Five Children and It

E. Nesbit was born in London in 1858. Her childhood was unhappy; she was only four when her father died, and she was sent to boarding schools and later lived abroad with her mother and siblings before returning to England.

In 1880, when she was seven months pregnant, she married Hubert Bland, a bank clerk. She and Bland had three children together and adopted two of Bland’s children whom he had with a woman who lived with them and cared for the children. Together, they founded the Fabian Society, a socialist group whose members included well-known authors George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells. The Blands frequently welcomed other socialists and writers to their home. Influenced by Fabian politics, themes of social justice frequently appear in Nesbit’s work. She was not, however, at all interested in women’s rights and once gave a lecture on “The Natural Disabilities of Women.”

Already a well-regarded poet by the 1890s, Nesbit began writing for children’s magazines and published her first full-length novel for children, The Story of the Treasure Seekers, in 1899. She would eventually write or collaborate on over 60 books, both for young readers and adults.