chapter 2 ‘Time is only a mode of thought, you know’: Ancient History, Imagination and Empire in E. Nesbit’s Literature for Children1 Joanna Paul There is a curtain, thin as gossamer, clear as glass, strong as iron, that hangs forever between the world of magic and the world that seems to us to be real. And when once people have found one of the little weak spots in that curtain which are marked by magic rings, and amulets and the like, almost anything may happen.2 Nesbit, The Enchanted Castle, 170 Edith Nesbit’s (1858–1924) reputation and lasting appeal as an author of chil- dren’s literature is, to a large extent, founded upon her inventive and vivid evo- cations of the ‘world of magic’ and its intrusions into the ‘real’ world. Publishing as E. Nesbit, she wrote dozens of books – novels, short stories, and poetry – for both children and adults, and while many concerned themselves firmly with reality, for example her well-known The Railway Children (1906), a consider- able number of her novels for children invited readers to follow the young pro- tagonists behind the curtain in order to explore new worlds, encounter strange creatures, and undergo marvellous transformations. Chief among these magi- cal novels was the trilogy that began with Five Children and It (1902), in which the siblings meet a ‘sand-fairy’ – the psammead – who can grant wishes; it is the trilogy’s third novel, The Story of the Amulet (1906; henceforth The Amulet), which is our main focus here.3 (Two further novels by E. Nesbit, The Enchanted Castle (1907) and The Magic City (1910), offer additional episodes in which unexpected and magical connections with the classical past are made, and we will consider them briefly as well.) In The Story of the Amulet, first published in serial form in The Strand Magazine, the four children (Robert, Anthea, Cyril, and Jane; their baby brother is away with their mother), accompanied by the 1 I am grateful to Lisa Maurice, Helen King, Richard Alston, Bruce Routledge, and the audi- ences at seminars at the University of Liverpool and Royal Holloway, University of London, for their helpful comments and suggestions as this research progressed. 2 Page numbers refer to the Wordsworth Classics edition of The Enchanted Castle (1998). 3 The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904) completes the trilogy. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���� | doi �0.��63/9789004�98606_004 <UN> ‘Time is only a mode of thought, you know’: E. Nesbit 31 psammead, travel through history in an attempt to find the lost half of an Egyptian amulet which, when reunited with the half that they possess, will grant them their hearts’ desire – the safe return of their parents.4 The ‘weak spots in the curtain’ take them, for the most part, deep into the ancient past, with episodes taking place in Egypt, Babylon, Tyre, Atlantis, and ancient Britain. In this chapter, we shall explore how Nesbit’s time-travelling device – quite original in children’s literature at that time – exploits the exotic and sometimes mystical appeal of antiquity, while also allowing important commentary on the present. In keeping with an authorial tone that is “infor- mal, direct, that of a sensible child coolly commenting on the world”,5 Nesbit’s magic does not merely entertain or divert, but rather enables her to address a range of pressing contemporary issues, from socialism to imperialism, even the very “nature of the state”;6 in this respect, her status as a founder member of the socialist Fabian Society is particularly significant. Considering why ancient history should be the best vehicle for conveying these reflections to children will allow us to explore not only what antiquity might have meant for Nesbit herself, but also for audiences whose reception of the classical past has, to date, received less attention. Children’s literature is a powerfully formative portal for many people’s access to the past, but its significance as a vehicle of classical reception is only just beginning to attract attention.7 Likewise, while studies of the reception of antiquity in the Victorian era often encompass a view of the ‘long’ 19th century, it is important to remain alert to the special characteristics of the Edwardian period, whose particular anxieties and instabilities had a marked effect on its use of antiquity.8 This chapter therefore aims to advance 4 While their mother is in Madeira, recuperating from an illness, their father, a journalist, is in Manchuria covering the Russo-Japanese War. 5 Alison Lurie, Don’t Tell the Grown-Ups: Subversive Children’s Literature (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1990) 103. 6 Julia Briggs, A Woman of Passion: The Life of E. Nesbit 1858–1924 (London: Penguin Books, 1987) 245. 7 Owen Hodkinson and Helen Lovatt, eds. Changing the Greeks and Romans: Metamorphosing Antiquity for Children (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming) is the first col- lection devoted to this topic. 8 The 19th century reception of antiquity is well represented in classical reception studies: see, for example, Simon Goldhill, Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity: Art, Opera, Fiction, and the Proclamation of Modernity (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2011); Richard Jenkyns, The Victorians and Ancient Greece (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980); Norman Vance, The Victorians and Ancient Rome (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997). Recent works which include a more focused consideration of the Edwardian era include Mark Bradley, ed., Classics and Imperialism in the British Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Sarah Butler, Britain <UN>.