Book Read Free

The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit

Page 36

by Eleanor Fitzsimons

18 Ibid., 121.

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

  20 This is the very first poem she wrote, in a cheap notebook, with “Daisy Bland, Aug. 27, 1879” written inside the front cover. Quoted in Julia Briggs, A Woman of Passion: The Life of E. Nesbit 1858–1924 (London: Penguin Books, 1987), 46.

  21 Quoted in Briggs, A Woman of Passion, 46.

  22 E. Nesbit to Francis Galton, Galton Papers, University College Library, London. www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0714/100714-galton-archive-online and http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/rd/N13821380 (accessed November 5, 2017).

  23 Fabian Bland, The Prophet’s Mantle (London: Belford, Clarke & Company, 1889), 126–27.

  24 Lichfield Mercury, Friday, October 12, 1906, 6.

  25 Hubert Bland, With the Eyes of a Man (London: T. Werner Laurie, 1905), 5.

  26 Ibid., 51.

  27 Ibid., 29.

  28 E. Nesbit, The Incredible Honeymoon (New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1916), 147.

  29 Ibid., 56.

  30 Ibid., 115–16.

  31 Bland, Essays by Hubert Bland, 83.

  32 Ibid., 79.

  33 Ibid., 152.

  34 Bland, With the Eyes of a Man, 207.

  35 E. Nesbit, The Incredible Honeymoon, 3.

  36 Bland, With the Eyes of a Man, 53.

  37 Bland, Essays by Hubert Bland, 155.

  38 Bland, With the Eyes of a Man, 133.

  39 According to Isabella Sutherland, a housekeeper at 17 Devonshire Square, in testimony she gave at a fraud trial on March 1, 1880. Details of her testimony is available at www.oldbaileyonline.org, case reference number t18800301-284.

  40 Ada Breakell to Doris Langley Moore, May 8, 1931, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  41 E. Nesbit, The Incredible Honeymoon, 160.

  42 Ibid., 161.

  43 E. Nesbit, The Red House (New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1902), 188.

  44 Ibid., 256.

  45 The London Gazette, August 6, 1880, 4331: www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/24871/page/4331/data.pdf (accessed November 6, 2017), and in Lloyds List of Saturday, August 7, 1880.

  CHAPTER 5

  1 G. B. Shaw, An Unfinished Novel, ed. Stanley Weintraub (London: Constable, 1958), 42.

  2 Ainslee’s Magazine, vol. 12, 1903–4, 75.

  3 Hubert Bland, “Who Is Timothy Knapp,” Sporting Times, Saturday, March 14, 1881, 2.

  4 Minnie Williams, “Timothy Knapp,” Sporting Times, Saturday, May 28, 1881, 7.

  5 Emmeline de Vere, “Timothy Knapp,” Sporting Times, Saturday, June 11, 1881, 7.

  6 Emmetsburg (Iowa) Democrat, 1895 Christmas Souvenir Edition, quoted in www.findagrave.com (accessed November 6, 2017).

  7 Alice Hoatson to Doris Langley Moore, July 4, 1932, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  8 E. Nesbit, The Story of The Treasure Seekers, 6.

  9 E. Nesbit, The New Treasure Seekers (London: T, Fisher Unwin, 1904), 37.

  10 E. Nesbit, The Story of The Treasure Seekers, 145.

  11 Ibid., 7.

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

  13 This story appeared first in Home Chimes, December 1887, and also in E. Nesbit, Grim Tales (London: A.D. Innes, 1893).

  14 Current Literature, vol. vii, May–August 1891 (New York: The Current Literature Publishing Company, 1891) 475–76.

  15 E. Nesbit, Daphne in Fitzroy Street, 140.

  16 Ibid., 141.

  17 Ibid., 142.

  18 E. Nesbit, The Red House, 63.

  19 E. Nesbit, The Railway Children, 53.

  20 https://tuckdb.org/history (accessed November 6, 2017).

  21 From the account given to Doris Langley Moore by Gustave Tuck, transcript held in the Edith Nesbit Archive.

  22 Interview between John Bland and Doris Langley Moore, transcript held in the Edith Nesbit Archive.

  23 Ada Breakell to Doris Langley Moore, May 8, 1931, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  24 E. Nesbit, “After Many Days,” Longman’s Magazine, vol. 23, November 1893.

  25 Ada Breakell to Doris Langley Moore, May 8, 1931, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  26 Hubert Bland, The Happy Moralist (London: T. Werner Laurie, 1907), 169.

