Edith Nesbit, one of the most prolific writers of fantasy both for children and adults, is best known for two series of children's stories, the Bastable books and her "magic" series, which were praised in her own time by Rudyard Kipling and H.G. Wells. She was a pioneer in the use of time travel in children's fantasies, and her work influenced the writings of C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Edward Eager. Her stories distinguish themselves from many of the children's fantasies produced in the nineteenth century in their focus on children as members of families, in contrast to the solitary adventures of Lewis Carroll's Alice or the various heroines and heroes of George MacDonald's stories. Her stories are the literary heirs of the tradition of believable, that is, mischievous, child protagonists begun by Catherine Sinclair in Holiday House(1839) and continued in Nesbit's own time by the...