The House of Arden
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.