Talk:E. Nesbit

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Talk:E. Nesbit/Archive 1

"reënactment" - is Wikipaedia really adopting the New Yorker diaresis as the way forward? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guyalsfere (talk • contribs) 20:49, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Anti-Semitism[edit]

Since the issue of Nesbit's anti-semitic attitudes (in some of her works) was raised by a contributor to the wiki on The Phoenix and the Carpet, it might be good to include a bit in this wiki on Nesbit's attitudes toward Jews in both her private and published life, as this is an issue that is likely to prove a stumbling block to many of her readers. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any comprehensive articles on the subject, and my knowledge of Nesbit's life is not deep, so I don't feel competent to write a paragraph on the matter. N.b. also Talk:The Phoenix and the Carpet. 68.100.18.183 13:24, 19 January 2006 (UTC)RandomCritic[reply]

I looked at the scene from The Phoenix and the Carpet the contributor was upset about, and aside from Isaac's name, I don't see any reason to believe that Herbert and Isaac are Jewish. They're poor street urchins and thieves, and their names were chosen so their nicknames (Ike and 'Erb) would provide a joke. Peterwshor (talk) 01:53, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I believe I remember several Jewish stereotypes discussed when Nesbit is discussing the pawn-broker in Harding's Luck. But, if I remember correctly, the pawn-broker himself turns out to be very nice, showing an exception to some of these anti-Semitic stereotypes. As far as I remember, these are the only anti-Semitic passages I noticed in her children's novels. Peterwshor (talk) 01:26, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And besides the good Jewish pawnbroker from Harding's Luck, I just noticed this passage from the story "Molly, the Measles, and the Missing Will." in Oswald Bastable and Others.: "... however different we may be in the colour of our hair and eyes, the inside part, the part that we feel and suffer with, is pretty much alike in all of us. But no one seems to know this except me." I think this passage speaks for itself. Peterwshor (talk) 05:44, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
However, in Story of the Treasure Seekers, she has an extremely stereotypical money-lender who only concedes to be generous after the children woo him significantly. Further, in the close of the book, the adults laugh when the children ask whether the money-lender was invited, saying that the gathering was for "friends" only. This combined with her views on eugenics and lower classes (as evidenced by her Fabian leanings) should warrant a closer look. (talk) 14:35, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

L.M. Montgomery[edit]

This article claims:

[Nesbit's] influence ws felt even beyond her direct writing style: L.M. Montgomery used a photograph of Nesbit as her model for the character Anne of Green Gables.

However, the article on Anne of Green Gables states:

Montgomery used a photograph of Evelyn Nesbit, clipped from an American magazine and pasted to the wall near her writing desk, as the model for Anne Shirley, the book's protagonist.

Sounds like there's been a mix-up of Nesbits -- Evelyn Nesbit and E[dith] Nesbit aren't the same person. Which article has it correct? It seems more likely that Evelyn Nesbit, "an artists' model," would have been the inspiration for the character. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.151.16.35 (talk • contribs) 03:40, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is most probably Evelyn Nesbit, as she was known for having dark red hair. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leorejoanne (talk • contribs) 09:33, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved

Polyamory[edit]

This article is in the polyamory category. During her marriage, it is clear her husband was poly. However, the article does not state whether she was poly - I have seen it stated elsewhere on Wikipedia that she was. If she was, the article should name the man / men she had simultaneous sexual relationships with. F W Nietzsche (talk) 05:59, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, there has been considerable speculation of her bisexuality. I don't think the article properly addresses either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.222.92.74 (talk) 01:40, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Links from Book Titles[edit]

Many of the book titles (no idea how many; I didn't check them all) are set up as links, but there is no page on Wikipedia with that information. Shouldn't the links be removed if no one is going to fill in information about the books?--75.146.121.137 (talk) 22:17, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The titles might be useful (the link-markup probably is not useful) Tedickey (talk) 23:44, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I removed all the unused links except for the children's novels, which I think are moderately likely to eventually be filled in. Since somebody else has started adding posthumously reprinted stories to the bibliography, I also added the ones I deleted when I revised the bibliography. I think I have included nearly all of her single-author books. Some of the story collections currently listed are multiple-author books where she only contributed a few stories (and possibly helped edit). Possibly we should distinguish between these in the bibliography, but I'm not going to do the work to figure out which are which. Peterwshor (talk) 14:42, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

40 books for children????[edit]