  27 Ibid.

  28 Ibid., 170.

  29 http://leicestersecularsociety.org.uk/PHP_History/history_gimson2.php (accessed November 7, 2017).

  30 E. Nesbit, The Red House, 15.

  31 E. Nesbit to Ada Breakell, April 11, 1884, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  32 E. Nesbit to Ada Breakell, April 13, 1884, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  33 E. Nesbit to Ada Breakell, April 11, 1884, Edith Nesbit Archive.

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

  35 Bland, Essays by Hubert Bland, 216.

  36 E. Nesbit to Ada Breakell, March 30, 1884, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  37 E. Nesbit, The Red House, 79.

  38 Alice Hoatson remembered the date as press day, January 22, 1881. However, since she also recalled Edith saying that she had a six-week-old baby and Iris was born on December 2, 1881, it must have been 1882.

  39 Alice Hoatson to Doris Langley Moore, July 4, 1932, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  CHAPTER 6

  1 E. Nesbit to Ada Breakell, March 30, 1884, Edith Nesbit Archive.

  2 Hubert Bland, “The Faith I Hold,” paper read before the Fabian Society in December 1907. Reprinted in The New Age, January 25, 1908.

  3 William Morris and Norman Kelvin, eds., The Collected Letters of William Morris, vol. II, part B: 1885–1888 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 670.

  4 H. M. Hyndman, The Record of an Adventurous Life (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1911), 323.

  5 Bland, “The Faith I Hold.”

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

  7 Bland, Essays by Hubert Bland, 214.

  8 Bland, “The Faith I Hold.”

  9 Hyndman, The Record of an Adventurous Life, 271.

  10 Ibid., 307.

  11 Edward Reynolds Pease, unpublished manuscript: Recollections for my sons—March 1930, Notes on my life (Dec. 1950), Reminiscences of E. R. Oct 1953—held by family.

  12 Ibid.

  13 E. Nesbit, “Porro Unum Est Necessarium,” Living Age, vol. 277, 1913, 567.

  14 Warren Sylvester Smith, The London Heretics. 1870–1914 (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1968), 133.

  15 Norman and Jean Mackenzie, The Fabians (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977), 15.

  16 E. Balford Bax, “The Rise and Decline of Fabianism,” Reynolds Newspaper, Sunday, July 1, 1894, p .3.

  17 Bland, “The Faith I Hold.”

  18 Bax, “The Rise and Decline of Fabianism,” 3.

  19 First Fabian Minute Book, held at https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk (accessed November 10, 2017).

  20 Bax, “The Rise and Decline of Fabianism,” 3.

  21 Edward Reynolds Pease, The History of the Fabian Society (London: E. Dutton, 1916), 37.

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

  23 Norman and Jean Mackenzie, The Fabians, 28.

  24 Pease, The History of the Fabian Society, 40.

  25 G. Bernard Shaw, Fabian Tract No. 41, The Fabian Society: Its Early History (London: The Fabian Society, 1892), 24.

  26 Pease, The History of the Fabian Society, 64.

  27 Ian Britain, Fabianism and Culture: A Study in British Socialism and the Arts c. 1884–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 21.

  28 Pease, The History of the Fabian Society, 56–57.

  29 Morning Star, March 26, 1886.

  30 Ibid.

  31 “Political Action by Socialists,” Morning Post, Saturday, September 18, 1886, 2.

  32 Fabian Society Executive Committee minute book, December 23, 1885–January 21, 1887, held at https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk (accessed November 10, 2017).

  33 “Annie Besant—The Woman,” John O’London’s Weekly, vol. 1, 1
919 (London: G. Newnes), 413.

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

  35 Annie Besant, An Autobiography (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1910), 188.

  36 “Annie Besant—The Woman,” John O’London’s Weekly, 413.

  37 Annie Besant, Our Corner, vol. 7 (London: Freethought, 1883), 250.

  38 Besant, An Autobiography,310–11.

  39 Stanley Weintraub, ed., Shaw: An Autobiography, 1856–1898 (London: Max Reinhardt, 1969), 393.

  40 E. Nesbit, The House of Arden (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1923), 113.

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

  42 Charlotte Wilson to George Bernard Shaw, July 15, 1889, AM 50512, fo. 161, George Bernard Shaw Papers, British Library, London.

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

  44 Mrs. Ashton Dilke, “Select Socialists,” Current Opinion, vol. 3, 390.

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

  46 Dilke, “Select Socialists,” 390.

  47 Pease, The History of the Fabian Society, 65.

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

  49 In Edgar Jepson, Memories of an Edwardian and Neo-Georgian (London: Richards, 1937), 23, Jepson confirmed “she was one of the earliest of the chain-smokers, rolling her own cigarettes.”

