Edith Nesbit is today best known for her works for children: her 1906 novel THE RAILWAY CHILDREN is a classic of the genre. Yet Nesbit had a much darker side, which revealed itself in her tales of terror and the supernatural. Most of these tales were written before the author established herself as a writer of children's stories, and were soon overshadowed, to be nearly forgotten - with one or two exceptions - for almost one hundred years. In 1988, Hugh Lamb edited IN THE DARK for the Equation Chillers series, and has now added a further seven stories for this expanded edition. In Nesbit's twilight world, the dead return from the grave, scientists pursue knowledge to the gates of death - and beyond; souls are bartered to the Devil in exchange for one last wish; a casual wager leads to madness; and a seemingly harmless maker of models exacts a terrible price for a wrong done years before. In his introduction, Hugh Lamb examines the colourful life of Edith Nesbit, painting a portrait of a woman whose unconventional life set her apart from her Victorian and Edwardian contemporaries in the ghost story genre. He also looks at some of the events and experiences which may have inspired Nesbit's supernatural fiction - events which, in the author's words, gave her 'nights and nights of anguish and horror, long years of bitterest fear and dread.'
Authors
Edith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland; 15 August 1858 – 4 May 1924) was an English author and poet; she published her books for children under the name of E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on over 60 books of fiction for children, several of which have been adapted for film and television. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, a socialist organisation later connected to the Labour Party. Edith Nesbit was born in Kennington, Surrey, the daughter of agricultural chemist and schoolmaster John Collis Nesbit. The death of her father when she was four and the continuing ill health of her sister meant that Nesbit had a transitory childhood, her family moving across Europe in search of healthy climates only to return to England for financial reasons. Nesbit therefore spent her childhood attaining an education from whatever sources were available—local grammars, the occasional boarding school but mainly through reading. At 17 her family finally settled in London and aged 19, Nesbit met Hubert Bland, a political activist and writer. They became lovers and when Nesbit found she was pregnant they became engaged, marrying in April 1880. After this scandalous (for Victorian society) beginning, the marriage would be an unconventional one. Initially, the couple lived separately—Nesbit with her family and Bland with his mother and her live-in companion Maggie Doran. Initially, Edith Nesbit books were novels meant for adults, including The Prophet's Mantle (1885) and The Marden Mystery (1896) about the early days of the socialist movement. Written under the pen name of her third child 'Fabian Bland', these books were not successful. Nesbit generated an income for the family by lecturing around the country on socialism and through her journalism (she was editor of the Fabian Society's journal, Today). In 1899 she had published The Adventures of the Treasure Seekers to great acclaim.
