The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit

July 22, 2019
Fitzsimons (Wilde’s Women) offers a charming, lively, and old-fashioned biography of Victorian and Edwardian-era author Edith Nesbit (1858–1924). Endlessly short of money, Nesbit’s output ran to poetry, essays, and adult novels and short fiction—but children’s literature was where her genius lay, evinced most famously by the much-read novel The Railway Children. As Fitzsimons shows, Nesbit’s life infused her work, and her life was dramatic and stylish. She cofounded the Fabians, an influential socialist group that included George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells, and cultivated an eccentric, signature personal style, wearing flowing, loose-fitting gowns with no corset, bangles up her arms, and an inevitable cigarette in a long holder, and living in a series of picturesque, if sometimes shabby, homes, one surrounded by a moat. Fitzsimons also conveys Nesbit’s complicated domestic arrangements—her husband, Hubert Bland, was a serial philander and asked Nesbit to raise two of his children with another woman. Fitzsimons’s book benefits from a wealth of sources, though some repetitions, such as the many references to Nesbit’s long cigarette holder, might be trimmed. Overall, however, Fitzsimons delivers a sprightly and highly readable life of a writer who deserves even wider recognition.

July 15, 2019
Fitzsimons (Wilde's Women: How Oscar Wilde Was Shaped by the Women He Knew, 2017) explores the controversial life and groundbreaking contributions of iconic Victorian children's author and social activist Edith Nesbit (1858-1924). Relying on letters, memoirs, poetry, stories, and archival materials, the author reveals familiar as well as unexpected details and anecdotes from Nesbit's tempestuous, bohemian life. She documents how Nesbit's father's death, her sister's illness, and subsequent family upheavals shaped her into an anxious child with a fertile imagination who began writing poetry at age 11. A life-changing marriage to ardent womanizer Hubert Bland when she was seven months pregnant forced Nesbit to "muster what resources, determination, and ingenuity she had to support her family" through her writing. Throughout their unorthodox marriage, Nesbit tolerated her husband's many flaws. Attractive and vivacious, Nesbit was "always surrounded by adoring young men" and had "intensely romantic friendships with several," including George Bernard Shaw. Delving into Nesbit's formative involvement in the Fabian Society and ardent campaigning to alleviate poverty, Fitzsimons suggests Nesbit's socialist views influenced her children's books. Favoring unconventional loose-fitting dresses and short hair, Nesbit's attitude toward women's rights and suffrage was surprisingly "hostile." Frequent quotes from Nesbit's children's books illustrate how she "populated her stories with people and events from her past," recasting herself and her siblings as the Bastable children in The Story of the Treasure Seekers. Fitzsimons ably demonstrates how Nesbit's singular ability to write from the perspective of a child, weaving magic and fantasy into everyday life in a colloquial style, became the prototype for modern children's fiction. She shines a welcome spotlight on a life "as extraordinary as anything found in the pages of her books." A fascinating, thoughtfully organized, thoroughly researched, often surprising biography of the enigmatic author of The Railway Children.

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Starred review from August 1, 2019
Best remembered today for such classic children's books as The Railway Children, The Story of the Amulet, and many more, Edith Nesbit (1858-1924) was also a well-regarded poet and an author of fiction for adults. Fitzsimmons has done prodigious research to bring her story to vibrant life. Indeed, it sometimes seems that she is offering a day-to-day account of Nesbit's life, with her work taking a back seat. Fortunately, the life is interesting enough to fill this large, minutely detailed, well-written biography. With her husband, Hubert Bland, Nesbit was a dedicated socialist and founding member of the Fabian Society, along with such luminaries as George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells. It appears that Nesbit was, for a time, in love with Shaw, who demurred. This infatuation, however, can't hold a candle to Bland's serial philandering. In one egregious example, he had an affair with one of Nesbit's friends, Alice Hoatson, who became pregnant, moved in with the Blands, and became the third member of a m�nage � trois. Obviously, theirs was a bohemian existence, and Nesbit herself was a kind of beautiful, flamboyant Auntie Mame figure, though with an undercurrent of steel. As an author, she was one of a kind, and Fitzsimmons makes a compelling case for her stature as an important writer. This biography is long overdue.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)