E. Nesbit

Edith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland; 15 August 1858 – 4 May 1924) was an English writer and poet, who published her books for children as E. Nesbit.

She wrote or collaborated on more than 60 such books. She was also a political activist and co-founder of the Fabian Society, a socialist organisation later affiliated to the Labour Party. Nesbit's first published works were poems. She was under 20 in March 1878, when the monthly magazine Good Words printed her poem "Under the Trees". In all she published about 40 books for children, including novels, storybooks and picture books. She also published almost as many books jointly with others. Nesbit's biographer, Julia Briggs, names her "the first modern writer for children", who "helped to reverse the great tradition of children's literature inaugurated by Lewis Carroll, George MacDonald and Kenneth Grahame, in turning away from their secondary worlds to the tough truths to be won from encounters with things-as-they-are, previously the province of adult novels". Briggs also credits Nesbit with inventing the children's adventure story. Noël Coward was an admirer. In a letter to an early biographer, Noel Streatfeild wrote, "She had an economy of phrase and an unparalleled talent for evoking hot summer days in the English countryside." Among Nesbit's best-known books are The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899) and The Wouldbegoods (1901), which tell of the Bastables, a middle-class family fallen on relatively hard times. The Railway Children is also popularised by a 1970 film version. Gore Vidal called the time-travel book, The Story of the Amulet, one where "Nesbit's powers of invention are at their best." Her children's writing also included plays and collections of verse.