#E. Nesbit

[canon-in-too-deep]

Typesetuary Day #8

Continuing my typesetting streak this month is The Railway Children by E. Nesbit (sized for half letter/letter folio). This book pdf is available for FREE in my library!

I used to be a HUGE fan of...The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner. And when I first saw this book I thought it was the same thing 😅

Anyway, I like typesetting children's stories. They're a lot of fun. For the title page of this one, I almost made the train push out the word 'Children' in the title (kind of like I did for Twenty Thousand Leagues), but then worried that it might look too much like the train was about to run over Children 😆

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

[mariocki]

A Ghost Story for Christmas: Woman of Stone (BBC, 2024)

"It is their world, my poor lamb. Theirs to sully and despoil."

"Whose?"

"They're all alike, all of them. Them two knights, all them centuries ago. Your husband. Mine. Whether hewn from flesh or stone... they are all as one."

[bookcoversonly]

Title: The Enchanted Castle | Author: E. Nesbit | Publisher: Puffin (1994)

[sitaetagere]

There's this book bazaar happening in my town, and they sell English books almost half the price! It's called Big Bad Wolf, held annually, and I believe several SEA countries also have the same bazaar? Anyways, I bought six books, three of them are hardcovers novels 🥹

I bought these mainly because of their pretty covers, ngl, but I looked up their summaries and rating on Goodreads and their premises look promising. Hopefully the actual writing is reaching my expectation. I don't know when will I start them, though. I still have Bunny and Red, White, & Royal Blue on read currently---and I plan to read Babel after those. So. Yeah.

[a-ramblinrose]

JOMP Book Photo Challenge || July 19 || By The Sea:  Wet Magic by E. Nesbit

[titles-for-tangents]

I had to fish this out to make sure it was the right one, and son of a gun:

My copy matches the one in the notes of this post.

Once upon a time, this tumblerite was gifted this printout by her art teacher, and she kept it always. It’s a short story called The Dragon Tamers by Edith Nesbit from The Book of Dragons, a 1995 collection selected and illustrated by Michael Hague (not to be confused with Nesbit’s own collection of the same name, as I found out).

Once I read a story as a child about if one feeds a cat too much blood & bones they gradually turn into a dragon, and if one feeds a dragon too much bread & milk they gradually turn into a cat, retaining only their dragon eyes and claws. So here's a Bosun Dragon.

[willstafford]

Well Trained

THE RAILWAY CHILDREN Bear Pit Theatre, Stratford upon Avon, Saturday 7th December 2024 Mike Kenny’s spirited adaptation of E. Nesbit’s classic novel for children shares the narration across the cast, with the bulk of it going to the titular three who recount for us the experiences that led to them being known as the Railway Children.  This helps with exposition: characters announced themselves…

[thegothiclibrary]

Review of The House of Silence—E. Nesbit's Ghost Stories

I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that I love a good ghost story. Lately, I have especially been enjoying discovering the works of many of the talented female authors who flourished during the golden age of ghost stories but have since gone largely unrecognized. Which is why I was devastated to learn that the small publisher who introduced me to many of these authors will be shutting their doors:…

[readingbooksinisrael]

Book Review: New Treasure Seeker by E. Nesbit

I didn't like this as much as the first. The Bastables are older so you think Oswald would have learned from his adventures but Dora is the only one who seems to have. And then Dick's personality has vanished (I think he gets one line in the whole book?) and they're a lot more bourgeoise than they were.

However, despite not having learned from their adventures, for the most part, their adventures were quite fun, especially when they get mixed up in adult affairs, like smuggling. I also really enjoyed H.O. is this one, more so than the first two. Alice was great as always.

The n-word was mentioned a few times.

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

[bookcoversonly]

Title: The Story of the Treasure Seekers | Author: E. Nesbit | Publisher: Puffin (1994)

[fictionadventurer]

I keep thinking about Lewis' review of The Hobbit, because he claimed that the main thing contemporary reviewers compared it to was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Was fantasy in that poor of a state that Alice was the closest thing they could think of? Comparing that chaotic fever dream to Tolkien's intricately crafted world? Lewis does specify that the comparison is that both books are by an "Oxford professor at play", but they're otherwise so different that putting the two in the same category baffles me.

