The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit

by Eleanor Fitzsimons

  She should have added her own name to that roll.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I could never have written this biography without the tireless work of the late Doris Langley Moore OBE (1902–1989), who went to such extraordinary lengths to solicit firsthand testimony from so many of Edith Nesbit’s friends and relations while they were still alive in order to produce her biography E. Nesbit in 1933. She cooperated with the late Professor Julia Briggs (1943–2007) in the production of her almost exhaustive biography, A Woman of Passion, in 1987. So well did these extraordinary women document Edith Nesbit’s life that I was faced with quite a challenge when attempting to add to the body of knowledge, although I hope I have managed to do so.

  The main depository for materials relating to the life of Edith Nesbit is the Edith Nesbit Archive in the McFarlin Library at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma. My special thanks go to Tara C. Aveilhe, who accessed this archive on my behalf and made me feel as if I had crossed the Atlantic. Also to I. Marc Carlson, Librarian of Special Collections and University Archives, for his prompt and generous granting of permission for me to quote from the archive.

  Sarah Baxter of The Society of Authors was prompt and consistently helpful in granting me permission to quote from the letters, diaries, and works of George Bernard Shaw. Thanks also to The Shaw Society, who welcomed me as a speaker when I was only beginning to discover the sheer genius of one of my more colorful compatriots.

  The Edith Nesbit Society, of which I am a proud member, is tireless in its quest to keep the legacy of our most important writer for children alive. Special thanks go to Marion Kennett for welcoming me into the society and encouraging me in my task.

  I am also grateful to the irrepressible Gaynor Wingham, Chair of Eltham Arts, who was kind enough to show me around beautiful Well Hall Pleasaunce, and who demonstrates such tireless enthusiasm for her vibrant corner of London.

  Those I consulted for help in the compiling of this biography include Leonore Sell from Universität Leipzig, who is undertaking important academic work on E. Nesbit’s life and legacy. Also Nuria Reina, who read my early drafts and made such insightful comments. Special thanks go to Lucy Hillier at the University of Exeter, who has an expert knowledge of membership of the Golden Dawn and who helped me establish that there is little evidence E. Nesbit was a member.

  My thanks are due to my wonderful agent, Andrew Lownie, who is unfailingly encouraging and supportive. Also to Chelsea Cutchens, associate editor at Abrams, managing editor Mary O’Mara, and to my copyeditor, Erin Slonaker. I would like to express my regret at never getting the chance to meet publisher Peter Mayer, who was a legend in the industry and who sadly passed away in May 2018, while I was working on this book. He was unfailingly charming, supportive, and encouraging in all our correspondence, and I am immensely proud to have been published by him.

  Finally, with love, to Derek, Alex, and Ewan for supporting me in everything I do.

  NOTES

  INTRODUCTION

  1 E. Nesbit, Wings and the Child (New York and London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1913), 92.

  2 E. Nesbit to Joan Palmer, who won second prize for her review of Five Children and It in The Clarion. Edith told her that it was the best review she had ever had. Quoted in Leo Lerman, “Real Magic,” New York Times Book Review, vol. 2 (New York: Arno Press, 1960), 69.

  3 F. J. H. Dabton, “Nesbit, Edith,” Dictionary of National Biography 1922–1930, edited by J. R. H. Weaver (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937), 84.

  4 “Mrs Hubert Bland (‘E. Nesbit’),” The Strand Magazine, no. VIII, September 1905, 287.

  5 Dundee Evening Telegraph, Tuesday, December 3, 1912, 5.

  6 Marcus Crouch, Treasure Seekers and Borrowers (London: Library Association, 1962), 16.

  7 Humphrey Carpenter, Secret Gardens: A Study of the Golden Age of Children’s Literature (London: Faber and Faber, 2009), 126.

  CHAPTER 1

  1 E. Nesbit, My School Days (London: Dodo Press, 2017), 18.

  2 Ibid.

  3 Ibid.

  4 “Mummies at Bordeaux,” Otago Daily Times, February 3, 1875, 6.

  5 Gustave Flaubert, Œuvres de jeunesse inédites (Paris: Louis Conard, 1910), 564.

  6 Reported in John Chambers, Victor Hugo’s Conversations with the Spirit World: A Literary Genius’s Hidden Life (Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 2008), 22.

  7 “Mummies at Bordeaux,” Otago Daily Times.

  8 Ibid. The macabre exhibition closed in 1979. The mummies were buried in a mass grave in Bordeaux’s Chartreuse Cemetery and replaced by an audiovisual presentation.

