The voice reminded him of the old beggar down by the bridge who had no roof to his mouth. These creatures had no roofs to their mouths, of course — they had no ——

"Aa oo ré o me me oo a oo ho el?" said the voice again. And it had said it four times before Gerald could collect himself sufficiently to understand that this horror — alive, and most likely quite uncontrollable — was saying, with a dreadful calm, polite persistence: —

"Can you recommend me to a good hotel?"

The macabre nature of this encounter makes much better sense to me now than I know a bit more about Edith Bland (née Nesbit)'s earlier life, and - in particular - the large number of books she'd already written before achieving a hit with the Bastable series around the turn of the century.

E. Nesbit: The Bastable Family (1899-1904)

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Nesbit had tried pretty much every other type of writing before turning to children's fiction. She started off with a set of problem novels written under the pseudonym of "Fabian Bland", before turning successively to detective stories, ghost stories, journalism, and even poetry.

S. T. Joshi, ed.: From the Dead: The Complete Weird Stories of E. Nesbit (2018)

Now her horror stories are a hit. You'll note in the bibliography below at least five recent selections from her corpus of such tales. At the time, though, they didn't succeed in distinguishing her from all the other late Victorian / early Edwardian writers obsessed with the occult.

It does help one understand, though, why her children's stories are so dominated by weird talismans, magical creatures, and mysterious concealed spaces. Even C. S. Lewis admitted that it was The Story of the Amulet (1906) which first awoke him to what he referred to - quoting Shakespeare - as "the dark backward and abysm of time."

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The Fabian Society

Another essential thing to remember is her dedication to social reform and left-wing politics. Nesbit and her husband Hubert Bland were among the founding members of the Fabian Society in 1884, and jointly edited its journal Today.

Initially they both used the pseudonym "Fabian Bland", but it soon became apparent that his serial adulteries and lack of business sense meant that - for the foreseeable future - she would have to remain the family breadwinner, and pay all the bills with her own writing. She therefore shifted to calling herself "E. Nesbit".

Despite her life-long radicalism, she was not a strong proponent of women's rights:

She opposed the cause of women’s suffrage — mainly, she claimed, because women could swing Tory, thus harming the Socialist cause.

That might be another reason she chose to follow in the tradition of Currer, Ellis, & Acton Bell - and, for that matter, George Eliot - by constructing a neutral name to help sell her work to gender-biassed editors.

I used to wonder if she'd chosen "E. Nesbit" rather than "Edith Nesbit" as her nom-de-plume to distinguish herself from Evelyn Nesbit, the turn-of-the-century American fashion model who (allegedly) provoked the murder of architect Stanford White by her husband, Harry Thaw. The resulting 1906 "Trial of the Century" made the former's gilded age morals and lifestyle notorious.

Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr.: Evelyn Nesbit (1903)

The dates, however, don't really fit. Strangely enough, Evelyn Nesbit does have her own unusual connection with children's fiction. The picture above helped Canadian author L. M. Montgomery conceive the character of Anne Shirley, the heroine of her 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables. It reminded her - apparently - of "youthful idealism and spirituality."

Edith Nesbit (1892)

Edith Nesbit herself was a very different kettle of fish. She was a professional writer, used to turning her hand to any kind of work which was likely to sell. But there was more to it than that. Something clicked into place when she turned to children's fiction.

She was no fin-de-siècle Geoffrey Trease. She didn't proselytise directly in her writing, but it was hard for her to avoid displaying a social conscience in at least some of her stories. The Railway Children, obviously, but also in lesser-known books such as Harding's Luck.

E. Nesbit: Harding's Luck (1909)

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Julia Smith, dir.: The Railway Children. Adapted by Denis Constanduros (1968)

The Railway Children is probably her most celebrated, and undoubtedly her most frequently dramatised book. My own memory goes back to the TV series above, which I found rather grim and terrifying at the time. Just reading the episode summaries recalls some of the anguish it caused me:

When their father is taken away on Christmas Day by two gentlemen from the Foreign Office and fails to return in the next few weeks, his wife announces that she and the children ... will be moving to Yorkshire "to play at being poor for a while."

