Fourth surviving child of Sarah (Alderton) and John Nesbit, head of an agricultural college in Kennington, who died when she was four. In 1880 married Hubert Bland, a small businessman (first child born two months later), who was both unfaithful and unsuccessful, so that she had to turn to writing – very successfully. Produced much children’s fiction, notably The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899), The Wouldbegoods (1901), and The Railway Children (1906). Socialist, a member of the Fabian society, loved George Bernard Shaw, unavailingly (as usual). Bland died in 1914, and in 1917 she married Thomas Tucker, a retired marine engineer.
Lays and Legends (London, 1886); Leaves of Life (London, 1888); A Pomander of Verse (London, 1895); Julia Briggs, A Woman of Passion: The Life of Edith Nesbit (London: Hutchinson, 1987).