  9 Jean-Nicolas Gannal and Richard Harlan, History of Embalming, and of Preparations in Anatomy, Pathology, and Natural History; including an account of a new process for embalming (Philadelphia: Judah Dobson, 1840), 38.

  10 Ibid., 39.

  11 E. Nesbit, My School Days, 19.

  12 Ibid., 20.

  13 Ibid.

  14 Ibid., 22.

  15 Ibid.

  16 Fragment of a story, written on headed paper from the College of Chemistry and Agriculture, held in the Edith Nesbit Archive, University of Tulsa, McFarlin Library, Department of Special Collections and University Archives.

  17 E. Nesbit, The Wouldbegoods (New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1901), 75.

  18 Ibid., 269.

  19 E. Nesbit, The Enchanted Castle (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1907), 199.

  20 The term “intimate friend” was used by John Nesbit’s nephew, Paris Nesbit, in an interview with the Adelaide Observer, Saturday, May 22, 1926, 48.

  21 Illustrated London News, Saturday, April 5, 1862, 31; the Salisbury and Winchester Journal described it as a “long and trying illness,” April 5, 1862, 3.

  22 E. Nesbit, My School Days, p 13.

  23 E. Nesbit, The Wouldbegoods,16–17.

  24 Mr. Paris Nesbit, K.C., “Memories and reflections recorded by himself,” Adelaide Observer, Saturday, May 22, 1926, 48.

  25 R. B. Prosser, “Nesbit, Anthony (1778–1859),” in The Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Sidney Lee (New York: Macmillan and Co., 1894), vol. XL, 223.

  26 “Mrs Hubert Bland (‘E. Nesbit’),” The Strand Magazine.

  27 Sherbourne Mercury, Tuesday, December 23, 1851, 3; J. C. Nesbit, On Peruvian Guano: Its History, Composition, and Fertilizing Qualities; with the best mode of its application to the soil (London: Rogerson and Tuxford, 1856).

  28 A. Nesbit and Sons, An Essay on Education (London: Longman & Co., 1841), 4.

  29 Ibid., 5.

  30 Prosser, “Nesbit, Anthony (1778–1859).”

  31 A. Nesbit, An Introduction to English Parsing: Adapted to Murray’s Grammar and Exercises, and Intended for the Use of Schools, and Private Learners (York: Thomas Wilson and Sons, 1823), 175.

  32 Death certificate for John Collis Nesbit, DYE 162779, General Register Office.

  33 This anecdote was told to E. Nesbit’s biographer Doris Langley Moore by Nesbit’s second husband, Tommy Tucker, and is included in her interview notes held in the Edith Nesbit Archive.

  34 J. C. Nesbit, On Agricultural Chemistry, and the Nature and Properties of Peruvian Guano (London: Longman & Company, 1858), preface.

  35 E. Nesbit, Wings and the Child; or the Building of Magic Cities (New York and London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1913), 144.

  36 Ibid.

  37 E. Nesbit, My School Days, 15.

  38 Ibid., 16.

  39 Sarah Nesbit to Edith Nesbit, undated, held in the Edith Nesbit Archive.

  40 E. Nesbit, Wings and the Child, 40.

  41 Illustrated London News, Saturday, April 5, 1862, 31.

  42 In the census of 1861, a Mary Ann Moore, aged twenty-eight and living with the Nesbit family, entered her profession as “nurse.” A smiling, dark-haired woman photographed with little Edith three years later and described as her nurse certainly looks about the right age.

  43 E. Nesbit, My School Days, 14.

  44 Ibid., 14.

  45 E. Ne
sbit, The Wouldbegoods, 8.

  46 E. Nesbit, Wings and the Child,49–50.

  47 Ibid.

  48 Ibid., 48–49.

  49 E. Nesbit, The Enchanted Castle, 233.

  50 Ibid., 114.

  CHAPTER 2

  1 E. Nesbit, Wings and the Child, 59.

  2 Ibid.

  3 Ibid.

  4 Ibid., 145.

  5 E. Nesbit, Five Children and It (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1902), 14.

  6 E. Nesbit, My School Days, 3.

  7 Ibid., 2–3.

  8 Ibid., 3.

  9 Ibid.

  10 Ibid., 4.

  11 Ibid., 5–9.

  12 Ibid., 1.

  13 E. Nesbit to Berta Ruck, included in Doris Langley Moore to Berta Ruck, September 20, 1935, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  14 E. Nesbit, The Railway Children (London: Macmillan and Company, 1905), 38.

  15 “Mrs Hubert Bland (‘E. Nesbit’),” The Strand Magazine.