Where is the evidence that she published 40 books for children? Going to what I think is a reliable on-line bibliography, I count less than twenty (and this is counting short story collections and some titles that I do not know whether they were children's or adults). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.110.164.45 (talk) 20:23, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's already a source given for the list which is in this topic. TEDickey (talk) 20:27, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That seems a rather round-about way of answering. The number comes from the biography mentioned in the next paragraph, doesn't it? --Elijah (talk) 08:47, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It might. But the bibliography cited in external links appears to be the source for the list in this topic. Since the IP's not providing a source for "less than twenty" (which I find doubtful), we can only speculate what that might be TEDickey (talk) 12:08, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's not less than twenty. I miscounted. The bibliography in the article seems reasonably complete, and it contains something like 30 children's books in it (There are some I can't tell whether they are children's books or not. Definitely between 28 and 35. I still find this "collaborating with others, she produced almost 40 more" very doubtful. I do not know of any E. Nesbit collaborations on children's stories (although she certainly collaborated on her adult novels), and there is no source given. Peterwshor (talk) 20:15, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The 60 in the lede was added early (here), before the list in this topic was added. The 40 below also was added early here. So I guess there's more than one opinion which has been unnoticed. Have you a source which categorizes the adult novels which may be listed here? TEDickey (talk) 21:27, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You can categorize most of the things in the wikipedia bibliography using google. This gives 31 publications for children, and a number of probable duplicates in her adult publications. (The House with No Address is available online and mentions Salome, and the Three Mothers is the first story in These Little Ones, so I am assuming these are British/American titles for the same books.) "Miss Mischief" is only a dozen pages or so (with pictures), and some of the other things in Stories and Story Collections for Children may be similar, as I've categorized some of them based on their titles (e.g. Pug Peter, King of Mouseland), but I only did that when I was quite confident they were for children. I think it would be a good idea to put this categorization on the main page. I also think it would be good to divide her short stories for adults into literary stories and ghost stories, but some of the story collections I'm not sure which category to put them in. If there are other children's publications that aren't listed in this bibliography (and there are ... "Pussy tales" and Doggy tales" were published separately, as well as in "Pussy and Doggy Tales"), you could reach 40 children's publications.Peterwshor (talk) 01:19, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Bastables Series

  • 1 1899 The Story of the Treasure Seekers
  • 2 1901 The Wouldbegoods
  • 3 1904 The New Treasure Seekers
  • 4 1905 Oswald Bastable And Others (Short stories, mostly non-Bastable)
  • 1928 Complete History of Bastable Family (I believe an omnibus of the Bastable novels)

Psammead Series

  • 5 1902 Five Children and It
  • 6 1904 The Phoenix and the Carpet
  • 7 1906 The Story of the Amulet

House of Arden Series

  • 8 1908 The House of Arden
  • 9 1909 Harding's Luck

Other Children’s Novels

  • 10 1906 The Railway Children
  • 11 1907 The Enchanted Castle
  • 12 1910 The Magic City
  • 13 1911 The Wonderful Garden
  • 14 1913 Wet Magic
  • 15 1925 Five of Us and Madeline (published posthumously)

Stories and Story Collections for Children

  • 16 1894 Miss Mischief (single short story)
  • 17 1895 Tick Tock, Tales of the Clock (stories by several authors).
  • 1895 Pussy Tales (story collection)
  • 1895 Doggy Tales (story collection)
  • 18 1897 The Children's Shakespeare (story collection)
  • 19 1897 Royal Children of English History (story collection)
  • 20 1898 The Book of Dogs
  • 21 1899 Pussy and Doggy Tales (combined Pussy Tales and Doggy Tales)
  • 22 1900 The Book of Dragons (story collection)
  • 23 1901 Nine Unlikely Tales (story collection)
  • 24 1902 The Revolt of the Toys
  • 25 1903 Playtime Stories (story collection)
  • 26 1903 The Rainbow Queen and Other Stories (story collection)
  • 27 1904 The Story of Five Rebellious Dolls
  • 28 1904 Cat Tales (story collection)
  • 29 1905 Pug Peter, King of Mouseland
  • 1907 Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare (reprint of The Children's Shakespeare)
  • 32 1908 The Old Nursery Stories (story collection)
  • 33 1912 The Magic World (story collection)


Novels for Grown-Ups

  • 34 1885 The Prophet's Mantle
  • 35 1894 The Marden Mystery (very rare; few if any copies survive)
  • 36 1899 The Secret of the Kyriels
  • 37 1902 The Red House
  • 38 1906 Man and Maid
  • 39 1906 The Incomplete Amorist
  • 40 1909 Daphne in Fitzroy Street
  • 41 1909 The House With No Address aka Salome and the Head
  • 42 1911 Dormant aka Rose Royal
  • 43 1921 The Incredible Honeymoon
  • 44 1922 The Lark

Ghost and Other Stories for Adults

Some of these are collections of horror stories, some of these are collections of stories by various authors, edited by E. Nesbit, and some are collections of literary stories.

