Editing E. Nesbit (section)

===Legacy and influence===
Nesbit's biographer Julia Briggs names her "the first modern writer for children", who "helped to reverse the great tradition of children's literature inaugurated by [[Lewis Carroll]], [[George MacDonald]] and [[Kenneth Grahame]], in turning away from their [[secondary world]]s to the tough truths to be won from encounters with things-as-they-are, previously the province of adult novels".{{sfn|Briggs|1987|pp=xi, xx}} Briggs also credits Nesbit with inventing the children's [[adventure novel|adventure story]].{{sfn|Briggs|1987|p=xi}} [[Noël Coward]] was an admirer. In a letter to an early biographer, [[Noel Streatfeild]] wrote, "She had an economy of phrase and an unparalleled talent for evoking hot summer days in the English countryside."<ref>Barry Day, 2009. ''The Letters of Noël Coward''. New York: Vintage Books. March 2009. p. 74.</ref>

Among Nesbit's best-known books are ''[[The Story of the Treasure Seekers]]'' (1899) and ''The Wouldbegoods'' (1901), which tell of the Bastables, a middle-class family fallen on relatively hard times. ''[[The Railway Children]]'' is also popularised by a [[The Railway Children (1970 film)|1970 film version]]. [[Gore Vidal]] called the time-travel book, ''[[The Story of the Amulet]]'', one where "Nesbit's powers of invention are at their best."<ref>{{Cite journal |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1964/dec/03/the-writing-of-e-nesbit/ |title=The Writing of E. Nesbit |last=Vidal |first=Gore |date=3 December 1964 |journal=The New York Review of Books |access-date=28 October 2015 |volume= 3|issue=2}}</ref> Her children's writing also included plays and collections of [[Verse (poetry)|verse]].

Nesbit has been cited as the creator of modern [[children's fantasy]].{{sfn|Nikolajeva|2012|p=51}} Her innovations placed realistic contemporary children in real-world settings with magical objects (which would now be classed as [[contemporary fantasy]]) and adventures and sometimes travel to fantastic worlds.<ref>{{Cite journal |url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=67376310&site=ehost-live |title=Edith Nesbit: An Appreciation |last=Morrow |first= Clark Elder |date=October 2011 |journal=Vocabula Review |access-date=28 October 2015 |url-access=subscription |volume=13 |issue=10 |pages=18}}</ref> This influenced directly or indirectly many later writers, including [[P. L. Travers]] (of ''[[Mary Poppins (book series)|Mary Poppins]]''), [[Edward Eager]], [[Diana Wynne Jones]] and [[J. K. Rowling]]. [[C. S. Lewis]] too paid heed to her in the ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia|Narnia]]'' series<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Nicholson |first1=Mervyn |title=C. S. Lewis and the Scholarship of Imagination in E. Nesbit and Rider Haggard |journal=Renascence |date=Fall 1998 |volume=51 |issue=1 |pages=41–62 |url=https://www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/purchase?openform&fp=renascence&id=renascence_1998_0051_0001_0041_0062 |access-date=26 October 2015 |doi=10.5840/renascence19985114}}</ref> and mentions the Bastable children in ''[[The Magician's Nephew]]'', which, in its scenes of Jadis (a.k.a. the [[White Witch]]) in 19th century London, borrows from a similar sequences in Nesbit's ''[[The Story of the Amulet]]''.