Books with author 1858-1924 Nesbit

CHAPTER I ARDEN'S LORD IT had been a great house once, with farms and fields, money and jewels–with tenants and squires and men-at-arms. The head of the house had ridden out three days' journey to meet King Henry at the boundary of his estate, and the King had ridden back with him to lie in the tall State bed in the castle guest-chamber. The heir of the house had led his following against Cromwell; younger sons of the house had fought in foreign lands, to the honour of England and the gilding and regilding with the perishable gold of glory of the old Arden name. There had been Ardens in Saxon times, and there were Ardens still–but few and impoverished. The lands were gone, and the squires and men-at-arms; the castle itself was roofless, and its unglazed windows stared blankly across the fields of strangers, that stretched right up to the foot of its grey, weather-worn walls. And of the male Ardens there were now known two only–an old man and a child. The old man was Lord Arden, the head of the house, and he lived lonely in a little house built of the fallen stones that Time and Cromwell's round-shot had cast from the castle walls. The child was Edred Arden, and he lived in a house in a clean, wind-swept town on a cliff. It was a bright-faced house with bow-windows and a green balcony that looked out over the sparkling sea. It had three neat white steps and a brass knocker, pale and smooth with constant rubbing. It was a pretty house, and it would have been a pleasant house but for one thing–the lodgers. For I cannot conceal from you any longer that Edred Arden lived with his aunt, and that his aunt let lodgings. Letting lodgings is one of the most unpleasant of all possible ways of earning your living, and I advise you to try every other honest way of earning your living before you take to that.

A children's story created by British writer E. Nesbit. It was first released as a book in 1902, further expanded from a series of stories appeared in the Strand Magazine in 1900 with the original title The Psammead, or the Gifts. It is the first of a trilogy that covers The Phoenix and the Carpet in 1904 and The Story of the Amulet in 1906. The children’s book has been a sensational hit since its first release. The story tells of a group of children going from London to the countryside of Kent. The five children are Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane, and Lamb, their baby brother. They are playing in a sand quarry when they found a cranky, nasty, and seldom wicked Psammead or sand fairy, who can fulfill any wishes. He convinces the children to take one wish every day for all of them, with a warning that the wishes will be made into stone at sunset. This, outwardly, was once a rule in the Stone Age, when all the young ones wanted was food and the bones of those food become fossils. The five children’s first wish is to be as beautiful as the day time. As a rule, the wish ceases at sunset, making the Psammead to see that most wishes are whimsical to be turned into stone. All of the wishes go comically wrong. As the children wish to be beautiful, the servants hardly knew them and were left out of their own house. Their wishes created them troubles like none of them were gratifying. Edith Nesbit was an English writer and poet. She wrote her children’s books with the name of E. Nesbit. She authored or collaborated on over 60 children’s books. She was also a political activist and a co-founder of the Fabian Society, a socialist organisation later associated to the Labour Party.