The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit: Author of The Railway Child

Edith Nesbit is considered the inventor of the children’s adventure story and her brilliant children’s books influenced bestselling authors including C.S. Lewis, P. L. Travers, J.K. Rowling, and Jacqueline Wilson, to name but a few.

But who was the person behind the best loved classics The Railway Children and Five Children and It? Her once-happy childhood was eclipsed by the chronic illness and early death of her sister.

In adulthood, she found herself at the centre of a love triangle between her husband and her close friend. She raised their children as her own. Yet despite these troubling circumstances Nesbit was playful, contradictory and creative.