I first discovered E. Nesbit when someone gave me a copy of The Railway Children for Christmas, and this still remains one of my favorites of all her works. I got a bit frustrated trying to find more at our public library, which had instituted a practice of shelving authors under their "real" names (hers was "Bland") rather than their pen-names. Fortunately I eventually found the "Nesbit" collection and devoured it greedily. Nesbit is probably best known for her fantasy tales, such as The Phoenix and the Carpet and The Psammead, but in my opinion, her non-fantasy stories (including The Story of the Treasure Seekers and other tales of the Bastable children) are far better. Nesbit serves as the inspiration for another wonderful children's writer of the 1960's, Edward Eager. In the late 1890's, The Strand stopped running children's stories based on international folk and fairy tales, and began running Nesbit stories almost exclusively, serializing most of her most famous fantasy novels. Find out more about Nesbit in her bio that appeared in The Strand in 1905 - and enjoy her delightful account of her school days, which appeared in The Girl's Own Paper.

Short Stories

The G.B. (An Oswald Bastable Story) (Windsor Magazine, 1898B)

The Nobleness of Oswald (Windsor Magazine, 1899B)

Jock and Saccharissa, by E. Nesbit and Edgar Jepson (English Illustrated Magazine, 1899A)

Kind Little Edmund, or The Caves and the Cockatrice (The Strand, 1899)

Whereyouwanttogoto, or The Bouncible Ball (The Strand, 1899)

The Blue Mountain (The Strand, 1900)

The Cockatoucan, or Great Aunt Willoughby (The Strand, 1900)

Melisande, or the Long-Haired Princess (The Strand, 1900)

Billy the King (The Strand, 1904B)

The Ring and the Lamp (The Strand, 1904B)

Muscadel (The Strand, 1905A)

The Cat-Hood of Maurice (The Strand, 1907B)

The Spy-Glass (The Strand, 1908B)

Kenneth and the Carp (The Strand, 1909B)

Accidental Magic (The Strand, 1910B)

Novels

The Seven Dragons (The Strand, 1899)

1 - The Book of Beasts

2 - The Purple Stranger

3 - The Deliverers of Their Country

4 - The Ice Dragon, or, Do As You Are Told

5 - The Island of the Nine Whirlpools

6 - The Dragon Tamers

7 - The Fiery Dragon, or, The Heart of Stone and the Heart of Gold

The Psammead, or, The Gifts (The Strand, 1902)

The Phoenix and the Carpet (The Strand, 1903-1904)

The Amulet (The Strand, 1905-1906)

The Enchanted Castle (The Strand, 1906-1907)

The House of Arden (The Strand, 1908)

Harding's Luck (The Strand, 1909)

The Magic City (The Strand, 1910)