Streatfeild on Nesbit

[bronze_ribbons]

Noel Streatfeild's introduction to E(dith) Nesbit's Long Ago When I Was Young is fascinating ... especially in light of various discussions about J.K. Rowling's priorities and attitudes (Nesbit is one of Rowling's favorite writers). For instance:

In The Railway Children there is an amusing example of E. Nesbit's magnificent disregard of facts that she wished to ignore, which is a feature of her books. In the chapter where the children saved the train from being wrecked by a landslide, they stopped the train by waving flags made of the girls' red flannel petticoats. E. Nesbit knew perfectly well that at the date when she wrote the book girls not only did not wear red flannel petticoats but had never even seen one. But when she was a little girl of the age described in these reminiscences she had worn a red flannel petticoat, so since she needed red flannel to make flags she disregarded the fashion and took her children back about thirty years, and if any of her readers thought it odd what did she care, whose creation were the children any way?