Man-Size in Marble
Edith Nesbit
‘Man-Size in Marble’ is a horror tale by Edith Nesbit (1858–1924) who remains best-known for her classic children’s stories, most famously The Railway Children (1906). Nesbit’s enduring popularity as an author for the young has overshadowed the diversity of her literary achievement and her cultural legacy as a founder of the socialist Fabian Society and a member of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a secret society dedicated to the study of magic.
Although Nesbit lived in London for most of her adult life, she had a strong connection with East Kent. She was particularly drawn to the eerie landscape of Romney Marsh, a place distinctive enough to be counted (albeit tongue-in-cheek) as a continent in itself in Richard Harris Barham’s spoof book of folklore The Ingoldsby Legends (1837). Nesbit holidayed here for many years, before moving to St Mary’s-in-the-Marsh in 1917, where she was buried beneath an elm in the churchyard. ‘Man-Size in Marble’ was first published in Home Chimes in 1887 and is set in the village of Brenzett, five miles from St Mary’s-in-the-Marsh. At the centre of ‘Man-Size in Marble’ is a church, reminiscent of Brenzett’s extant St Eanswith’s. Churchyards are home to some of Britain’s oldest and most remarkable trees, yews in particular, which with their deep mythic roots as a sacred tree of the druids have strong mystical associations. It might be the church in ‘Man-Size in Marble’ that produces the story’s chilling drama, but the surrounding trees make the atmosphere. As the narrative unfolds, Nesbit focuses on the patriarchal hubris of her narrator in a way that makes ‘Man-Size in Marble’ an interesting companion piece to Mary Webb’s ecofeminist fable ‘The Name-Tree’ (the eighth story in this collection).