It was all so realistic - not at all like the other children's TV we watched. I can still replay in my mind the horror of the scene where one of the children is caught stealing coal by the previously well-disposed Station Master.

It's been adapted for the screen a number of times since then - feature films in 1970 and 2000, as well as a sequel, The Railway Children Return (2022) set, this time, in 1944.

Jenny Agutter (1970 / 2022)

The common thread in all these versions is veteran actor Jenny Agutter, who's shifted from being one of the children, to being their mother, and (finally) their wartime caregiver. She must be getting pretty sick of the whole business by now! (I must confess to having had a considerable crush on her back in the 1970s after seeing her in such films as Nic Roeg's Walkabout and - especially - the Sci-fi classic Logan's Run).

The Railway Children is not really representative of the general run of Nesbit's children's books, though it does include some of her favourite themes. Being hard-up and desperately needing to find money somewhere is a common predicament in her books (the Bastable series, for instance). The fairly realistic way in which sibling solidarity - and rivalry - is portrayed is a strong point in most of her ensemble casts. And, finally, there's the deus ex machina of a rich uncle or deceased relative providing vitally needed funds, or lodgings, at the last minute.

Are they really of interest to modern children? Who can say? The ones who've been reading Dickens and Jane Austen from an early age might find them a bit too predictable, but the comedy of manners embedded in such fantasies as The Phoenix and the Carpet is surely evergreen.

I'm glad I read them at an age when the hints they gave of abandoned temples in the Middle East, or Ancient Egyptian amulets, were all that was needed to spark my imagination. It's true that Nesbit invented a good deal of the magical lore she included. The word "Psammead", for instance:

appears to be a coinage by Nesbit from the Greek ψάμμος "sand" after the pattern of dryad, naiad and oread, implicitly signifying "sand-nymph".

I can't help suspecting that the same is true of the House of Arden's "Mouldiwarp" (an archaic term for mole).

Yes, they're fantasy, they're escapism, but that's not all they are. She didn't set out to preach directly in her books, but they do remind you to be kind to strangers - as well as your brothers and sisters; to be respectful to your elders and betters (within reason, at any rate); and never to neglect the chance to learn something new, or to take part in an unexpected adventure.

They may seem snobby to a modern reader, but it's as well to remember that Nesbit herself was never blind to the presence of the servant with the scrubbing brush at the back of the scene, as in the H. R. Millar illustration below:

E. Nesbit: The House of Arden (1908)

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Noel Streatfeild: Magic and the Magician: E. Nesbit and Her Children's Books (1958)

Nesbit's biographical fortunes have been a bit up and down in the century since her death. Doris Langley Moore's pioneering account E. Nesbit (1933 / revised 1966) was followed 25 years later by a considerably blander study of her simply as a children's author by "Ballet Shoes" writer Noel Streatfeild. The blurb for her book claims:

Here is a delightful tribute to a great writer. It will be enjoyed by anyone acquainted with the E. Nesbit stories, as well as by Noel Streatfeild's many admirers.

She followed it up with a reprint of some early reminiscences by Nesbit:

E. Nesbit: Long Ago When I Was Young (1966)

Together these two books had the - possibly unintentional - effect of muting her reputation as a radical thinker for a number of years. It wasn't until Julia Briggs' A Woman of Passion came out in the mid-1980s that the full complexity of her family life, not to mention her extensive involvement in politics, were revealed.

Julia Briggs: A Woman of Passion (1987)

It's been claimed, possibly correctly, that "as a biography ... it relies heavily on the earlier incarnation written by Doris Langley Moore, whose biography of Nesbit ... used interviews with surviving family members, letters, newspapers and the other usual stories to write Edith's story." Briggs, however, "delves a little further."

I for one found it fascinating when I first read it. Nothing in Streatfeild's bland chronicle had prepared me for the fascination of the story recounted here.

Eleanor Fitzsimons: The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit (2019)

Since then two more biographies have appeared: Elisabeth Galvin's The Extraordinary Life of E. Nesbit: Author of Five Children and It and The Railway Children (2018), and Eleanor Fitzsimons' The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit: Victorian Iconoclast, Children's Author, and Creator of the Railway Children (2019).

