E. Nesbit

In answer to your last question, yes. From a shop in Nottinghamshire for £3.

Thanks Nick! And I'm not just saying that to be polite.

That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all week. Thanks!

I think I read most of E Nesbit's books when I was a kid but I can't remember anything about them. I thus conclude that they are rub.

haha as usual i can only remember one tiny detail: in five children and it they decide to make money by selling sherry by the side of the road (sherrry = raided from mom's drinks cupboard); they taste it and decide (quite korrektly) that it is disgusting, so sell sherry with lots of sugar in!! this is top in every respect possible

en = the real-life mom in the railway children, she writes to keep her kids alive cuz dad is (where? in pokey? run off with the chambermaid? i forget that bit)

I read the Wouldbegoods again recently, and was pleasantly surprised that it didn't seem patronisingly crappy, in the way that Blyton often can on mature reading. Never liked Five Children and It, the Psammead shat me up. It lived in SAND?! The Railway Children I liked more when I reread it a few years ago. As a youth, waving undergarments at steam trains just seemed irresponsible and I was terrified they'd all get killed and when the ambulance came, they wouldn't have their best undies on, cos they'd be on a branch, or something. Also, couldn't identify with absent father thing. Seemed quite desirable at the time (unemployed father, always there, claustrophobic) I think Nesbit has less of a reputation for being patronising and has therefore seen more favourably by me. In my headbrane.

shat me up

Lixi this is the funniest phrase EVAH. hehehhhh "oh those daleks, they shat me up!"

I remember reading tons of E. Nesbit when I was a kid, but this was back in the period when I was reading 4 or 5 books a week so memories of everything I read back then tends to be a bit hazy. I've not read her since.

What I do remember, though, is wanting to live like the Railway Children. That seemed ideal. There were railroad tracks by my house so I would go walking looking for an abandoned railway car. Unsurprisingly I never found any.

The Psammead was a kind of uncomfortable magic for me - different from the other fantasy litch characters I R reading at the time, he was morally ambiguous and his motives were unclear, which reflected on the kids who wanted stuff from him - what exactly were THEIR motives? Not simple survival or escape, nor righting past wrongs; they were just greedy little tykes looking for action! So the memory of these books became submerged under the unambiguous moral clarity of the other authors in my life. The message of that ugly creature who lived in sand is tougher to understand as a kid, but more valuable than "good kids should win; evil witches should lose" --> "you don't get something for nothing"

The Psammead always worried me in the TV series. The way they'd drag him out whenever they wanted to, the way he would put his hands over his eyes and disappear when he got tired. A loveless And if ever there was one.

mark s, the father in the Railway Children was in prison, having been (falsely!) accused of being some kind of spy(?) in league with Johnny Foreigner. Eventually eldest daughter (Bobbie = Roberta) got nice old gentleman from the train to prove his innocence & restore the family honour.

was it you dave?

note to self and tom: when next looking for obscure book, do not get pished and roll into Borders at 10.30, simply ask N.

yes, it was enesbit's RL husband i was fretting ovah

btw the giant one-celled animal spotted slithering over a wall in a frame of the RwC is still being discussed in the letters pages of the Fortean Times

Mark - sorry for not reading you correctly.

Try biog here. I love the way she is referred to as "N." throughout, and that after her pair-of-shag-monsters relationship with Hubert Bland was over she shacked up with Thomas "the Skipper" Tucker.

Didn't she write those bloody fucking Noddy books too? Those're good!

i thought she was best known for the enchanted castle,which i read when i was a kid and again two years ago and there's stuff i like about it, like the kids sort of dealing with different physicalties and stuff like when they become invisible.
i think i read the railway childen when young but i can't remember it.

E Nesbit was a great children's writer. She managed to combine realism and magic much better than most. This includes CS Lewis who's child protagonists conveniently mature in the magical environment of Narnia and start to think like kings and queens (never seemed convincing, that's why the Horse and his Boy and the Silver Chair are the best ones; the children stay more like children)

Its a pity she's best known for the Railway Children, which is possibly her worst work, rather than the 'true life' stories of the Bastable family = the ones who try and restore the family fortunes by selling sherry, publishing poetry, etc... Or the series that began with 'Five Children and It' and carried on through 'The Phoenix and the Carpet' and 'The Story of the Amulet' And 'The Magic Castle'. I guess there are some old fashioned class and colonial attitudes in these stories, but I don't think it overwhelms other values.

Cunningly included two answers in one - note the negative CS Lewis comment.

the castle's not magic it is ENCHANTED. enchanted!!!!

didn't really read her childrens books but she turned out some wicked grown up ghost stories - 'Man Size in Marble' stands out. Dead scary.