Audiobook · read by volunteers
Many Voices (selection from)
E. Nesbit (1858–1924)
Read by Jim Mowatt, Cori Samuel, David Barnes, Peter Yearsley, Carrie Gillespie · 1 chapter · 1 h 03
About the book
E. Nesbit is remembered for her stories of children and magic, but she also wrote poetry, and this selection from her book Many Voices shows a different side of her gifts. Some poems are written to delight young readers, with simple images, rhythm and a sense of play. Others look at grown-up feelings with remarkable frankness: love, longing, disappointment and desire. The mixture is unusual and gives the book its particular charm. Recorded as a single continuous track by LibriVox volunteers, the selection runs for about an hour. It is a good choice for listeners who know Nesbit as a children's author and would like to hear her in another voice, or for lovers of early twentieth-century verse who enjoy surprising turns. It makes a fine companion for a quiet afternoon, and a good gift for any reader of Nesbit who has not yet heard her speak in verse.
Introduction
Edith Nesbit, who wrote as E. Nesbit (1858 to 1924), was a prolific English author who produced more than sixty books for children, among them The Story of the Treasure Seekers and The Railway Children. Her imagination, her humor and her talent for putting real children in the middle of extraordinary events made her one of the most influential children's writers of her time. Less often remembered is the fact that she also wrote verse throughout her career.
Many Voices, a book of poems that appeared in 1922, shows the same energy that you find in her prose. Some poems would appeal to children, because of their simplicity and music. At the same time, there is a more personal and exploratory thread, in which she considers love, lust and the passing of time. That combination of playfulness and candor makes the selection feel less like a nursery volume and more like the private notebook of an unconventional woman who happened to be famous for her children's books.
This is a selection rather than the complete book, and it is recorded as a single track of roughly an hour. You can listen in a single sitting or in smaller parts, as poetry is best enjoyed in short portions. It will interest readers curious about the life and mind of a writer who is better known for stories than for verse, and anyone who appreciates the voice of a woman writing frankly about feeling in the early twentieth century. The recording also shows how widely a children's author could write for different audiences, and how much of the writer's own character can be heard when she sets aside the story and speaks directly in poems.
Public domain
E. Nesbit died in 1924: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text