Edith
Nesbit, the daughter of John Collis
Nesbit, a schoolmaster, was born on 19th
August, 1858. Nesbit ran successful schools in Bradford,
Manchester and London
but died when Edith was only six years old. Despite money problems,
Edith's mother managed to educate her daughter in France.
At the age of nineteen, Edith
Nesbit met Hubert Bland, a young
writer with radical political opinions. In 1879 discovered she was
pregnant and the baby was born two months after they were married
on 22nd April, 1880.
Edith and Hubert were both socialists and on 24th October 1883 they
decided with their Quaker friend Edward
Pease, to form debating group. They were also joined by Havelock
Ellis and Frank Podmore and in January
1884 they decided to call themselves the Fabian
Society. Hubert Bland
chaired the first meeting and was elected treasurer. Nesbit and her
husband became joint editors of the society's journal, Today.
Soon afterwards other socialists in London began attending
meetings. This included Eleanor Marx, Annie
Besant, Clementina
Black, George Bernard Shaw, Sidney
Webb and Beatrice Webb.
In 1885 Edith had a second child and named
him Fabian. Alice Hoatson, the
assistant secretary of the Fabian Society,
moved in with Edith and Hubert. The following year, Alice gave birth
to Hubert's baby, Rosamund. Edith accepted the situation and brought
up Rosamund as her own child.
In 1885 Edith Nesbit
and Hubert Bland also joined the Social
Democratic Federation. However, they did not stay long as they
found the views of its leader, H. H. Hyndman,
too revolutionary.
Nesbit was a regular lecturer and writer on socialism throughout the
1880s. However she gave less time to these activities after she become
a successful children's writer. Her most famous novels include The
Story of the Treasure-Seekers
(1899), The Wouldbegoods
(1901), Five Children
and It (1902), The
Pheonix and the Carpet (1904),
The New Treasurer-Seekers
(1904), The Railway
Children (1906) and The
Enchanted Castle (1907). A collection
of her political poetry, Ballads
and Lyrics of Socialism, was
published in 1908.
After the death of Hubert
Bland in 1914, Edith married Thomas
Tucker, an engineer. Edith Nesbit continued to write children's books
and had published forty-four novels before her death on 4th May, 1924.
(1)
Edith Nesbit, letter to Ada Breakell (February, 1884)
On
Friday we went to Mr. Pease's to tea, and afterwards, a Fabian meeting
was held. The meeting was over at 10 - but some of us stayed till
11.30 talking. The talks after the Fabian meeting are very jolly.
I do think the Fabians are quite the nicest set of people I ever knew.
Mr. Pease's people are Quakers and he has the cheerful serenity and
self-containedness common to the sect. I like him very much.
(2)
Edith Nesbit, letter to Ada Breakell (March, 1884)
The Fabian Society takes up a good deal of my thoughts just now, I
am also doing a good bit of serious reading - among other things,
Buchner's Man, Mill's Subjection of Women, Louis Blanc's
Historical Revelations. You see my reading is rather mixed
and miscellaneous - but it is the fate of most women only to be able
to get a smattering, and I seem to want to read all sorts of things
as once.
(3)
Edith Nesbit, letter to Ada Breakell (April, 1884)
I should like to try and tell you a little about the Fabian Society
- it's aim is to improve the social system - or rather to spread its
news as to the possible improvements of the social system. There are
about thirty members - some of whom are working men. we meet once
a fortnight - and then someone reads a paper and we all talk about
it. We are now going to issue a pamphlet. I am on the Pamphlet Committee.
Now can you fancy me on a committee? I really surprise myself sometimes.
(4)
Edith Nesbit, letter to Ada Breakell (19th
August, 1884)
The
Fabian Society is getting rather large now and includes some very
nice people, of whom Mr. Stapelton is the nicest and a certain George
Bernard Shaw the most interesting. G.B.S. has a fund of dry Irish
humour that is simply irresistible. He is a clever writer and speaker
- is the grossest flatterer I ever met, is horribly untrustworthy
as he repeats everything he hears, and does not always stick to the
truth, and is very plain like a long corpse with dead white face -
sandy sleek hair, and a loathsome small straggly beard, and yet is
one of the most fascinating men I ever met.
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