The Complete Works of E. Nesbit

by E. Nesbit

26 Complete Works of E. Nesbit



Atlantic Narratives
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare
Five Children and It
Grim Tales
Harding's luck
In Homespun
Man and Maid
Many Voices
New Treasure Seekers
Oswald Bastable and Others
Pussy and Doggy Tales
Royal Children of English History
The Book of Dragons
The Enchanted Castle
The Incomplete Amorist
The Incredible Honeymoon
The Literary Sense
The Magic City
The Magic World
The Phoenix and the Carpet
The Railway Children
The Rainbow and the Rose
The Story of the Amulet
The Story of the Treasure Seekers
The Wouldbegoods
Wings and the Child

Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Edith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland; 15 August 1858 – 4 May 1924) was an English author and poet; she published her books for children 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 socialist organisation later connected to the Labour Party.

Edith Nesbit was born in Kennington, Surrey, the daughter of agricultural chemist and schoolmaster John Collis Nesbit. The death of her father when she was four and the continuing ill health of her sister meant that Nesbit had a transitory childhood, her family moving across Europe in search of healthy climates only to return to England for financial reasons. Nesbit therefore spent her childhood attaining an education from whatever sources were available—local grammars, the occasional boarding school but mainly through reading.

At 17 her family finally settled in London and aged 19, Nesbit met Hubert Bland, a political activist and writer. They became lovers and when Nesbit found she was pregnant they became engaged, marrying in April 1880. After this scandalous (for Victorian society) beginning, the marriage would be an unconventional one. Initially, the couple lived separately—Nesbit with her family and Bland with his mother and her live-in companion Maggie Doran.

Initially, Edith Nesbit books were novels meant for adults, including The Prophet's Mantle (1885) and The Marden Mystery (1896) about the early days of the socialist movement. Written under the pen name of her third child 'Fabian Bland', these books were not successful. Nesbit generated an income for the family by lecturing around the country on socialism and through her journalism (she was editor of the Fabian Society's journal, Today).

In 1899 she had published The Adventures of the Treasure Seekers to great acclaim.

Reviews

[Derek Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edith Nesbit was one of the most delightful of children's authors of her day (turn of the 20th century) and of most days that followed. She's quirky, opinionated, politically incorrect, riotously funny at times, talks directly to the reader, sees children as whole, generally decent human beings with a kid's ability to bollux up nearly anything.
The later selections aren't actually novels but short stories that appeared in collections. The copyright notes outline this nicely, and the publisher's introduction gives a good, quick summation of Nesbit's work and times.
Many of the tales involve two families. The one with four children (whose last name, if given, I can't uncover in the inaccessibility of such things in a Kindle edition) discover a bad-tempered, nasty-looking sand fairy, along with the legendary phoenix (wise yet socially senseless) and various other magical beings. The sand fairy can grant any wish (for one day), and each granting sends the children into both adventure and the unpleasant consequences of having wished badly.
The other family, the Bastables, numbers six children, with each tale ostensibly written by Oswald, age roughly 12 or 13. There's no overt magic with the Bastables, though many peculiar encounters. These rash, brash, extremely bright children have hearts of gold (sometimes fool's gold) and try to do the right thing, usually with disastrous outcomes. Nesbit's child's-eye view here is wonderful, the convoluted mind of Oswald veering from self-aggrandizement (disguised as literary humility) to restrained but surly comments on the uselessness of girls. The personalities of all six children are kept consistent yet distinct, complete with the occasional failure of temperament.
Nesbit's language can snap like a whip with no apparent effort. She is immediately there at every moment. There are, though, some odd undercurrents, presumably from her own life. The families usually experience a financial or social collapse, the mother tends to be dead, ill or mentally delicate, the father out of the picture or strangely distant. There's some good reason the children are not in school, spending extended periods with an aunt or otherwise left largely to their own devices, which allows them enormous freedom to develop but opens them to calamitous errors of choice.
The stories, altogether, are endearing but not in the least sappy, mostly upbeat but with genuinely dark moments. It's a shame that Nesbit's work isn't better known today.

[DAE Smith & Avril Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic

Very few modern authors for children, can tell a story like Edith Nesbit. Her books are ntertaining at any age!

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a delightful set of E. Nesbit's work. There is nothing bad to say about this huge volume. Starting with The Railway Children and continuing with The Five Children and IT, then going on with all the rest of her formidable output, there is something for every child in this extensive tome. Good thing my copy is digital, or I would have never been able to lift it!

[Deana · Rating 5 out of 5]

What fun! I basically read them because CS Lewis reported enjoying them so much. I can see their timeless appeal!

[Bec · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edith's writing style is full of fun. Her books are written in the late 1800s and early 1900s and reflect that era, so if you like stepping back in time, you will certainly enjoy these.

[Jason Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

For Five Children and It -
Five children, Robert, Anthea, Jane, Cyril, and the Baby, go with their parents from London to a white house. They find a sand fairy, a Psammead, in a gravel pit. It grants a wish each day that ends at sunset. The first wish is for beauty. The fairy agrees to prevent the servants from noticing the wishes’ effects. The second wish is for gold coins. The third wish is that all will want the Baby. The fourth wish is for flight. The fifth wish is for the house to become a castle people are besieging. The sixth wish is for Robert to become big. Cyril asks the fairy for them to get wishes by thought. The seventh wish is for the Baby to become a young man. The eighth wish is for American Indians to be in England. The eighth and last wish is for lost jewels to be in their mother’s room. Their mother finds them. Jane explains about the fairy, but her mother doesn’t believe it. She suspects Martha’s fiance Beale. She goes to the police. The children convince the fairy to grant them several wishes, and they will never wish again. They wish Lady Chittenden never lost her jewels. They wish their mother would not go to the police and will forget the diamonds and Beale. They wish Martha will forget the diamonds also. The fairy also has them wish they can never tell anyone about the fairy. They also wish to see it again. Later, they see the fairy in a very different place.