Coward’s Favourite Author
On March 26th, we commemorate the death of Noël Coward while in Jamaica. This year we’re looking at the book he was reading the night he died: The Enchanted Castle by E. Nesbit.
Coward was a lifelong fan of the children’s stories of Edith Nesbit, most remembered today for writing The Railway Children. Discovering them as a child, he would revisit them throughout the rest of his life:
“I happened to be having my annual re-read of the E. Nesbits, which I still prefer to any other literature”
Letter to Esme Wynn-Tyson, March 9th 1960
Focus on: E. Nesbit
Edith Nesbit: 5 August 1858 – 4 May 1924.
Author, poet, political activist and co-founder of the Fabian Society.
Works: The Story of the Treasure Seekers, The Railway Children, Five Children and It.
Coward c. 1905 (c) NCAT
In his autobiography, Coward recalled an early memory of collecting her stories:
There was a second-hand book-shop on the way where I could buy ‘back numbers’ of the Strand Magazine for a penny each, and I hoarded my pocket money until I could buy a whole year’s worth in order to read the next E. Nesbit story right through without having to wait for the next instalment. I read “The Phoenix and the Carpet,” and “Five Children and It,” and also “The Magic City,” but there were a few numbers missing from that years so I stole a coral necklace from a visiting friend of mother’s, pawned it for five shillings , and bought the complete book at the Army and Navy Stores.
In early 1920, Coward was taken by Mrs Patrick Campbell to a 10th birthday lunch for Joyce Grenfell and as a present gave her several E. Nesbit books. In 1957, Grenfell wrote to Coward to say that packing to move house, she found one of them and recalled that lunch with great fondness. That letter is now preserved with others in the Coward Archive.
Focus On: The Enchanted Castle
Fantasy novel published in 1907.
It is the tale of a country estate (the ‘enchanted castle’ of the title) seen through the eyes of the three young protagonists, Jerry, Jimmy and Kathy. They meet a princess and discover a magical ring which grants wishes.
Adapted for television by the BBC in 1979.
Not long after, but before he become the household name, Coward met Edith Nesbit herself while staying in St Mary In The Marsh to write:
“I called on her very soon, and found her as firm, as nice, and as humorous as her books had led me to expect.”
It may seem surprising that she would be one of Coward’s literary idols. What was it about her writing that he so loved? Writing to Noel Streatfeild, her biographer, he said:
"she had an economy of phrase, and an unparalleled talent for evoking hot summer days in the English countryside."
And in his diaries he wrote:
The last photograph of Coward (c) NCAT
“Sunday 3rd February 1957. I am reading again through all the dear E. Nesbits and they seem to me to be more charming and evocative than ever. It is strange that after half a century I can still get such lovely pleasure from them. Her writing is so light and unforced, her humour so sure and her narrative quality so strong that the stories, which I know backwards, rivet me as much now as they did when I was a little boy. Even more so in one way because I can now enjoy her actual talent and her extraordinary power of decribing hot summer days in England in the beginning years of the century.
All the pleasant memories of my own childhood jump up at me from the pages… E. Nesbit knew all the things that stay in the mind, all the happy treasures. I suppose she, of all the writers I have ever read, has given me over the years the most complete satisfaction and, incidentally, a great deal of inspiration. I am glad I knew her in the last years of her life.”"
There are several editions of her books preserved in the Noel Coward Archive, including one first edition of The Enchanted Castle, the story he was reading the night he died.
