The Enchanted Castle

E Nesbit was the inventor of the modern children’s adventure story. Less well known than Five Children and It or The Railway Children, this to my mind is her most imaginative book – Julia Donaldson * Guardian *E. Nesbit’s book The Enchanted Castle included a terrifying scene in which the children put on a play and dress up some brooms and brushes in hats and coats as an audience. These creatures, which they call the Ugly-Wugglies, come to life clapping before chasing the children. I was chilled - I still find it chilling today – Antonia Fraser * Daily Telegraph *Despite [Nesbit’s] fantastic plots, which generally hinge on some highly imaginative form of magic - her books were among the earliest to portray kids from their own point of view. Nesbit’s best-known characters, the independent-minded Bastable children, jockey fiercely for position among themselves, but they always unite in the face of adult intervention * Washington Post *

Edith Nesbit was born in 1858. Her father died when she was only three and so her family moved all over England. Poverty was something she had known first hand, both as a child and as a young married woman with small children. Like the Railway Childrens’ Mother, she was forced to try and sell her stories and poems to editors. Her first children’s book, The Treasure Seekers, was published in 1899. She also wrote Five Children and It but her most famous story is The Railway Children which was first published in 1905 and it hasn’t been out of print since. Edith Nesbit was a lady ahead of her time - she cut her hair short, which was considered a very bold move in Victorian times, and she was a founding member of a group that worked towards improvements in politics and society called The Fabian Society. She died in 1924.