E. Nesbit: A Biography

by Doris Langley Moore

This revised edition of Mrs. Langley Moore’s famous biography will be welcomed by the ever growing band of E. Nesbit’s admirers. The Treasure Seekers, The Phoenix and the Carpet, The Railway Children, to name three of the eighteen Nesbit books, are assured of a place among the really great children’s books of all time.

Who was this gifted writer, whose magic has enchanted so many thousands of children? This biography reveals a fascinating portrait of a warm-hearted, talented woman, whose vitality and sense of fun made her adored by the brilliant circle of friends who came to her hone, Well Hall at Eltham.

E. Nesbit was married to Hubert Bland, journalist, founder and honorary treasurer of the Fabian Society, whom H.G. Wells has described as “Seducer—on the best eighteenth century lines.” Edith’s writing had to provide the main source of income for a household that was sometimes desperately short of money. And it was Hubert’s numerous infidelities that provoked Edith to defy late Victorian convention, and filled their household with mysterious complexities.

Mrs. Langley Moore has added much new material, mainly about Edith’s childhood, for this new edition, and has written an introduction which tells more than could be printed when many of the persons concerned were still living. Her book is an enthralling account of a vanished Bohemian world, and of a brilliant an courageous woman. It includes unpublished photographs taken from the Bland family albums.

Mrs. Langley Moore is well-known both as an author and as the founder of the Museum of Fashion, now housed in the Assembly Rooms at Bath. Besides books on fashion she has published novels and biographies, including her life of The Late Lord Byron and her recent Marie Bashkirsteff.
[flap copy]

Genres: Biography

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Doris Langley Moore OBE (1902–1989) also known as Doris Langley-Levy Moore, was one of the first important female fashion historians. She founded the Fashion Museum, Bath, (as The Museum of Costume) in 1963. She was also a well-respected Lord Byron scholar, and author of a 1940s ballet, The Quest. As a result of these wide-ranging interests, she had many connections within fashionable, intellectual, artistic and theatrical circles.

(wikipedia)

Reviews

[Mahjong_kid · Rating 2 out of 5]

As one who typically enjoys biographies, I was excited to run across this one of E. Nesbit, whom I've long loved as an author. However, I think that Moore's introduction to this edition - in which she talked about the information that she'd added since the first edition of the book - was the most interesting, somewhat unbiased part of the book. Maybe that's because she was a more seasoned writer at that point. As for the biography itself, I became more bored the farther I dragged myself through it. While I was interested in reading excerpts of letters from Nesbit's famous friends and contemporaries and in hearing the memories of those who knew her well, I felt that Moore tried to include so much material that was extraneous to a biography. She wandered into character sketches that meandered around Nesbit's timeline, leaving me muddled about when certain events actually occurred; and she rarely punctuated her stories with actual dates. She painted broad pictures of Nesbit's habits, family life, experiences, and relationships, yet she rarely delved into particulars. In spite of the wealth of first-hand information Moore seemed to have accumulated, I was left with the impression that she didn't feel like she knew her subject intimately at the end of her research - though she was more than willing to spend a number of pages critiquing Nesbit's writing, harping on Nesbit's "misguided" opinion that her poetry should have been her real triumph as writer. Ultimately, I was so disappointed. I think it could have been a good biography, if only the author hadn't been so distracted by her own opinions and had focused on presenting Nesbit herself - as a real, living woman - to the reader.

[Deborah Siddoway · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review is only worth reading as an introduction to Edith Nesbit, and for an appreciation of how far scholarship (and feminism) has come since it was written. Far too forgiving of the gaslighting and manipulation of Nesbit's husband Hubert Bland, and skimming over some of the more scandalous aspects of her life, the biography, to some extent, excuses and whitewashes her marital challenges.

Julia Briggs's biography takes it further, but I feel that a more modern writer should tackle a newer biography, and really explore the impact of her husband's infidelity and the death of her children, particularly her son Fabian.

As one of the most popular children's authors in recent history, I feel that she deserves this kind of attention.