George Bernard Shaw joined the Fabian Society in August 1884. Now can you fancy me on a committee? I really surprise myself sometimes.' Edith Nesbit We meet once a fortnight - and then someone reads a paper and we all talk about it.

There are about thirty members - some of whom are working men. In April 1884 Edith wrote to her friend, Ada Breakell: 'I should like to try and tell you a little about the Fabian Society - it's aim is to improve the social system - or rather to spread its news as to the possible improvements of the social system. This included Eleanor Marx, Annie Besant, Olive Schreiner, Clementina Black, Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb. Soon afterwards other socialists in London began attending meetings. Nesbit and her husband became joint editors of the society's journal, Today. Bland chaired the first meeting and was elected treasurer. They were also joined by Havelock Ellis and Frank Podmore and in January 1884 they decided to call themselves the Fabian Society. With characteristic optimism, she forgave him, befriended Maggie, and set about supporting the household by writing sentimental poems and short stories, and by hand-painting greetings cards.'Įdith and Hubert were both socialists and on 24th October 1883 they decided with their Quaker friend Edward Pease, to form debating group. According to her biographer, Julia Briggs: 'Bland continued to spend half of each week with his widowed mother and her paid companion, Maggie Doran, who also had a son by him, though Edith did not realize this until later that summer when Bland fell ill with smallpox. In 1879 discovered she was pregnant and the baby was born two months after they were married on 22nd April, 1880. She later recalled: 'When I was a little child I used to pray fervently, tearfully, that when I should be grown up I might never forget what I thought and felt and suffered then'.Īt the age of nineteen, Edith Nesbit met Hubert Bland, a young writer with radical political opinions. Despite money problems, Edith's mother managed to educate her daughter in boarding schools in Brighton and France. Nesbit ran successful schools in Bradford, Manchester and London but died when Edith was only six years old. Edith Nesbit, the daughter of John Collis Nesbit, a schoolmaster, was born on 19th August, 1858.

In the dark edith nesbit