Five Children and It

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In this classic, five children discover a grumpy, wish-granting creature who teaches them that magic, like life, can be as complicated as it is exciting. Illustrations.

Edith Nesbit (1858 – 1924), was a mischievous, tomboyish child who grew up to be an unconventional adult. She and her husband were founding members of the socialist Fabian Society and their home became a center for socialist and literary discussion. Their friends included some of the greatest writers and thinkers of the time, including George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells. Edith broke the mould demanded of women by English society at the time – she expressed her individuality through her self-presentation and her habit of speaking forcefully on almost any subject.

E. Nesbit – she always used the plain initial for her writing and was sometimes thought to be a man – started to write for children after years of successful writing for adult magazines. She was asked to write about her childhood but instead of facts chose to describe her happy girlhood in fiction. Thus were written the books that are still read today, and which have been firm bestsellers for decades. She was brilliant at combining real-life situations with elements of fantasy and humour. Films –such as The Railway Children - have kept her stories in the public eye, and her magical fantasies, including Five Children and It, continue to delight each new generation of children.

The five children find a cantankerous sand fairy or 'psammead' in a gravel pit. Every day 'It' will grant each of them a wish that lasts until sunset, often with disastrous consequences. Five Children and It was first published in 1902, and it has remained in print ever since. The Introduction to this edition examines Nesbit's life and her reading, showing how she was poised between the Victorian world and a new era in which children in literature were no longer mere projections of the adult viewpoint. Sandra Kemp examines how the narrative is structured around the acting out of literary fantasies, which always come down to earth. Nesbit combines wonderfully implausible events with the prosaic and familiar, and Kemp illuminates her exploration of the shifting relationship between imagination, literature, and life.