Edith Nesbit

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Edith Nesbit

Edith Nesbit (born August 15, 1858 in Kennington, London, † May 4, 1924 in New Romney , Kent ) was an English author whose works for children were published in the English original under the "gender-neutral" name E. Nesbit . She wrote over 40 children's books . Some of them were later filmed.

Life

Edith Nesbit was born as the daughter of the teacher John Collis Nesbit, who died in March 1862, at 38 Lower Kennington Lane in south London. Her sister Mary's poor health resulted in the family relocating for a number of years; they lived in Brighton , Buckinghamshire , France , Spain and Germany until the family settled in Halstead in north-west Kent for three years - a location that later inspired The Railway Children .

When Nesbit was 17, her family moved back to London. A follower of William Morris , 19-year-old Nesbit met bank clerk Hubert Bland in 1877. She married Bland on April 22, 1880, when she was seven months pregnant. However, she did not live with Bland immediately afterwards, who initially continued to live with his mother. Bland also had an affair with Alice Hoatson (she was the assistant secretary of the Fabian Society ), which resulted in two children (Rosamund in 1886 and John in 1899), both raised by Nesbit as their own. Their own children were Paul Bland (1880-1940), to whom The Railway Children was dedicated; Iris Bland (1881-19 ??) and Fabian Bland (1885-1900), whose first name was chosen after the Fabian Society and who died after an almond operation at the age of 15. Nesbit dedicated the work Five Children And It and its subsequent volumes to Fabian as well as The Story of the Treasure Seekers and its subsequent volumes.

Nesbit's grave in Romney Marsh , Kent

Edith Nesbit and Paul Bland were among the founders of the Fabian Society in 1884. Nesbit made the acquaintance of HG Wells and George Bernhard Shaw there . Nesbit and Bland co-edited the Society's magazine ( Today) . They sympathized with the Social Democratic Federation for a short time , eventually rejecting it as too radical. Nesbit lectured widely and was a prolific writer on socialism in the 1880s; she often signed her books with “Fabian Bland”. This activity decreased with her growing success as a children's author.

Nesbit lived in Well Hall House, Eltham in south-east London from 1899 to 1920 . About three years after Bland's death (1914), on February 20, 1917, Nesbit married Thomas "the Skipper" Tucker, a sociable marine engineer whose lower-class family and friends Nesbit did not like.

literature

Nesbit was enormously productive literarily. She herself wrote about forty children's books, both novels and collections of stories. Numerous other works were created in collaboration with others. Her children's books are known to be entertaining without becoming instructive, although some of her earlier works like Five Children and It went in that direction.

According to her biographer Julia Briggs, Nesbit was “the first modern children's writer”: “[Nesbit] helped break the great tradition of children's literature created by Lewis Carroll , George MacDonald and Kenneth Grahame by moving away from whose illusory worlds turned away to the hard truths that one gains from encounters with " things as they are ", once reserved for adult literature. "

Briggs also credits Nesbit with inventing children's adventure stories. Some of Nesbit's best-known books include The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1898) and The Wouldbegoods (1899), both of which tell stories about the Bastables, a fictional family that Nesbit likely modeled after the family of her own childhood. Nesbit's children's literature also includes numerous plays and poetry collections.

Nesbit also popularized an innovative style of children's fantasy in which realistically portrayed children of the present day are connected with magical objects and adventures in a real-world setting. As a result, she formed a direct or indirect influence on many later authors such as PL Travers (author of Mary Poppins ), Edward Eager and Diana Wynne Jones .

Works (selection)

  • The Story of the Treasure Seekers (Bastable Trilogy 1; 1899; German The Treasure Seekers )
  • The Would-Be-Goods (Bastable Trilogy 2; 1901; German The Club of Good Deeds )
  • The Book of Dragons ( First published in The Strand Magazine from 1899 , 1901)
  • The Red House (1902; Eng. The Red House / The Merry Marriage )
  • Five Children and It (Psamead trilogy 1; 1902; German five children and ten wishes / The Sandelf / Psammy provides adventure )
  • The Phoenix and the Carpet (Psamead trilogy 2; 1904; The Phoenix and the Carpet / Firebird and Magic Carpet )
  • New Treasure Seekers (Bastable Trilogy 3; 1904)
  • The Railway Children (1905; dt. The railway Children )
  • The Story of the Amulet (Psamead trilogy 3; 1906; German mysterious journeys with Psammy )
  • Enchanted Castle (1907; Eng. The Enchanted Castle )
  • House of Arden (1908; Eng. The Children of Arden )
  • Harding's Luck (1909; Eng. The Arden Dream )
  • Magic City (1910, The Enchanted City )
  • The Wonderful Garden or The Three C's (1911)
  • Wet Magic (1913; German Sea Magic )

Secondary literature

  • Julia Briggs: A Woman of Passion: The Life of E. Nesbit 1858-1924 , London [et al.], Penguin, 1989, ISBN 0-09-168210-X
  • Elisabeth Galvin: The extraordinary life of E. Nesbit: author of five children and it and the railway Children , Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword History, 2018, ISBN 978-1-5267-1477-0
  • Eleanor Fitzsimons: The life and loves of E. Nesbit , London: Duckworth, 2019, ISBN 978-0-7156-5146-9

Web links

Commons : Edith Nesbit  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ E. Nesbit | English author . In: Encyclopedia Britannica . ( britannica.com [accessed November 24, 2018]).
  2. ^ Lyn Gardner: How did E Nesbit come to write The Railway Children? March 26, 2005, accessed November 24, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Luise F. Pusch: Edith Nesbit. In: fembio.org. Retrieved November 24, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Edith Nesbit . In: Spartacus Educational . ( spartacus-educational.com [accessed November 24, 2018]).
  5. ^ Bill Greenwell: Bill Greenwell - Edith Bland. Retrieved November 24, 2018 .
  6. ^ Gore Vidal: The Writing of E. Nesbit . In: The New York Review of Books . ( nybooks.com [accessed November 24, 2018]).
  7. ↑ Edith Nesbit: The Wonderful Garden or The Three Cs by Edith Nesbit (1911; scans) . 1911 ( archive.org [PDF; accessed November 24, 2018]).
personal data
SURNAME Nesbit, Edith
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nesbit, E. (pseudonym); Bland, Edith
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English author
DATE OF BIRTH August 15, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH Kennington
DATE OF DEATH May 4, 1924
Place of death New Romney , Kent