E. Nesbit's Psammead Trilogy: A Children's Classic at 100 (review)

Published to celebrate the centenary of the publication of the last book in Nesbit's Psammead Trilogy (The Story of the Amulet), this collection, edited by Raymond E. Jones, is a comprehensive and varied study of the books within the trilogy, as well as Nesbit's work in general. As Jones explains in the introduction, "The essays collected in this volume celebrate the centenary of the Psammead Trilogy . . . Written by both established and new scholars in England, Canada, and the United States, these essays employ differing critical strategies and place Nesbit in various contexts to assess her achievement" (xix). The collection includes essays that explore both broad themes within the trilogy (for example: "Ideologies of Gender in the Psammead Trilogy, Writing Empire in E. Nesbit's Psammead Books, The Story of the Amulet and the Socialist Utopia"), more specific textual discussions ("Communicating Humor in E. Nesbit's Fantasy Trilogy, The Amulet and Other Stories of Time"), and contextual essays ("Charles Dickens and E. Nesbit's Literary Borrowings, Millar's Expansions and Subversions of the Psammead Trilogy"). With such a wide range of material, the collection is at once a useful source for serious engagement with the trilogy, as well as an interesting and comprehensive introduction to the trilogy for those who are new to it.

Overall, the balance of the collection is good, moving from essays that explore the texts in reference to theory, to those that examine the texts themselves and the themes within them more closely to those that place the texts into a wider context. This makes for engaging and easy reading: readers choosing to read the book from cover to cover, are drawn deeper and deeper into an exploration of the trilogy. On the other hand, it is also easy for readers who have specific research requirements in mind to choose the essays most relevant to their needs.

One great strength is the variety of viewpoints presented within the collection. Take the question of ideology, for instance, which is of singular importance when exploring the trilogy. This collection contains no fewer than four essays that explore this area in four very different ways. Of especial interest is Claudia Nelson's contribution, which discusses the defining and re-defining of gender roles within the novels. One is left questioning to what extent such gendering within the trilogy is a product of contemporary views on empire, and this issue is addressed in Mavis Reimer's contribution on empire building within the trilogy only two chapters further on. Similarly, Monica Flegel's essay on Fabianism and didacticism can be usefully paired with Suzanne Rahn's on the socialist utopia for two different views of social criticism in Nesbit's writing. Such links are forged and re-enforced throughout the collection, inviting the reader to compare and contrast alternating viewpoints and theories.

Other contributions stand well on their own, opening up avenues of exploration for the reader. Jan Susina's contribution on intertextuality within the trilogy provides a fascinating look at Nesbit's literary sources, although, disappointingly, it does not discuss the non-realist stance Nesbit employs when directing her readers to alternately available children's texts. Teya Rosenberg explores the possibility of the trilogy as early magic realism, whereas Donna R. White uses many different approaches (form, writer/reader, content) to discuss the communication of humor within the stories (making up, incidentally, for the missed discussion on Nesbit's "asides" in Susina). Other essays include Naomi Wood's "Materiality, the Wish and the Marvelous," in which Wood suggests that Nesbit utilized the marvelous to facilitate spiritual belief; David Rudd's "Where It Was, There Shall Five Children Be," which explores Nesbit's portrayal of desire using Lacanian psychoanalysis; Ann Dowker's "Some Parallels with the Nineteenth-Century Moral Tale"; Julia Briggs's "The Amulet and Other Stories of Time"; Jennifer Marchant's "H.R. Millar's Expansions and Subversions of the Psammead Trilogy"; and Esther Gilman Richey...