Edith Nesbit and Her Books

1. Edith Nesbit and Her Books

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Edith Nesbit was born on 15 August
1858 in London, England, the
daughter of Sarah and John Collis
Nesbit. Her first years were spent
with her two brothers and sisters at
the family agricultural college. After
the sudden death of her father, and
one of her sister's ill health, they
lived in various parts of the country
before young Edith was sent to
boarding school. After a bitter
experience there the family
travelled throughout France, and
Edith attended school there and in
Germany, often plagued by
homesickness.

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In 1871 the Nesbits settled at Halstead Hall in Kent, England. The next few
years were a source of many happy memories and influences on Nesbit's
future writing. Adventures in and around the local pond, the surrounding
gardens, investigating secret passageways in their home, and walking down
the railway tracks that crossed the back fields with her brothers were events
she would later develop in her popular stories for children. She started to
write around the age of fourteen.

5. E. Nesbit created an innovative body of work that combined realistic, contemporary children in real-world settings with magical

objects and
adventures and sometimes travel to fantastic worlds.

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8. Nesbit’s most famous and well-loved story is The Railway Children (1906). The novel is about the adventures of a middle class

Edwardian family living
near a railway station in the suburbs of London at the turn of the 19th century.

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10. In 1970, the book was made into very successful film

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12. Edith Nesbit died in 1924 at New Romney Kent, and was buried in the churchyard of St Mary in the Marsh.

Summarizing Nesbit's achievement, Claudia Nelson
concluded in the Dictionary of Literary Biography that "in
writing for children Nesbit proved her ability to combine
humor and sympathy, the personal and the universal”.
Edith Nesbit died in 1924 at New Romney Kent, and
was buried in the churchyard of St Mary in the Marsh.