English author E. Nesbit wrote the children's book Five Children and It. The story revolves around the Psammead, or the Gifts was the general title of the segment that ran every month from April to December 1902 in the Strand Magazine. A novel based on the stories was later developed and released that same year. Including The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904) and The Story of the Amulet, it is the first book in a trilogy (1906). Since its initial release, the book has never been out of print. The novel opens with a group of kids moving from London to the Kent countryside, much like Nesbit's The Railway Children. The Psammead, a sand fairy with the power to grant wishes, is discovered by the five children Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane, and their infant brother, the Lamb, while they are playing in a gravel pit. The jewelry finally appears in their home when the kids unintentionally wish they could offer their mother some expensive jewelry. The children must beseech the Psammead for a complicated series of wishes in order to make things right because it appears that the gamekeeper, who is now their buddy, will be held responsible for the robbery.
English author and poet Edith Nesbit (also known by her married name Edith Bland; she lived from 15 August 1858 to 4 May 1924) wrote novels for children under the pen name E. Nesbit. Over 60 of these novels were written by her or with her assistance. She was also a political activist and a founding member of the socialist group the Fabian Society, which eventually joined forces with the Labour Party. Nesbit, the daughter of agricultural chemist John Collis Nesbit, was born in 1858 at 38 Lower Kennington Lane in Kennington, Surrey (now a part of Inner London). Her father passed away in March 1862, just before she turned four. Sarah Green was her mother. The family spent some time traveling due to Mary, Edith's sister, having health issues. They lived in Brighton, Buckinghamshire, France, Spain, and Germany, among other places. Mary and the poet Philip Bourke Marston were set to marry in 1871, but she passed away from the disease in Normandy later that year. Although the Derbyshire village of New Mills has also claimed the honor, Edith and her mother spent three years after Mary's passing living at Halstead Hall in north-west Kent, the setting for The Railway Children.