  • 45 1886 Something Wrong (horror story collection)
  • 46 1893 The Pilot (short printed book contains one story)
  • 47 1893 Grim Tales (horror story collection)
  • 48 1894 The Butler in Bohemia (story collection)
  • 49 1896 In Homespun (story collection)
  • 50 1897 Tales Told in Twilight (horror story collection)
  • 51 1901 Thirteen Ways Home (story collection)
  • 52 1903 The Literary Sense (story collection)
  • 53 1909 These Little Ones (contains story The Three Mothers)
  • 54 1910 Fear (horror story collection)
  • 55 1923 To the Adventurous (story collection)

Posthumous collections of Stories for Grown-Ups

  • 1983 Edith Nesbit's Tales of Terror
  • 1988 In the Dark: Tales of Terror (expanded version of above)

Peterwshor (talk) 23:42, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've been revising the above list, which I know is something you're not supposed to do on talk pages, but I don't see any other workable way to do it. I also found a believable source for "almost 40 children's books" which I added to the article. Peterwshor (talk) 05:35, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Revised list again, based on further research on google. I have (with a few guesses --- for example I can document that *Tick Tock, Tales of the Clock* is a story collection containing stories by several authors, and I am deducing by the title that it must be for children) categorized all the titles in the bibliography. I think I will put this categorization into the main article. I am also leaning towards leaving out the two posthumous horror collections, since there are a number of posthumous collections of Nesbit's children's stories, and I am not going to take the effort to track any of these down and include them in this bibliography. Peterwshor (talk) 21:41, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I also may remove The Three Mothers from the list. It was published in Strand Magazine in 1908, was one of the stories in the collection 1909 These Little Ones, and appears to have been reprinted as a pamphlet by the Catholic Truth Society (London) ca. 1918. The only actual evidence I can find for a book published in 1908 called The Three Mothers is in numerous bibliographies (it was reprinted in 2002 in a limited edition, and that edition probably had the 1908 date in it, so this may be where the (1908) The Three Mothers comes from. It does not appear in the collectors list of Nesbit First Editions. Peterwshor (talk) 22:20, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Writing for children[edit]

Do we (someone) know anything about how E. Nesbit started writing for children? Did she begin in magazines? If so when was her first children's story (not book)? Was she recruited by a magazine publisher? Recruited by a book publisher, perhaps after success in magazines? Or was she able to parlay status or experience of herself, husband, and/or Fabian Society as publishers?

2015. Maybe not via fiction. Are there any children's stories among the early (first 10, pre-1896) "shortfiction" as listed at ISFDB [1]. Six of the seven 1896 listings are catalogued there as contents of Peeps into Fairyland [2], "A pop-up book"!, Ernest Nister, printed in Bavaria info w video demo, text secondary, plausibly hack work. The seventh is "The Prince, Two Mice and Some Kitchen-Maids".
Contrast the two earliest "nonfiction" as listed there. Voyage of Columbus 1892, Raphael Tuck & Sons, 28pp., a quadricentennial educational for kids? Royal Children of English History 1896, Raphael Tuck, 94pp., no likely illustrators identified.
The Children's Shakespeare 1897 is the other work evidently for kids that we list prior to the 1899 magazine stories.
--P64 (talk) 20:56, 24 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In the text we say, "Among Nesbit's best-known books are The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1898) and The Wouldbegoods (1899), ...". In the list of works we give 1899 and 1901 for those two books. Is there a mistake or two? Or do the text dates refer to magazine publication of stories later compiled as books?

At The Story of the Treasure Seekers we say, "First published in 1899 ...". At The Railway Children, "originally serialised ... and first published in book form in 1906." I have no confidence in the distinction. Anyway, the biography text should explain the matter of the first paragraph above, and it should be clear whether it consistently gives serial publication dates when available. The list should identify what was previously published earlier in serial.

