Posted by Alan Hakim on August 28, 2008 at 18:47:50 user awhakim.
In Reply to: Re: E. Nesbit (was Arthur Ransome isn't loved?) posted by John on August 28, 2008 at 00:41:59:
E. Nesbit (not 'Edith'; cf J K Rowling) wrote in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, but her stories remain first-class, and even have been dramatised for children's TV, e.g. Five Children and It and The Phoenix and the Carpet. "It" is a psammead they find in a sandpit.
AR met her in 1904 at G K Chesterton's house, and in his Autobiography says "I met E. Nesbit and her husband, the rather florid Hubert Bland ..... a confident, blustering creature for whose works the Chestertons had exaggerated respect, and I had none, though I had a great deal for the works of his wife."
Her stories are also extremely funny. In the days I read them to my children at bedtime, we would all be helpless with laughter. AR's humour is much quieter.