  50 E. Nesbit, “The Pavilion,” The Strand Magazine, November 1915, included in George Newnes, ed., Volume L, July to December 1915, (London: George Newnes Ltd., 1915), 562–72.

  51 Quoted in Doris Langley Moore, E. Nesbit: A Biography (London: Ernest Benn Ltd., 1933), 104.

  52 Havelock Ellis to Doris Langley Moore, quoted in Moore, E. Nesbit, 104.

  53 “The Socialist Congress: Lively Scenes,” Weekly Irish Times, Saturday, August 1, 1896, 5.

  54 E. Nesbit to Ada Breakell, March 1884, Edith Nesbit Archive.

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

  56 Fabian Society Executive Committee minute book, December 23, 1885–January 21, 1887.

  57 Ibid.

  58 Moore, E. Nesbit, 132–33; Shaw was in the habit of accusing women of feigning their swoons. On March 16, 1885, he accused actress Madge Kendal of pretending to faint during a performance of As You Like It in the St. James’s Theatre.

  59 Norman and Jean Mackenzie, The Fabians, 30.

  CHAPTER 7

  1 Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, My Diaries: Being a Personal Narrative of Events (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1922), entry for February 21, 1920, 559.

  2 Frank Harris, Bernard Shaw: An Unauthorised Biography Based on Firsthand Information with a Postscript by Mr Shaw (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1931), 30.

  3 Hesketh Pearson, Bernard Shaw: His Life and Personality (London: Collins, 1942), 41.

  4 Archibald Henderson, “The Real Bernard Shaw,” Munsey’s Magazine, January 1908, 453.

  5 Harris, Bernard Shaw, 114.

  6 George Bernard Shaw to Pakenham Beatty, May 27, 1887, in Dan H. Laurence, ed., Collected Letters, 1874–1897, 168; George Bernard Shaw, Sixteen Self Sketches (London, Constable & Co., 1949), 68.

  7 Evening Dispatch, Saturday, April 18, 1914, 4.

  8 Harris, Bernard Shaw, 31.

  9 Blunt, My Diaries, 559.

  10 “A Fabian,” “Individualism in Masquerade” in Seed Time, a magazine produced by the Fellowship of the New Life, October 1890.

  11 George Bernard Shaw, “The Chesterbelloc: A Lampoon,” New Age, February 15, 1908.

  12 Shaw, Sixteen Self Sketches, 56.

  13 George Bernard Shaw to Ellen Terry, June 11, 1897, in Christopher St. John, ed., Ellen Terry and Bernard Shaw: A Correspondence (London: Max Reinhardt, 1922), 196.

  14 Shaw, Sixteen Self Sketches, 14.

  15 George Slyvester Viereck, Glimpses of the Great (London: Duckworth, 1930), 37.

  16 Harris, Bernard Shaw, 13.

  17 Shaw, Sixteen Self Sketches, 88.

  18 Ibid., 97.

  19 Fabian Society Executive Committee minute book, December 23, 1885–January 21, 1887.

  20 A MANIFESTO—Fabian Tract No. 2

  THE FABIANS are associated for spreading the following opinions held by them and discussing their practical consequences.

  That under existing circumstances wealth cannot be enjoyed without dishonour or foregone without misery.

  That it is the duty of each member of the State to provide for his or her wants by his or her own Labour.

  That a life interest in the Land and Capital of the nation is the birthright of every individual born within its confines and that access to this birthright should not depend upon the will of any private person other than the person seeking it.

  That the most striking result of our present system of farming out the national Land and Capital to private persons has been the division of Society into hostile classes, with large appetites and no dinners at one extreme and large dinners and no appetites at the other.

  That the practice of entrusting the Land of the nation to private persons in the hope that they will make the best of it has been discredited by the consistency with which they have made the worst of it; and that Nationalisation of the Land in some form is a public duty.

  That the pretensions of Capitalism to encourage Invention and to distribute its benefits in the fairest way attainable, have been discredited by the experience of the nineteenth century.

  That, under the existing system of leaving the National Industry to organise itself Competition has the effect of rendering adulteration, dishonest dealing and inhumanity compulsory.

  That since Competition amongst producers admittedly secures to the public the most satisfactory products, the State should compete with all its might in every department of production.

  That such restraints upon Free Competition as the penalties for infringing the Postal monopoly, and the withdrawal of workhouse and prison labour from the markets, should be abolished.

  That no branch of Industry should be carried on at a profit by the central administration.

