Edith Nesbit

The announcement this week that civil partnerships would be made available to heterosexual couples reminded me of the lives (and in one case, death) of three women I read about whilst researching my book, The Women in the Room: Labour’s Forgotten History.

The first, Edith Nesbit, is by far the best known nowadays, at least outside Labour circles. In later life she wrote some of the best-loved children’s books ever published, including The Railway Children, but her private life was not at all what might have been expected of an Edwardian children’s author. Continue reading →