The Railway Children by E. Nesbit - First Edition Children's Books - Vintage Book, Children's Literature, Edith Nesbit

Charming edition of The Railway Children by E. Nesbit, celebrated author of the Bastable and Psammead Series.

Written by E. Nesbit. Illustrated by Shirley Hughes. 1994, first Henry Holt Little Classics edition, first printing. Henry Holt & Co.

CHAPTER 1: THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

"They were not railway children to begin with. I don't suppose they had ever thought about railways except as means of getting to Maskelyne and Cooke's, the Pantomime, Zoological Gardens, and Madame Tussaud's. They were just ordinary suburban children, and they lived with their Father and Mother in an ordinary red-brick-fronted villa, with coloured glass in the front door, a tiled passage that was called a hall, a bath-room with hot and cold water, electric bells, French windows, and a good deal of white paint, and "every modern convenience", as the house-agents say.

"There were three of them. Roberta was the eldest. Of course, Mothers never have favourites, but if their Mother had had a favourite, it might have been Roberta. Next came Peter, who wished to be an engineer when he grew up; and the youngest was Phyllis, who meant extremely well."

Front flap:

"Robert, Peter, and Phyllis were used to a comfortable life in town, with servants and outings and parents who never worried about anything. But one night, all that changes. Father is called away, and Mother and the children are packed off to a country, where, Mother says, they will be "rather poor" for a while.

"Country life at first seems to hold nothing but disappointments - until the children discover the little country railway nearby. The railways holds a host of treasures - the Old Gentleman, the Green Dragon, the runaway boy in the tunnel - and Roberta, Peter, and Phyllis find themselves caught up in an adventure that changes their lives...and sets all things to rights."

Edith Nesbit (1858 - 1924) was one of the great children's authors and influenced writers from C.S. Lewis to J.K. Rowling. Her work includes the Bastable Series (The Story of the Treasure Seekers, The Wouldbegoods, The New Treasure Seekers), The Psammead Series (Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet, and The Story of the Amulet), and stand-alone novels such as The Railway Children, The Enchanted Castle, and The Magic City. She was also an interesting character in her own right with a full and colorful life.

Nesbit placed children in their time and gave them real-world challenges, woven in with magic. As Gore Vidal wrote more than fifty years ago in the New York Review of Books, "...she was able to create a world of magic and inverted logic that was entirely her own."

Nybooks.com/articles/1964/12/03/the-writing-of-e-nesbit/

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Condition*: Fine/Fine. Applies to slipcase, dust jacket, and book.

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