excellent collection of whimsical and humorous short fairytales centered round dragons, Highly enjoyable. Short stories about dragons not sure I would have liked this even as a child, Shes written many other, much more interesting and engaging books, Relates what happens to the very last dragon in Cornwall when the local princess and her prince attempt, in a departure from tradition, to parley with the dragon rather than fight him.
New fullcolor illustrations by Peter Firmin, I purchased this book under the assumption it was, at the earliest, a midcentury book, Clearly, I had no idea who E, Nesbit was. Before I reached the first page of text, I fell in love with the illustrations and doubledback to find specifics, Erik Blegvad illustrated this collection in thes, but the stories They were originally published in, Damn.
I had heard that E, Nesbit's prose style was “witty and intelligent, ” I agree with this assessment, Take my favorite backandforth from the first story The Last of the Dragons,
I will kill the dragon,” said the Prince firmly, “or perish in the attempt, ”
“Its no use your perishing,” said the Princess,
“Its the least I can do,” said the Prince,
“What Im afraid of is that itll be the most you
can do,” said the Princess,
Gold. Love it.
But after this first and best story, I start to disagree with most reviewers out there who say that E.
Nesbit didnt write for children,
Yes, there is witty storytelling that most children wont appreciate,
And yes, she often takes on a sensible British tone appropriate for a schoolmaster,
But the stories themselves could never, imho, be broadly enjoyed by adults on account of their often tedious simplicity, The dragons are, most of the time, onedimensionally evil, That is all.
The specifics vary, Like, maybe in this story, the protagonist defeats the dragon with the help of a cockatrice, In another, perhaps its a pigherder who happens to relay the right information, Maybe in this story, instead of the dragon changing size, it loses its wings, or grows tame, or both! But theres nothing witty about the stories themselves.
Theres an obvious ending, and the path there meanders a bit in a childlike way, but nothing feels particularly clever or well thought out.
Nesbit offsets this in a singular way: she makes the specifics as goofy as she can,
Animals are the opposite size of what they are here: mice so immense the world can only accommodate one, and elephants the size of cats.
Instead of dogs, one character hunts with a pack of hippopotamuses, Theres a world where baked goods grow on trees but people must make their own vegetables and fruit, You get the picture. Just random, offthewall stuff.
I dont find things that are absurd for no other reason than theyre not realistic funnynor do most adults I know.
But you know who does Children,
Frankly, after the first legitimately delightful story, I read The Last of the Dragons and Some Others with very mild interest.
But even so, I could imagine reading those same words to a fiveyearold and them shrieking with delight, I could even imagine the inflection on my voice as Id describe the dormouse big as a mountain with a snore that shook the waters or the snarling pack of hippopotamuses on a hunt.
I cant fault E, Nesbit for this pairing of styles, She wrote childrens stories, and I have no reason to believe that young children wouldnt like them,
One thing I canand willfault her for, however, is lying,
Clouds are, of course, made up of meringue, with stormclouds flavored with licorice or treacle or even cinnamon, Adults will say theyre made of evaporated water, of course, but adults are silly and never properly value sweets, so you cant trust their opinion.
I wrote the above, but it could fit into one of her stories, She makes up facts like this regularly, then tells the reader that everyone will claim that shes lying, but she isnt, The rest of the world is lying, I'll welcome a book encouraging kids to think for themselves any day of the week, I can't get into a story that tells kids to believe their silly lies despite what anyone else says, Maybe I'm being overly sensitive, but the world has too many people happy to accept "alternate facts, "
Alas, but were that the biggest thing I didnt like from this book,
The Fiery Dragon begins as such:
The little white Princess always woke in her little white bed when the starlings began to chatter in the pearlgrey morning.
As soon as the woods were awake, she used to run up the twisting turretstairs with her little bare feet, and stand on the top of the tower in her white bedgown, and kiss her hands to the sun and say “Good morning pretty world!”
If youre instantly on edge due to the use of the word “white” in that paragraph your radar is on point.
Several pages later, we meet the Princesss cousin:
“He was a false prince, with a skin like leather, and hair like hearthbrushes, and a heart like a stone.
”
So weve got an evil prince with leatherlike skin, hearthbrushlike hair, who is awful in every single way, who also hunts with a pack of hippos rather than dogs.
Yeah. Thats racist AF.
A quick google of “E, Nesbit racism” corroborates the undeniable racism of that story and highlights the racism and antisemitism that appears to be fairly common across her works.
I guess the one nice thing about the older childrens books like this is that their racism is somehow overt, limited, and easily delineated.
They could be an excellent tool for beginning those more difficult conversations about racism with children,
I read old fantasy and scifi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems, See more at sitelinkforfemfan. com This is a lovely book of short stories about dragons, As expected from this author they are inventive, humouress and told with plenty of vocabulary stretching words, The illustrations by Erik Blegvad are beautiful, A must read for dragon lovers, These stories were charming. Loved this collection as a kid, and read it to my son, You can find the whole thing for free online here:
sitelink gutenberg. org/files/ I would seriously question just how much these fairy tales are written for children, Told in the most sensible British tone you can imagine, putting children from turn of the century England into fantastic situation E.
Nesbit charms and even sometimes teaches a lesson or two in these great little stories that feature dragons,
What I loved most was how the dragons were worked into the time period during which the story was written.
Yes, there was the occasional more 'classic' fairy tale but the the more modern ones were truly fun to read, for the glimpse of a life not really all that long ago, and for how the children and dragons interacted in these modern tales.
Definitely worth tracking down! Witty, engaging, original, Its hard to believe these tales were not written the other day they read so easily and provide quite as much fun and entertainment today as they must have done when they were first published.
Particularly enjoyable were those that twisted the conventional antagonism of the dragons, but even those which played with that convention broke others.
Last of the Dragons boasts wonderful feminist strength, something Ive come to expect more in modern literature,
Bravo, Nesbit! sitelink Edith Nesbit married name Edith BlandAugustMaywas an English author and poet she published her books for children under the name of E.
Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on overbooks 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 r sitelink Edith Nesbit married name Edith BlandAugustMaywas an English author and poet she published her books for children under the name of E.
Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on overbooks 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 availablelocal grammars, the occasional boarding school but mainly through reading.
Ather family finally settled in London and aged, 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, After this scandalous for Victorian society beginning, the marriage would be an unconventional one, Initially, the couple lived separatelyNesbit 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 Mantleand The Marden Mysteryabout 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.
Inshe had published The Adventures of the Treasure Seekers to great acclaim, sitelink.