[fidgetyhands]

I wonder if this is the logic behind the dragon that is de-dragoned in E. Nesbit's The Book of Dragons, specifically in the story The Dragon Tamers.

The kids convince a dragon to like eating bread-and-milk, and eventually it eats so much bread-and-milk that it dwindles into a cat that hands over its (previously hoarded?) gold to the townsfolk.

also, while we are at it

"my dragon flies because it's magic xdxddxdxd"

fine, acceptable, it's magic. Okay. Even as a biologist I'm willing to give it a pass. God knows that in my space opera project I've went "mumble mumble convergent evolution mumble" for some of my earth-like aliens. The shape is kinda believeable and original, you chose some cool features, it's fine, no need for the whole phylogenetic tree.

Now, why is it magic? what does it mean it is magic?

Were dragons created by a god? are they manifestations of nature? why are dragons, especifically, magic and not say, crocodiles?

Is it a species with physical presence and a life cycle, or are they magical beings? how many dragons are there, how important they are to your world? are they worshipped, feared, venerated, just some kind of weird megafauna but otherwise unremarkable? what do they eat, how much?

If it's a sentient dragon from a physical species, as most modern fiction seems to assume (you'd be surprised that in most medieval works they were mostly mindless beasts or demons, dragons as noble creatures are very much a modern invention in the West) how do they think? How do they act differently from smaller, less powerful, shorter lived species? Do they have their own gods, their own rituals, their own beliefs? Are they lonely beings or are they able, or interested, to form part of society, or even have their own societies?

What's the cultural role of a dragon in the world you're making? What do your characters think when they hear the word 'dragon'? What do they know about dragons, when your hero goes and finds one, what are their conceptions of it? Can they fight it? How? Why?

Notice that most of my questions aren't stupid UNREALISTIC! CINEMASINS DING!, but things that actually affect your characters, setting and plot. Don't like to write a ethnographical paper about dragons? do it anyways or I'll shoot you, don't, but if you're introducing an element to your story, even if you're using stock fantasy elements like dragons, you will benefit A LOT from thinking how they fit into your story.

And even in settings were "it's magic" is acceptable as an answer, or more *surreal* or comedic stories where things happen without too much logic, a dragon is still a symbol. What does your dragon mean in your story? "oh, a magical dragon". Fine. Why is there a dragon on your story? Don't have a whole herpetology paper, because this is just a romance? Okay, can you spare me a couple lines to tell me what does a dragon mean in your world? That too, is yuri worldbuilding.

[canon-in-too-deep]

Free Book of Dragons Typeset

This next typeset is for The Book of Dragons by E. Nesbit, and was suggested to me by @goodnightmoonvale. I hadn't heard of the book before, but I love dragons, and getting to use all my fancy dragon drop caps was an opportunity I couldn't pass up! I tried to make the title page reminiscent of those old YA fantasy novels I'd always borrow at the library, but then I went a little over the top with the chapter title pages. I included all the incredible illustrations of the book, but please note that the pdf is sized for half letter (letter folio), and the scan quality I found of the illustrations was pretty poor, so the illustrations unfortunately had to be shrunk down on the pages for some weird looking margins. I made them as large as I could, and left them on full pages for now, in case I can find better quality images in the future and just drop them in. There were also some formatting issues with the text when I imported it, so if anyone finds any errors, feel free to let me know! Anyway, this typeset is FREE and is available here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1S2wl_PuxCupofnDpqGuk7VjMHYFMWC6g?usp=sharing

Please consider leaving a like or reblog if these typesets are helpful, and you can follow this blog for future free files! If you use any of my typesets, feel free to tag me! And let me know if you have any suggestions for future public domain works I should do.

[afaroffsong]

I read a book in two days which is a record for me, and I have like 20 more books stacked on my bed that I want to read before I have to go back to work. But I know I’ll only manage 2 or 3.