I think we may and should relegate omnibus editions to small font or to footnotes. --P64 (talk) 23:42, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Do any of the recent publications that we list, 1972 to 2013, include previously unpublished work? All of our listings except the two recent books "edited by Kristen Bancroft" imply to me that there is no new content by Nesbit.
There have been other collections of old material, including omnibus editions of novels, that we don't list here. ISFDB: Nesbit What is the selection principle?
Regarding The Book of Dragons (1901), at least some of the 1972 and later editions evidently include one extra story from The Strand (1899), namely "The Last Dragon". 2004 ISFDB: Dover reprint of 1901; 1972 ISFDB: Hamilton "Complete Book"
--P64 (talk) 19:42, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Influence[edit]

There is list of influenced children's writers, no sources, in our book article The Story of the Treasure Seekers --as well as the nearly unreferenced list here.

Edward Eager is explicit somewhere (need source). Knight's Castle (1956) is inspired specifically by The Magic City, I know from reading the former. --P64 (talk) 23:59, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Eager's publisher (recent reprints?) suggests that he paid homage in all seven Magic books but I don't find that at or near the beginning of Magic by the Lake (#3?). Certainly yes in the first two books Half Magic and Knight's Castle. This should be developed in our Eager biography and handled briefly here.
--P64 (talk) 19:42, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dedication of books[edit]

Apologies, I haven't the skill to edit and am afraid of disturbing an excellent article. However, I note that the article suggests that Five Children and It and its sequels are dedicated to Fabian Bland. Five Children and It is dedicated to John Bland and The Phoenix and the Carpet is dedicated to 'my dear godson Hubert Griffith and his sister Margaret'.95.44.49.17 (talk) 14:13, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Works[edit]

Maybe a separate bibliography is warranted. Maybe a treatment of her work for children that covers derivative works, not only screen or stage adaptations but print continuations, etc.

Why 3.1 and 3.2, Novels; 3.3 and 3.4, Story collections? Do Non-fiction and Poetry mix child and adult audiences as novels and stories do not? The distinction between audiences may be sharp enough in her day, in absence of the "young adult", to support a major subdivision between writing for children and writing for adults. At least consolidate fiction for children.

The following items partly support my today revisions (supplementing ISFDB, wh the article cites generally on some points) but partly point forward.

  • The Complete Book of the Bastable Family --(not in ISFDB) bookseller image of first ed. [3]

By the way, when should we list omnibus editions? or alternative titles? If early publication is crucial (not long posthumous, 1928 for the Bastable novels) then consider The Five Children 3-novel omnibus 1930 [4] (presumable source for ISFDB series name Five Children; maybe US only)

  • Salome and the Head (also published as The House With No Address) --list Salome first because ISFDB implies and LC Catalogue LCCN 09-6278 supports that originally, 1909, these were the UK and US titles
  • Shakespeare. Two listings that I didn't touch, separated by several that are unrelated:
1897 The Children's Shakespeare
1907 Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare (reprint of The Children's Shakespeare)

Is the latter a reprint of the former? What is its/their relation to The Children's Shakespeare 1900 US 76pp., "little children", only 12 titles? And Twenty Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare: A Home Study Course ISFDB also 1907 UK 317pp., title and publisher different from our book article, which does name twenty

  • The Book of Dragons, etc --LC Catalogue The Complete Book1972 UK 1973 US]

Many ISFDB pages for specific editions lack a table of contents and useful notes, unfortunately inclg the only page for The Seven Dragons and Other Stories [5]. But those LC Cat records are clear. The Seven Dragons and Other Stories 2006 US at ISFDB seems familiar to me, maybe what I read at a public library, maybe I'll check.

--P64 (talk) 20:30, 24 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Archive 1[edit]

This section may be revised within a week. --P64
I didn't (three years later). --P64

Contents of this page 2017-03-08; markup represents initial action today 

   1 Gutenberg
   2 Anti-Semitism
   3 Golden Dawn
   4 Bernard Shaw
   5 L.M. Montgomery
   6 LibriVox links
   7 Polyamory
   8 Links from Book Titles
   9 40 books for children????
   10 Writing for children
   11 Influence
   12 Dedication of books
   13 Works
   14 Assessment comment [2007] deleted as outdated, per instructions [2016]

I created Talk:E. Nesbit/Archive 1 by hand containing the four sections without 2011–2016 material, which are actually unchanged since 2007. I plan to archive more of this after re-reading the article, and some study. But I am done for today at least. --P64 (talk) 00:04, 10 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Almost three years later: I did not return to this work, nor has another contributor archived any more content. Not stated above: The contents of handmade Archive 1 are simply those four sections among #1-6 which are marked strikeout in the list above. . --P64 (talk) 02:48, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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