Other editions of book The Wouldbegoods

Edith Nesbit, English author and poet whose children's works were published under the androgynous name of E. Nesbit. Among Nesbit's best-known books are The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1898), The Wouldbegoods (1899) and The Railway Children (1906). The Wouldbegoods (1899) recounts stories about the Bastables, a fictional middle-class family that has fallen on relatively hard times. This is the second story in The Bastables Series following The Story of the Treasure Seekers.

In this second novel of the Bastables, the family fortune has been restored, but the children can't seem to help getting into adventures and trouble. Sent away to the country after a particularly unruly episode, the well-meaning but wayward Bastable children solemnly vow to reform their behaviour. But their grand schemes for great and virtuous deeds lead to just as much mayhem as their ordinary games, and sometimes more.

Edith Nesbit was an English author and poet; she published her books for children under the name of E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on more than 60 books of children's literature. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, a socialist organisation later affiliated to the Labour Party. Among Nesbit's best-known books are The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1898) and The Wouldbegoods (1899), which both recount stories about the Bastables, a middle-class family that has fallen on (relatively) hard times. The Railway Children is also known from its adaptation into a 1970 film version. Gore Vidal called the time-travel book, The Story of the Amulet one in which "Nesbit's powers of invention are at their best." Her children's writing also included numerous plays and collections of verse.

These were the dreadful words of our Indian uncle. They made us feel very young and angry; and yet we could not be comforted by calling him names to ourselves, as you do when nasty grown-ups say nasty things, because he is not nasty, but quite the exact opposite when not irritated. And we could not think it ungentlemanly of him to say we were like jam, because, as Alice says, jam is very nice indeed—only not on furniture and improper places like that. My father said, 'Perhaps they had better go to boarding-school.' And that was awful, because we know Father disapproves of boarding-schools. And he looked at us and said, 'I am ashamed of them, sir!'

We are the Bastables—Oswald, Dora, Dicky, Alice, Noel, and H. O. If you want to know why we call our youngest brother H. O. you can jolly well read The Treasure Seekers and find out. We were the Treasure Seekers, and we sought it high and low, and quite regularly, because we particularly wanted to find it. And at last we did not find it, but we were found by a good, kind Indian uncle, who helped Father with his business, so that Father was able to take us all to live in a jolly big red house on Blackheath, instead of in the Lewisham Road, where we lived when we were only poor but honest Treasure Seekers. When we were poor but honest we always used to think that if only Father had plenty of business, and we did not have to go short of pocket money and wear shabby clothes (I don't mind this myself, but the girls do), we should be happy and very, very good.