Edith Nesbit

Biography

Edith Nesbit was born August 15, 1858, and died May 4, 1924. She was a writer, poet, and political activist and is now best known for her children’s books, in particular 1899’s The Story of the Treasure Seekers, 1901’s The Wouldbegoods, and 1906’s The Railway Children.

Nesbit’s father, an agricultural chemist, died before her fourth birthday, and her sister, Mary Nesbit, was frequently ill; as a result, Nesbit’s family traveled often, leaving their native England for various regions of Europe, particularly France. Following her sister’s eventual death from tuberculosis, Nesbit and her mother moved back to England, where she met and wed Hubert Bland, a bank employee with whom she shared a troubled marriage and raised several children.

Nesbit was not yet twenty years old when her poem “Under the Trees” was published in March 1878, and by the end of her life, she had published approximately forty children’s books, as well as many additional works produced in collaboration with other writers. While children’s fiction was undeniably the primary focus of Nesbit’s career, several of her stories aimed at adults dabbled in the strange and supernatural, touching upon topics such as doomed unions, troubled family relations, and terrible twists of fate.

Below is a small collection of Nesbit’s noteworthy horror fiction. Read at your own discretion—and please, enjoy.

Short Stories by Edith Nesbit

Uncle Abraham’s Romance (1891)
The Ebony Frame (1891)
John Charrington’s Wedding (1893)
The Mystery of the Semi-Detached (1893)
From the Dead (1893)
Man-Size in Marble (1893)
The Mass for the Dead (1893)