Edith Nesbit

Edith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland) (1858-1924) was an English author and poet whose children's works were published under the androgynous name of E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on over 60 books of fiction for children, several of which have been adapted for film and television. She started a new genre of magical adventures arising from everyday settings and has .

In South Kent villages with names ending in 'den, ' and out away on the Sussex downs where villages end in 'hurst, ' live the plain people who talk this plain speech-a speech that should be sweeter in English ears than the implacable consonants of a northern kail-yard, or the soft one-vowelled talk of western hillsides. All through the summer nights the market carts creak along the London road; to London go the wild young man and the steady young man who 'betters' himself. To London goes the girl seeking a 'place.' The 'beano' comes very near to this land-so near that across its marches you may hear the sackbut and shawm from the breaks. Once a year come the hoppers. And so the cup of the hills holds no untroubled pool of pastoral speech

This collection includes, "The Cat-hood of Maurice", "The Mixed Mine", "Accidental Magic", "The Princess and the Hedge-Pig", "Septimus Septimusson", "The White Cat", "Belinda and Bellamant", "Justnowland", "The Related Muff", "The Aunt and Anabel; "Kenneth and the Carp" and "The Magician's Heart"

She was born in 1858 at 38 Lower Kennington Lane in Kennington, Surrey (now part of Greater London), the daughter of a schoolteacher, John Collis Nesbit, who died in March 1862, beforeher fourth birthday. Her sister Mary's ill health meant that the family moved around constantly for some years, living variously inBrighton, Buckinghamshire, France (Dieppe, Rouen, Paris, Tours, Poitiers, Angouleme, Bordeaux, Arcachon, Pau, Bagneres de Bigorre, and Dinan in Brittany), Spain and Germany, before settling for three years at Halstead Hall in Halstead in north-west Kent, a location which later inspired The Railway Children.

After being sent to the country "to learn to be good", the Bastable children and their two friends form the Society of the Wouldbegoods, but continue to become involved in adventures.

The story concerns a family who move from London to "The Three Chimneys", a house near the railway in Yorkshire, after the father, who works at the Foreign Office, is imprisoned after being falsely accused of spying. The children befriend an Old Gentleman who regularly takes the 9:15 train near their home; he is eventually able to help prove their father's innocence, and the family is reunited. The family takes care of a Russian exile, Mr Szczepansky, who came to England looking for his family (later located) and Jim, the grandson of the Old Gentleman, who suffers a broken leg in a tunnel.

"My cousin Mattie was different. She must set up to be in love, and walk home from church with Jack Halibut Sunday after Sunday, the long way round, if you please, through the meadows; and he used to buy her scent and ribbons at the fair, and send her a big valentine of lacepaper, and satin ribbons and things, though Lord knows where he got the money from-honest, I hope-for he hadn't a penny to bless himself with"