![]() ![]() ![]() She once wrote: “When I was a little child I used to pray fervently, tearfully, that when I should be grown up I might never forget what I thought, felt, and suffered then.”Īs a child, E. Nesbit did not sentimentalize children and childhood. Unlike fantasies of the past, her stories take place in the everyday world of Edwardian England, not in a make-believe fairyland. Nesbit’s fantasy novels combine her successful formula for the realistic family story with the added enticement of magic. ![]() Her characters-imaginative, intelligent, strong-willed individuals-are well intentioned if not always well behaved: They are real children with whom readers identify and empathize. Nesbit speaks to her readers as respected and admired equals. Nesbit’s narrators don’t talk down to children E. ![]() Nesbit did away with the didacticism prevalent in Victorian children’s books, which sought to “improve” young readers.Į. What set her books apart from those that preceded them was that E. One wonders if Edith Nesbit was at all aware of just how unconventional her children’s novels were and that they would determine the direction for both realistic family stories and fantasy in the twentieth century. ![]()
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