The Story of the Treasure Seekers

Influence on other literature

The Story of the Treasure Seekers was the first novel for children by E. Nesbit. This and her later novels exerted considerable influence on subsequent English children's literature, most notably Arthur Ransome's books and C. S. Lewis'[3] The Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis notes in the first chapter of The Magician's Nephew that the portion of the action of that book that takes place in this world happens at the same time as that of the Treasure Seekers. The American writer Edward Eager was also influenced by this and other Nesbit books, most notably in his Half Magic series, where he mentions the Bastable children and other Nesbit characters as heroes of his characters.

Nesbit's influence on other British and American children's literature rests largely on the following motifs: her protagonists are a set or sets of siblings from a separated or incomplete family. The events of the story take place while the children are isolated as a group, for example, while on holiday. Through magic or complex imaginative play, the children face perils that they overcome through pluck.[4] Another notable feature is the depiction of the realistic quarrels and faults of the children. J. K. Rowling, writer of Harry Potter, ranked Nesbit as one of her favourite authors, and The Story of the Treasure Seekers as her favourite of Nesbit's books.[5]

British writer Michael Moorcock later used the character, or at least the name, of Oswald Bastable for the hero and first-person narrator of his trilogy A Nomad of the Time Streams, published from 1971 until 1981, an influence on the nascent genre of steampunk.


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