E. Nesbit
E. Nesbit, born Edith Nesbit on August 15, 1858, in South London, was a prominent English writer best known for her children's literature. After experiencing early familial challenges, including the death of her father, she settled in Kent, where her experiences inspired her later works, such as "The Railway Children." Nesbit was actively involved in socialist movements, co-founding the Fabian Society, where she engaged with notable figures like George Bernard Shaw. Her literary career began with poetry, but she gained acclaim for her children's novels, beginning with "The Pilot" and achieving great success with "The Story of the Treasure-Seekers" in 1899, which introduced a new level of realism to children's fiction. Nesbit's personal life was marked by complexity, including open relationships and a marriage to Thomas Tucker after the death of her first husband, Hubert Bland. Despite facing societal constraints, she challenged norms of her time, adopting behaviors typically associated with men. E. Nesbit continued to write until her death from lung cancer in 1924, leaving behind a legacy as one of the best-selling children's authors of her era.
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E. Nesbit
Author
- Born: August 15, 1858
- Birthplace: Kennington, South London, England
- Died: May 4, 1924
- Place of death: New Romney, Kent, England
Biography
Edith Nesbit, who published as E. Nesbit, was born August 15, 1858, in Kennington, South London, to schoolteacher John Collis Nesbit. Her father died before Nesbit was four, and in the following years the family traveled around the Continent because of the ill health of Nesbit’s sister Mary. In Nesbit’s early teen years, the family settled again in England, in Halstead, Kent. It was this residence that Nesbit would later describe in The Railway Children. In 1875, the family returned to London. There Nesbit became a disciple of William Morris’s handcraft and socialist movements, and at one of the meetings she met London bank clerk Hubert Bland in 1877. In April of 1880, seven months pregnant, Nesbit married Bland, though at first he continued to live with his mother. Nesbit’s first child, Paul Brand, was born that June. A daughter, Iris, followed in 1881.
In fall of 1883, a series of visits with their Quaker friend Edward Pease led Nesbit and Bland to begin a debating society dedicated to socialist ideals. By January 1884 the Fabian Society emerged, and Hubert Bland became its first chairman. Nesbit and Bland edited the society’s journal, Today. When Nesbit’s third child was born in 1885, she named him Fabian, after the society. As an early feminist, Nesbit adopted many habits that Victorian England considered exclusively male, such as wearing her hair short and smoking cigarettes. Nesbit was a heavy smoker for most of her adult life.
One of the society secretaries, Alice Hoatson, moved in with Bland and Nesbit, and in 1886 Hoatson bore Hubert Bland a daughter, Rosamund. Bland continued an open affair with Hoatson, and Nesbit had her own affairs with various members of the Fabian Society, including George Bernard Shaw. Nesbit continued to write for the socialist cause, but she also began producing volumes of verse, and in 1893 she turned her hand to fiction with the children’s novel The Pilot. Her second novel, The Story of the Treasure-Seekers (1899) became a best-seller, and it established the gritty realism of her later children’s fiction. Before Nesbit, this type of realism had been the exclusive domain of adult fiction. Two sequels, The Woodbegoods (1901), and New Treasure Seekers (1904) continued the adventures of the Bastable family, which were loosely based on Nesbit’s own memories of her early years.
As the twentieth century progressed, Hubert Bland—who was never a very good businessman and whose eyesight was failing—increasingly relied on Nesbit’s income as a children’s author. By the time Bland died in 1914, E. Nesbit was one of the best-selling names in children’s fiction. In 1917 Nesbit married Thomas “the Skipper” Tucker, a ship’s engineer, though her family scorned his lower-class background. She continued to publish fiction and serious poetry until lung cancer claimed her life in 1924.