Which one is better? Well, it depends on what you're looking for, I suppose. Fitzsimons' book is twice as long, far more detailed, and was chosen as A Sunday Times Best Book of the Year. It's even been described as the "first major biography of the trailblazing, controversial children's author."

On the other hand, it's had a mixed response from Amazon's own homegrown reviewers. Dave Ansell, for instance, comments:

I wonder why Fitzsimons troubled to write her biography as it offers little that hasn’t been said before. Briggs’s biography is over 100 pages longer. Fitzsimons gives chapter notes but no bibliography. Briggs has a bibliography. There are few photographs – Briggs gives many more as well as illustrations. At the end, Fitzsimons gives a brief account of how Nesbit has influenced other writers, including J K Rowling. In another recent biography, The Extraordinary Life of E. Nesbit by Elizabeth Galvin (2018), there is more about Nesbit’s influence, including a short chapter on Harry Potter, and information about TV and cinema films. This biography also includes a useful family tree, 50 of the Best Works by E Nesbit, and a clever ‘Edith’s Guide to Life’.

Elisabeth Galvin: The Extraordinary Life of E. Nesbit (2018)

On the other hand, if we turn to the comments about Galvin's own book, we find a comparably lukewarm response:

It is generally well written but there are a number of awkward usages and redundancies that would have been better edited out. I think the editor must have been asleep. Still a good read for E. Nesbit fans.

On the whole, then, having read these unvarnished responses, it sounds as if it might be just as well to stick with Briggs' lively account - or, for that matter, to hunt out a copy of the revised, 1966 version of Doris Langley Moore's biography.

Doris Langley Moore: E. Nesbit: A Biography (1933 / 1966)

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E. Nesbit (c.1890)

Edith Bland [née Nesbit]
(1858-1924)

Books for Adults

Novels:


1. [As Fabian Bland] The Prophet's Mantle (1885)
2. [As Fabian Bland] Something Wrong (1886)
3. [As Fabian Bland] The Marden Mystery (1896)
4. The Secret of Kyriels (1899)
5. The Red House (1902)
6. The Incomplete Amorist (1906)
7. Salome and the Head [aka The House with No Address] (1909)
8. Daphne in Fitzroy Street (1909)
9. Dormant [aka Rose Royal] (1911)
10. The Incredible Honeymoon (1916)
11. The Lark (1922)

Collections:


12. Grim Tales (1893)
13. Something Wrong (1893)
14. "Hurst of Hurstcote" (1893)
15. The Ebony Frame (1893)
16. [with Oswald Barron] The Butler in Bohemia (1894)
17. In Homespun: Stories in English Dialect (1896)
18. Thirteen Ways Home (1901)
19. The Literary Sense (1903)
20. Man and Maid (1906)
21. "The Third Drug" (Strand Magazine, 1908)
22. These Little Ones (1909)
23. Fear (1910)
24. To the Adventurous (1923)
25. E. Nesbit's Tales of Terror. Ed. Hugh Lamb (1983)
    • In the Dark: Tales of Terror. Ed. Hugh Lamb. 1983. Rev. ed (1988)
    • In the Dark. Ed. Hugh Lamb. 1983. Rev. ed, 1988. Expanded ed. (2000)
26. In the Dark (2000)
27. Man-Size in Marble and Others: The Best Horror and Ghost Stories of E. Nesbit. Annotated & Illustrated by M. Grant Kellermeyer (2015)
28. Horror Stories. Introduction by Naomi Alderman (2017)
29. From the Dead: The Complete Weird Stories of E. Nesbit. Ed. S. T. Joshi (2018)
30. The House of Silence: Ghost Stories 1887–1920 Introduction by Melissa Edmundson (2024)

Children's Books

The Bastable Series:

The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899)

• The Story of the Treasure-Seekers. Illustrated by Cecil Leslie. 1899. Puffin Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1960.

The Wouldbegoods (1901)

• The Wouldbegoods. Illustrated by Cecil Leslie. 1901. Puffin Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961.

The New Treasure Seekers (1904)

• The New Treasure-Seekers. 1904. Puffin Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982.

The Adventures of the Treasure Seekers. Illustrated by C. Walter Hodges. 1947. London: The Folio Society, 1993.