  16 E. Nesbit, My School Days, 10.

  17 Ibid., 12.

  18 Ibid.

  19 E. Nesbit, Wings and the Child, 39.

  20 Mary Nesbit to Edward Nesbit, January 26, 1868, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  21 E. Nesbit, My School Days, 24.

  22 Mary Nesbit to Edward Nesbit, January 26, 1868.

  23 E. Nesbit, My School Days, 30.

  24 E. Nesbit, The Wouldbegoods, 244.

  25 Margaret Taylor, E. Nesbit in Eltham (London: The Eltham Society, 1974), 3.

  26 E. Nesbit, My School Days, 32.

  27 Ibid., 37.

  28 Ibid., 43–44.

  29 Ibid., 46.

  30 E. Nesbit, Wings and the Child, 145–6.

  31 “I see children that you have seen the spinning lady.” This incident is described by Nesbit’s adopted son, John Bland, in an interview with Doris Langley Moore, in Notebook 1, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  32 E. Nesbit, The Wouldbegoods, 148.

  33 E. Nesbit, My School Days, 53.

  34 E. Nesbit to Sarah Nesbit, undated, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  35 E. Nesbit, Daphne in Fitzroy Street (New York: Doubleday, 1909), 4.

  36 E. Nesbit to Sarah Nesbit, undated, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  37 E. Nesbit to Sarah Nesbit, 1869, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  38 Mère Marie Madeline to Saretta Green, November 3, 1869, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  39 E. Nesbit to Sarah Nesbit, 1869, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  40 E. Nesbit, “On Running Away,” Daily Chronicle, June 25, 1910, 7.

  41 E. Nesbit, My School Days,14–15.

  42 Ibid., 15.

  43 Ibid., 55.

  44 Ibid., 90–91.

  45 E. Nesbit, Wings and the Child, 90.

  46 E. Nesbit, My School Days, 56.

  47 E. Nesbit, The Story of the Treasure Seekers, 210.

  48 E. Nesbit, My School Days, 57.

  49 E. Nesbit, Wings and the Child, 39.

  50 E. Nesbit, Daphne in Fitzroy Street, 239; he may also have inspired an ornamental cat that comes alive in her story “The White Cat: A Wonder Tale,” included in Short Stories magazine in 1907.

  CHAPTER 3

  1 “Dr Marston in the Old Days,” Dundee Evening Telegraph, January 9, 1890, 2.

  2 T. Earle Welby, The Victorian Romantics, 1850–70; The Early Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, Burne-Jones, Swinburne, Simeon Solomon and their Associates (London: G. Howe Ltd., 1929), 88.

  3 William Sharp, Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Record and a Study (London: Macmillan and Co., 1882), 35.

  4 William Sharp, “Memoir of Philip Bourke Marston,” in For a Song’s Sake and Other Stories by Philip Bourke Marston (London: W. Scott, 1887), xi.

  5 Ibid.

  6 Helen C. Black, Notable Women Authors of the Day (London: Maclaren & Company, 1906), 199–200.

  7 Thomas Purnell, “Philip Bourke Marston,” included in collected volume Bookseller: the organ of the book trade, 1887 (London: J. Whitaker, 1887), 239.

  8 “Philip Bourke Marston by a Woman Who Knew Him,” Pall Mall Gazette, Wednesday, February 23, 1887, 4.

  9 Richard Garnett, “Philip Bourke Marston 1850–1887,” in Dictionary of National Biography 1885–1930, vol. 36 (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1893), 260.

  10 Quoted in “When I Was a Girl” by E. Nesbit in John O’London’s Weekly, November 15, 1919.

  11 Louise Chandler Moulton, “Biographical Sketch,” in The Collected Poems of Philip Bourke Marston (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1892), xxvi.

  12 Elizabeth A. Sharp, William Sharp (Fiona McCloud): A Memoir Compiled by his Wife (London: William Heinemann, 1910), 29.

  13 Louise Chandler Moulton, “Biographical Sketch,” xxiii.

  14 Sharp, “Memoir of Philip Bourke Marston,” xiv.

  15 Angeli-Denis Collection, University of British Colombia Library, Letter no. 472.

  16 William E. Fredeman, ed., The Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, vol. 5, 1871–1872 (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2012), 201.

  17 Swinburne to his mother, April 12, 1874, as quoted in “Swinburne and the ‘unutterable sadness’ of Philip Bourke Marston,” Literary Imagination, vol. 15, issue 2, July 1, 2013, 165–80.

