Janet brought a copy of The House of Arden up to the ITTDB Citadel at Christmas in 2014, and we all sat around reading it to each other. In the story, Edred Arden, a nine-year-old poor orphan, unexpectedly discovers that he’s actually the next Lord Arden, but still penniless unless he and his sister can use a trunk of magic clothes to have adventures in past times and discover where the family treasure lies hidden—much like the time-traveling mechanism in Nesbit’s earlier The Story of Amulet. Also like Amulet, this story was initially serialized in The Strand before the book publication. A companion book, Harding’s Luck, appeared the following year.

In the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, John Clute connects the two books to the Fabian Society (named after the British socialists Fabian Society, which also included H.G. Wells) because “Nesbit’s consistent Fabian socialism is central to the version of British history’ presented in the books.
—Michael Main
Hear, Oh badge of Arden’s house,
The spell my little age allows;
Arden speaks it without fear,
Badge of Arden’s house, draw near,
Make me brave and kind and wise,
And show me where the treasure lies.

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  1. The House of Arden by E. Nesbit, serialized in The Strand Magazine, January to November 1908.
    2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by E. Nesbit