"The Lark is a novel for grown-up children. It has many of the ingredients of E. Nesbit's children's fiction, starting with a magic spell, and moving on to secret doors, missing keys, dressing up, trespassing in shut-up houses, imprisonment, good-hearted burglars, small but dramatic injuries, mistaken identities, extraordinary coincidences, boats, trains, pet rabbits, cocoa, and small squabbles about nothing in particular. And it is bursting with the same energy, humour and sense of discovery that made Nesbit one of the best-selling children's authors of the early twentieth century. As in The Wouldbegoods, The House of Arden, Five Children and It, and The Railway Children, she revels in the power of fiction to make things turn out all right."
Charlotte Moore, from her introduction to E. Nesbit's The Lark, my current reading.
It sounds wonderful. Thank you!
Posted by: Nan | 17 February 2017 at 05:02 PM
You're welcome, Nan, and yes, it sounds very promising.
Posted by: Cornflower | 17 February 2017 at 05:10 PM
Had an interesting view of Nesbit's writing for children when I re-read many of the books I had known to my son. We both liked The Railway Children (who wouldn't) and The Phoenix & the Carpet (set in a part of London near where we live I noted). However we couldn't stand Five Children and It for more than a couple of stories. I have never read the other ones mentioned in your post.
Posted by: Dark Puss | 18 February 2017 at 05:36 PM
Interesting!
Posted by: Cornflower | 18 February 2017 at 07:10 PM
Ooh, that looks good. I am much taken with books for adults by those who are usually children's writers. There is something about the clarity and precision of the prose of good children's writers that translates into something as you say, magical when they write for adults. Saplings by Noel Streatfeild is one of my favourite books for example.
Posted by: Juxtabook | 21 February 2017 at 02:47 PM