1. The Story of the Treasure Seekers: Being the Adventures of the Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune (1899)
2. The Wouldbegoods: Being the Further Adventures of the Treasure Seekers (1901)
3. The New Treasure Seekers (1904)

Oswald Bastable and Others (1905)

The Psammead series:

Five Children and It (1902)

• Five Children and It. Illustrated by H. R. Millar. 1902. London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1970.

The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904)

• The Phoenix and the Carpet. Illustrated by H. R. Millar. 1904. London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1973.

The Story of the Amulet (1906)

• The Story of the Amulet. Illustrated by H. R. Millar. 1906. London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1969.

The House of Arden series:

The House of Arden (1908)

• The House of Arden. Illustrated by Edward Ardizzone & George Buchanan. 1908. Puffin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987.

Harding's Luck (1909)

• Harding’s Luck. Illustrated by H. R. Millar. 1909. London: Ernest Benn Limited / New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1961.


Novels:


31. The Railway Children (1906)
    • The Railway Children. 1906. Illustrated by Lynton Lamb. London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1972.
32. The Enchanted Castle (1907)
    • The Enchanted Castle. Illustrated by H. R. Millar. 1907. London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1960.
33. The Magic City (1910)
    • The Magic City. Illustrated by H. R. Millar. 1910. Facsimile Classic Series. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1980.
34. The Wonderful Garden (1911)
    • The Wonderful Garden. Illustrated by H. R. Millar. 1911. London: Ernest Benn Limited / New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1959.
35. Wet Magic (1913)
    • Wet Magic. Illustrated by H. R. Millar. 1913. London: Ernest Benn Limited / New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1958.
36. Five of Us — and Madeline (1925)
    • Five of Us - and Madeline. Illustrated by Nora S. Unwin. 1925. London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1931.

Collections:


37. Miss Mischief (1894)
38. Tick Tock, Tales of the Clock (1895)
39. Pussy Tales (1895)
40. Doggy Tales (1895)
41. The Children's Shakespeare (1897) [aka Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare (1907)]
42. Royal Children of English History (1897)
43. [with others] Tales Told in the Twilight (1897)
44. The Book of Dogs (1898)
45. Pussy and Doggy Tales (1899)
46. The Book of Dragons (1901)
    • The Complete Book of Dragons. Illustrated by Erik Blegvad. 1901. London: Hamish Hamilton Children's Books Ltd., 1972.
47. Nine Unlikely Tales (1901)
    • Nine Unlikely Tales for Children. Illustrated by H. R. Millar. 1901. London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1929.
48. The Revolt of the Toys (1902)
49. The Rainbow Queen and Other Stories (1903)
50. Playtime Stories (1903)
51. The Story of Five Rebellious Dolls (1904)
52. [with Rosamund E. Nesbit Bland] Cat Tales (1904)
53. Pug Peter, King of Mouseland (1905)
54. The Old Nursery Stories (1908)
55. The Magic World (1912)
    • The Magic World. Illustrated by H. R. Millar & Spencer Pryse. 1912. Facsimile Classic Series. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1980.
56. Fairy Stories. Ed. Naomi Lewis (1977)
    • Fairy Stories. Ed. Naomi Lewis. Illustrated by Brian Robb. London & Tonbridge: Ernest Benn Limited, 1977.

Non-fiction:


57. Wings and the Child, or The Building of Magic Cities (1913)
58. Long Ago When I Was Young (1896-97 / 1966)
    • Long Ago When I Was Young. Illustrated by Edward Ardizzone & George Buchanan. 1966. Introduction by Noel Streatfield. London: Beehive Books, 1987.

Poetry:


59. Slave Song (1899)

Secondary:


60. Moore, Doris Langley. E. Nesbit: A Biography (1933)
61. Streatfeild, Noel. Magic and the Magician: E. Nesbit and her Children’s Books (1958)
62. Briggs, Julia. A Woman of Passion (1987)
    • Briggs, Julia. A Woman of Passion: The Life of E. Nesbit, 1858-1924. 1987. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1989.
63. Galvin, Elisabeth. The Extraordinary Life of E. Nesbit (2018)
64. Fitzsimons, Eleanor. The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit (2019)

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