Publisher's Synopsis
-Conventionally our life-story ended in a shower of rice at the church door, amid the scent of white flowers, with a flutter of white favors all about us.- Thus begins The Red House, Nesbit's charming novel of Chloe and Len, newlyweds adjusting to a new life and a new home. When Len inherits a house in the country from his uncle, Chloe insists they live there, whether the rumors of a ghost be true or not. When mysterious events happen, they are always blamed on the ghost. But the ultimate surprise rests in who that ghost really is. .........................Edith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland; 15 August 1858 - 4 May 1924) was an English author and poet; she published her books for children under the name of E. Nesbit.She wrote or collaborated on more than 60 books of children's literature. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, a socialist organisation later affiliated to the Labour Party. BiographyNesbit was born in 1858 at 38 Lower Kennington Lane in Kennington, Surrey (now classified as Inner London), the daughter of an agricultural chemist, John Collis Nesbit, who died in March 1862, before her fourth birthday. Her sister Mary's ill health meant that the family travelled around for some years, living variously in Brighton, Buckinghamshire, France (Dieppe, Rouen, Paris, Tours, Poitiers, Angouleme, Bordeaux, Arcachon, Pau, Bagneres-de-Bigorre, and Dinan in Brittany), Spain and Germany, before settling for three years at Halstead Hall in Halstead in north-west Kent, a location which later inspired The Railway Children (this distinction has also been claimed by the Derbyshire town of New Mills).[3]When Nesbit was seventeen, the family moved back to London, living in South East London at Eltham, Elswick Road in Lewisham, Grove Park and Lee.At eighteen, Nesbit met the bank clerk Hubert Bland, who was her elder by three years, in 1877. Seven months pregnant, she married Bland on 22 April 1880, though she did not immediately live with him, as Bland initially continued to live with his mother. Their marriage was a tumultuous one. Early on Nesbit discovered that another woman believed she was Hubert's fiancee and had also borne him a child. A more serious blow came later when she discovered that her good friend, Alice Hoatson, was pregnant with Hubert's child. She had previously agreed to adopt Hoatson's child and allow Hoatson to live with her as their housekeeper. After she discovered the truth, they quarrelled violently and she suggested that Hoatson and the baby should leave; her husband threatened to leave Edith if she disowned the baby and its mother. Hoatson remained with them as a housekeeper and secretary and became pregnant by Bland again 13 years later. Edith again adopted Hoatson's child..................Arthur Ignatius Keller (July 4, 1867 New York City - December 2, 1924 Riverdale, New York) was a United States painter and illustrator. His parents were Adam and Amanda Spohr Keller. He took up drawing at the National Academy, New York as a student of Professor Wilmarth. In Munich he studied painting with Professor Loeffts. Keller worked in oil and watercolor. He won awards including the First Class Medal at the National Academy, Hallgarten composition prize, the Philadelphia Art Club gold medal, Paris Exposition of 1900 silver medal. Two years later he won the Evans water color prize. At the St. Louis Exposition of 1904 he won gold and silver medals. In San Francisco he was awarded the gold medal of the Panama Pacific International Exposition.