  18 I am indebted to Colin Fenn, vice-chair of the Friends of West Norwood Cemetery, for this information. www.fownc.org.

  19 E. Nesbit, “A Strange Experience,” Longman’s Magazine, no. XVII, March 1884, 506.

  20 Thomas Purnell, “Philip Bourke Marston.”

  21 Richard Garnett, “Philip Bourke Marston 1850–1887.”

  22 Sharp, “Memoir of Philip Bourke Marston,” ix.

  23 E. Nesbit to Sarah Nesbit, sent from the Rose and Crown, undated, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  24 www.manfamily.org, website of the family who founded the Man Group, funders of the Man Booker Prize.

  25 E. Nesbit, “The Portent of the Shadow,” in Black and White magazine, December 23, 1905.

  26 E. Nesbit, My School Days, 58.

  27 www.manfamily.org.

  28 E. Nesbit, My School Days, 60.

  29 Ibid., 62.

  30 Ibid.

  31 E. Nesbit, “The Brute,” in The Literary Sense (London: Macmillan and Co., 1903), 147–48.

  32 E. Nesbit, My School Days, 60.

  33 E. Nesbit, The Wouldbegoods, 92.

  34 E. Nesbit, My School Days, 58–59. Mrs. Ewing was Juliana Horatia Ewing, British author of children’s stories and notable for her insight into the life and emotions of a child.

  35 E. Nesbit to Berta Ruck, March 17, 1924, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  36 In The Railway Children, Nesbit appears to draw on an amalgam of railways and stations from around England. When she lived in Halstead the closest station was Chelsfield, located three miles along the track, but she moved her fictional station closer to home. She had left the village by the time “Halstead for Knockholt” station opened in 1876. For further information see Which Railway?, papers presented by members of the Edith Nesbit Society, September 1999.

  37 E. Nesbit, The Railway Children, 30.

  38 Alexander Hay Japp, The Poets and Poetry of the Century, vol. 8, ed. Alfred H. Miles (London, Hutchinson & Co, 1891), 579.

  39 E. Nesbit, “When I Was a Girl,” in John O’London’s Weekly.

  40 Ibid.

  41 Ada Breakell to Doris Langley Moore, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  42 E. Nesbit, “The White Cat: A Wonder Tale,” in Short Stories, vol. 68, October–December 1907, 367.

  43 E. Nesbit, My School Days, 62.

  CHAPTER 4

  1 Ada Breakell to Doris Langley Moore, October 23, 1931, Edith Nesbit Archive. The “oldest and dearest friend” quote is from the dedication at the beginning of Nesbit’s collection of stories, Man and Maid (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1906).

  2 Ada Breakell to Doris Langley Moore, October 23, 1931, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  3 E. Nesbit to Ada Breakell, undated, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  4 “Death of Mr. Henry Bland,” Kentish Independent, Saturday, September 8, 1866, 4.

>   5 In 1861 the Blands were living at 29 Francis Street, Woolwich. Helen was seventeen and Hubert just six. The Bland Children were:

  William Henry (b. December 28, 1840, died in childhood)

  Henry Kinton (b. August 7, 1841)

  Percy Owen (b. November 9, 1842)

  Helen (b. April 2, 1844)

  Hubert (b. January 3, 1855, died April 14, 1914)

  6 Hubert Bland, Essays by Hubert Bland; chosen by E. Nesbit Bland, “Hubert” of the Sunday Chronicle; with an introduction by Cecil Chesterton (London: M. Goschen, 1914), viii.

  7 George Bernard Shaw to Archibald Henderson, January 3, 1905, quoted in Archibald Henderson, George Bernard Shaw: His Life and Works (Cincinnati: Stewart and Kidd Company, 1911), 129.

  8 Henderson, George Bernard Shaw, His Life and Works, 128.

  9 Bland, Essays by Hubert Bland, 206.

  10 Cecil Chesterton in his Introduction to Bland, Essays by Hubert Bland, xi.

  11 Bland, Essays by Hubert Bland, 203.

  12 Maggie was baptized on January 20, 1856. Her address in Woolwich was noted in the census of 1871.

  13 The information that Maggie had a son comes from an account provided by Edith and Hubert’s daughter, Iris Bland, to Doris Langley Moore. A transcript is held in the Edith Nesbit Archive.

  14 E. Nesbit to Ada Breakell, undated, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  15 W. C. DeVane and K. L. Knickerbocker, eds., New Letters of Robert Browning (London: John Murray, 1951), 280.

  16 E. Nesbit, The Literary Sense, 117.

  17 Ibid., 119.