(no subject)

[skygiants]

After reading The Magic City and remembering how much I love E. Nesbit, I had a sudden strong and irresistible urge to find out ALL ABOUT her, and promptly went to the library to pick up the first biography I could find, which happened to be Julia Briggs' A Woman of Passion: The Life of E. Nesbit 1858-1928 (the title of which I cannot help but hate, but this is neither here nor there.) The biography itself was pretty comprehensive, although the author had a definite tendency to overidentify Nesbit's works with her life - by which I mean, there were obvious and self-confessed places where she drew upon her life in her fiction, but I still think Briggs often took it a step too far. However, the book totally fulfilled my guilty cravings for hilarious dead-author gossip. It turns out that E. Nesbit's life was full of RIDICULOUS drama: adultery! pregnancy out of wedlock! accusations of incest! salty sea captains! I have learned from it some useful lessons of life, which I will now relate:

1. If you are dying of tuberculosis, DO NOT forget to tell your tragic blind poet boyfriend. He will be very distraught when he accidentally stumbles across your cold dead corpse.

2. If you are a Victorian lady, DO NOT allow yourself to get pregnant by anyone called Hubert Bland. For one thing, he probably has another fiancee living at his mother's; for another, when he finally marries you, seven months into the pregnancy, you will be stuck with the name of 'Mrs. Bland' forever (making it no surprise that you choose to use your maiden name Nesbit in your writings).

3. DO NOT stalk George Bernard Shaw after he decides your affair is over. He will just get satirical about it.

4. If your best friend becomes mysteriously pregnant after you have started inviting her to hang out with you and your husband, DO NOT invite her to live with you on a permanent basis and offer to adopt her baby. It will inevitably become very awkward when it turns out the baby is your husband's and create much psychological trauma for the whole family, especially the baby girl who grows up wondering why mummy didn't love her like the others.

5. DO NOT fall in love with one of your aunt's boytoys (of which E. Nesbit apparently had many). This is another situation that will inevitably become awkward, especially once you are married to him and must attend family reunions.

6. If you have been caught red-handed trying to seduce/elope with one of the Junior Blands, and the famous Mr. Bland Sr., your rival for control of your Socialist party, has proceeded to beat you up publicly on a major railway line, throwing a tantrum and claiming that you were just trying to rescue her because you thought Mr. Bland Sr. was a creep who had incestuous designs on her will probably not get you very far. EVEN IF you are H. G. Wells.

7. Salty sea captains make much better husbands than sex-addict socialists, and also will allow you to continue to look cool, Bohemian, sexy, and liberal-minded about class differences, even when you are well into your sixties.

8. DO NOT publish all your books before Disney starts making its push about copyright laws, because then Michael Moorcock can take your cheerful Edwardian boy-hero Oswald Bastable and write angsty novels about him D: D: D:.

Comments

[shati.livejournal.com]

O_O

That's all I got.

[skygiants]

I think what I have discovered here is that there is NO SANITY ANYWHERE. Next I will find out Frances Hodgson Burnett
was a tigerlady in love with Spike!

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

I can't speak to that one, but I can tell you that Lucy Maud Montgomery's model for Anne of Green Gables was Evelyn Nesbit, not the novelist but the Girl on the Swing!

About E(dith) Nesbit -- hilarious.

[skygiants]

That always makes me go WTF.

Apparently Edith and Evelyn had more in common than one might think . . . although admittedly with the Blands it never came to murder. *giggling*

[schiarire.livejournal.com]

I wish to marry a salty sea captain ...

[skygiants]

As who does not at heart! Added benefit: they come with boat included.

[schiarire.livejournal.com]

*______*

BOAT!

[adiva_calandia]

. . . I think I have to show this to my mom. *giggling hysterically*

(I'm named after a Nesbit character. My family likes her. But I had no idea she had such a fascinating life!)

[skygiants]

*cracks up* I am strangely unnerved by the idea of anyone's mom reading my LJ. Well, aside from the people on my flist who are actually moms, but that is different!

(*grins* Five Children and It, right? Yes, me neither before reading this - I loved her books ridiculously growing up, and still do really, but she does pull this sage and sort of moralistic perspective in them that is ENTIRELY OPPOSITE to what her real life was like. Although she did excuse all her flings and temper tantrums and hijinks by claiming that she couldn't write for children without being childlike!)

[winding_path]

I feel that these are rules to live by that possibly need to be embroidered into a sampler . . .

[skygiants]

If only E. Nesbit had had them thus embroidered, her life might have been a far easier one! Or at least one not eternally encumbered with the name of Bland.

(It probably would not have helped her dead sister's tragic blind poet boyfriend, though, as he could not see to read them.)

[winding_path]

Perhaps Braille. In French knots . . .

*hugs*

[skygiants]

Oh you are clever! I will put you in charge of steering all tragic blind poets away from drama henceforth. *decrees it so*

*and hugsback!*

[mercuriazs.livejournal.com]

Words for us all to live by! :DDDD

[skygiants]

I aim to make my journal a useful and instructive place! *prim and serene*

[dramawench.livejournal.com]

*nods solemnly*
I will take all of this advice and write it on my heart.

[skygiants]

And all shall admire your wisdom henceforth! *equally solemn*

[bravecows.livejournal.com]

HAHAHA she DIDN'T. NO. YES. *inarticulate flailing*

I love Edith Nesbit so so much, and I am so amused because one of my Nesbit books had this preface that talked a bit about her life and said some stuff about her being unconventional, but there was none of this about accusations of incest! Clearly I need to read this. *carefully wish-lists*

[skygiants]

I KNOW RIGHT?

Apparently there was an early biography that carefully skimmed over all of this right after she died, many years later biographer #2 got into biographer #1's old material and letters and things and discovered the GOLD MINE of melodrama. To the great service of the universe!

[genarti]

Conclusion: I can never become a classic children's author, because my life is much too boring! Goodness gracious.

Or else I should manufacture DRAMA in a diary somewhere... *ponders* Sadly, the lack of any supporting evidence for said drama might scuttle that one.

[skygiants]

Nonsense! In a hundred years no one will be able to dig up any supporting evidence anyways. :D And even if does get debunked, the fact that you had manufactured DRAMA in a diary would probably be enough to add to the DRAMA category anyways . . . so I say, go for it!