''The Story of the Treasure Seekers'' is a novel by
E. Nesbit first published in 1899. It tells the story of Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noel, and Horace Octavius (H. O.) Bastable, and their attempts to assist their widowed father and recover the fortunes of their family. The novel's complete name is ''The Story of the Treasure Seekers: Being the Adventures of the Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune''. The original edition included illustrations by
H. R. Millar. The
Puffin
Puffins are any of three species of small alcids (auks) in the bird genus ''Fratercula''. These are pelagic seabirds that feed primarily by diving in the water. They breed in large colonies on coastal cliffs or offshore islands, nesting in crev ...
edition (1958) was illustrated by
Cecil Leslie. Its sequels are ''
The Wouldbegoods'' (1901) and ''The New Treasure Seekers'' (1904).
The story is told from a child's point of view. The narrator is Oswald, but on the first page he announces:
"It is one of us that tells this story – but I shall not tell you which: only at the very end perhaps I will. While the story is going on you may be trying to guess, only I bet you don't."
However, his occasional lapse into the first person, and the undue praise he likes to heap on himself, make his identity obvious to the attentive reader long before he reveals it himself.
Plot
The Bastable family lives on the Lewisham Road in London in straitened circumstances, the widowed father having been cheated by his business partner. The children, Dora, the eldest, Oswald, the narrator, Dicky, Alice and Noel (10-year old twins), and H. O., the youngest, decide to restore the fortunes of their house by finding or earning treasure. They try various methods that work in books, such as digging for it, being bandits, marrying a princess, inventing a patent medicine, rescuing a rich gentleman, but somehow nothing is successful. However, during their imaginative adventures they make many friends.
Publication
The Bastable stories from ''The Story of the Treasure Seekers'' were first published between 1894 and October 1899 in an assortment of periodicals:
''Nister's Holiday Annual'', the ''
Illustrated London News
''The Illustrated London News'', founded by Herbert Ingram and first published on Saturday 14 May 1842, was the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine. The magazine was published weekly for most of its existence, switched to a less freq ...
'' and its supplement ''Father Christmas'', ''
The Pall Mall Magazine
''The Pall Mall Magazine'' was a monthly British literary magazine published between 1893 and 1914. Begun by William Waldorf Astor as an offshoot of ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', the magazine included poetry, short stories, serialized fiction, and ...
'', and the ''
Windsor Magazine
''The Windsor Magazine'' was a monthly illustrated publication produced by Ward Lock & Co from January 1895 to September 1939 (537 issues).
The title page described it as "An Illustrated Monthly for Men and Women".
It was bound as six-monthly ...
''.
The order in which the chapters appeared was changed for the one-volume publication in 1899. Some of them also underwent extensive rewriting.
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
Arthur Michell Ransome (18 January 1884 – 3 June 1967) was an English author and journalist. He is best known for writing and illustrating the ''Swallows and Amazons'' series of children's books about the school-holiday adventures of childre ...
's books and
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer, literary scholar and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Magdalen College, Oxford (1925–1954), and Magdalen ...
' ''
The Chronicles of Narnia
''The Chronicles of Narnia'' is a series of seven portal fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, the series is set in the fictional realm of Narnia (wor ...
''. Lewis notes in the first chapter of ''
The Magician's Nephew
''The Magician's Nephew'' is a portal fantasy novel by British author C. S. Lewis, published in 1955 by The Bodley Head. It is the sixth published of seven novels in ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' (1950–1956). In recent editions, which sequence ...
'' 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
Edward McMaken Eager (June 20, 1911 – October 23, 1964) was an American lyricist, dramatist, and writer of children's fiction. His children's novels were largely contemporary low fantasy, featuring the appearance of magic in the lives of ordinar ...
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. Another notable feature is the depiction of the realistic quarrels and faults of the children.
J. K. Rowling
Joanne Rowling ( ; born 31 July 1965), known by her pen name , is a British author and philanthropist. She is the author of ''Harry Potter'', a seven-volume fantasy novel series published from 1997 to 2007. The series has List of best-sell ...
, writer of
Harry Potter
''Harry Potter'' is a series of seven Fantasy literature, fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young Magician (fantasy), wizard, Harry Potter (character), Harry Potter, and his friends ...
, ranked Nesbit as one of her favourite authors, and ''The Story of the Treasure Seekers'' as her favourite of Nesbit's books.
British writer
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock (born 18 December 1939) is an English writer, particularly of science fiction and fantasy, who has published a number of well-received literary novels as well as comic thrillers, graphic novels and non-fiction. He has wo ...
later used the character, or at least the name, of
Oswald Bastable
Oswald Bastable is a fictional character created by Michael Moorcock. He is the protagonist in ''The Warlord of the Air'', ''The Land Leviathan'', and ''The Steel Tsar'', and appears in other stories.
Origin in Nesbit's Oswald Bastable
E. Nesbi ...
for the hero and first-person narrator of his trilogy ''
A Nomad of the Time Streams
''A Nomad of the Time Streams'' is a compilation volume of Michael Moorcock's early steampunk trilogy, begun in 1971 with '' The Warlord of the Air'' and continued by its 1974 and 1981 sequels, '' The Land Leviathan'' and ''The Steel Tsar''. ...
'', published from 1971 until 1981, an influence on the nascent genre of
steampunk
Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and Applied arts, aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century Industrial Revolution, industrial steam engine, steam-powered machinery. Steampun ...
.
TV adaptations
The book has been made into TV series three times, in 1953, 1961, and 1982. It was made into a television movie as ''
The Treasure Seekers'' in 1996.
Gordon Browne
Gordon Frederick Browne (15 April 1858 – 27 May 1932) was an English artist and a prolific illustrator of children's books in the late 19th century and early 20th century. He was a meticulous craftsman and went to a great deal of effort to e ...
File:P059 (Treasure Seekers).jpg, Illustration by Lewis Baumer
Lewis Christopher Edward Baumer (8 August 1870 – 25 October 1963) was best known as an English cartoonist who worked for more than fifty years for the British magazine '' Punch'', from 1897. He was also a portrait and still life painter, pastel ...
References
External links
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Also at Project Gutenberg:
''The Wouldbegoods''– sequel
''New Treasure Seekers''– sequel
''Oswald Bastable and Others''– with 4 more Bastable stories
{{DEFAULTSORT:Story of the Treasure Seekers, The
1899 British novels
Novels by E. Nesbit
English novels
British children's novels
Novels set in London
British novels adapted into films
1890s children's books
Children's books set in London