  That the Public Revenue should be levied by a direct Tax; and that the central administration should have no legal power to hold back for the replenishment of the Public Treasury any portion of the proceeds of Industries administered by them.

  That the State should compete with private individuals—especially with parents—in providing happy homes for children, so that every child may have a refuge from the tyranny or neglect of its natural custodians.

  That Men no longer need special political privileges to protect them against Women, and that the sexes should henceforth enjoy equal political rights.

  That no individual should enjoy any Privilege in consideration of services rendered to the State by his or her parents or other relations.

  That the State should secure a liberal education and an equal share in the National Industry to each of its units.

  That the established Government has no more right to call itself the State than the smoke of London has to call itself the weather.

  That we had rather face a Civil War than such another century of suffering as the present one has been.

  21 Mrs. Cecil Chesterton (Ada Elizabeth Jones Chesterton), The Chestertons (London: George G. Harrap & Company, 1931), 14.

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

  23 E. Nesbit, Daphne in Fitzroy Street, 190.

  24 Pearson, Bernard Shaw: His Life and Personality, 98.

  25 John O’London’s Weekly, April 26, 1919, 67.

  26 George Bernard Shaw and Dan H. Lawrence, ed., Collected Letters, 1874–1897 (London: Max Reinhardt, 1965), 262.

  27 Harris, Bernard Shaw, 237.

  28 Pearson, Bernard Shaw: His Life and Personality, 139.

  29 George Bernard Shaw, Love Among the Artists (New York: Brentanos, 1910), 78.

  30 Beatrice Webb’s Diary, https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/collections/webb.

  31 Hubert Bland, “Mr Shaw’s Man
and Superman,” in With the Eyes of a Man, 79.

  32 Shaw told Hesketh Person, “the ideal love affair is one conducted by post.” His relationship with the actress Ellen Terry was certainly epistolary in nature.

  33 A. M. Gibbs, A Bernard Shaw Chronology (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 65.

  34 Stanley Weintraub, ed., Bernard Shaw: The Diaries 1885–1897, vol. I (University Park and London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1986), 99.

  35 Ibid., 55.

  36 Ibid., 97.

  37 Pearson, Bernard Shaw: His Life and Personality, 109.

  38 Ibid.

  39 Shaw, Sixteen Self-Sketches, 113.

  40 Weintraub, Bernard Shaw: The Diaries 1885–1897, 34.

  41 Pearson, Bernard Shaw: His Life and Personality, 112.

  42 Ibid., 79.

  43 Ibid., 81.

  44 Ibid., 80–81.

  45 Rachel Holmes, Eleanor Marx: A Life (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 211. Aveling’s eventual departure and subsequent marriage provoked Marx’s suicide.

  46 Interview between George Bernard Shaw and Doris Langley Moore, transcript held in the Edith Nesbit Archive.

  47 Michael Holroyd, Bernard Shaw: The New Biography (London: Head of Zeus, 2015), 156.

  48 George Bernard Shaw, Heartbreak House (London: Constable, 1919).

  49 Weintraub, Bernard Shaw: The Diaries 1885–1897, 67.

  50 Harris, Bernard Shaw, 94, 226.

  51 Weintraub, Bernard Shaw: The Diaries 1885–1897, 108.

  52 Ibid., 179.

  53 E. Nesbit to George Bernard Shaw, June 29, 1886, in Shaw Papers, British Library Add. MSS 50511, quoted in Briggs, A Woman of Passion, 89.

  54 E. Nesbit, Daphne in Fitzroy Street, 144–45.

  55 New Yorker, vol. 43, part 1, 1925, 34.

  56 Briggs, A Woman of Passion, 92.

  57 Weintraub, Bernard Shaw: The Diaries 1885–1897, 199.

  58 Ibid., 209.

  59 Ibid., 34.

  60 Pearson, Bernard Shaw: His Life and Personality, 115.

  61 Quoted in The Collected Works of Bernard Shaw, vol. 6 (New York: W.H. Wise, 1930), 98.

  62 Holroyd, Bernard Shaw: The New Biography, 88.

  63 George Bernard Shaw to Charles Charrington, January 28, 1890, in Dan H. Laurence, ed., Collected Letters 1874–1897, 240.

  64 E. Nesbit, Daphne in Fitzroy Street, 185.

  65 Dan H. Laurence, ed., Bernard Shaw: Collected Letters 1911–1925, vol. III (London: Max Reinhardt, 1985), 904. George Bernard Shaw to Molly Tompkins, February 22, 1925. Edith Nesbit died on May 4, 1924.

 

‹ Prev