Customer Reviews

Harding's Luck

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Harding's Luck" is one of E. Nesbit's classic fantasies, though darker and more Dickensian than most. It is something of a sequel to her "House of Arden," but has a different hero and can stand alone quite well. It's an English time-travel story, and its hero Dickie is a great hero. One of my two favorite by Nesbit (and I've read them all.)

I'm buying 'Harding's Luck' for one of my 6 grandaughters - a very bright girl in Australia coming up for eleven years old, about the age I read it myself, with huge enjoyment. Her mother tells me that her daughter spurns the modern children's novels she gives her on the grounds that they're "too real" - unlike the books sent by grandfather - as e.g 'Wind on the Moon" by Eric Linklater most recently (highly recommended for 10 year-olds, if you can find it!).
'Harding's Luck' does wear its heart on its sleeve but no more than any of the great 19th century novelists of France, Russia or Britain - or indeed the USA, - and what's wrong with a novel with a message anyway? In fact it's no more 'naive', as one of your reviewers characterises it, than "The Railway Children" made twice into films. It's a lot less preachy and sentimental than say, Little Lord Fauntleroy, whose rags-to-earldom plot line, with adult redemption thrown in, is not so far removed. But in the hands of Nesbit who unlike F. Hodgson Burnett is a 'real' writer, traditional material is transmuted through imagination into something rich and strange and original.
Stylistically too, it is right up to Nesbit's best form - try reading it aloud.
Finally Harding's Luck has all the elements that will capture a child's sympathy and imagination : injustice, poverty, deformity, magic, romance, suspense, sacrifice, and triumph over adversity. And with twist - the happy ending is not quite happy.

Piers Croke
London

Many of Edith Nesbit's books are not so much novels as they are sequences of shorter stories (perhaps they were published, or meant to be read, serially?) Harding's Luck and its companion, The House of Arden, have far more complex and interwoven plots. The events in the lighter House of Arden form only a part Harding's Luck, as Dickie is a much fuller character than Edred and Elfrida. They must have been plotted together, as each contains references to the other.

As in The Psammead and the Carpet, there are numerous instances of Nesbit's socialist views (not in the modern sense of big government, more along the lines of GK Chesterton's definition "A socialist is a man who wants all the chimneys swept and all the chimney sweeps paid for it."). Children will never notice these; adults may find them sweet but sadly naive.

In their richness of plot and character, and in the sense of something deeper and truer lurking behind the superficial magic, these two are probably the crown of Nesbit's work. Givn the fact that the paperback copy of Harding's Luck costs $10, it's worthwhile to shell out another $7 for the hardback, so you'll have it longer.

Are Edith Nesbit's novels where J. K. Rowling got the idea for her Harry Potter series in which magical witches and wizards live secretly among normal humdrum people (muggles)? It was Nesbit, who wrote 60 children's novels, that first started writing about everyday English children discovering magical people, charms, and spells in their midst. One of the founding members of the Fabian Society, Nesbit was famous in her time for her Socialist beliefs and friends. However, presently it is her children's books that are her enduring legacy.

Harding's Luck is the second of a pair of novels about Dickie Harding a young orphan in 1906 London who uses a crutch because his left leg doesn't work. When his father died he left Dickie an old toy that was to bring him luck, but as the story opens there is little luck or joy in the child's life.

Nesbit's Socialist beliefs are strongly represented in her portrayal of Dickie's poverty. She describes life for the poor of the time as follows. "...All the green trees are gone, and good work is gone, and people do bad work for just so much as will keep together their worn bodies and desolate souls. And sometimes they starve to death." She also portrays a society strictly divided by class in which Dickie is poor but has noble blood which elevates him above those around him.

The magic of the story is a spell involving the toy his father gave him that puts him in contact with a trio of magical moles called Mouldiwarps and a nursemaid witch. This group transport him back 300 years to the time of King James I where he is Richard Arden, a young boy of noble family who has two healthy legs. He travels back and forth between his London and that of James I with the help of the Mouldiwarps. In the process he saves the Arden family's fortune and has to decide between his present-day London and that of 300 years ago.

Nesbit is a wonderful storyteller and the plot is full of detail and adventure that make it a delight to read. Her use of the street language of the time makes this a difficult book for young readers of today, but adults who like children's literature will find it a delightful glimpse of English life. H. R. Millar's 16 original drawings help bring the tale to life. This Books of Wonder edition suffers from bad proofreading. I found over a dozen misspellings that should have been caught in the editing process. Although this is one of a two volume series, it can be read alone with no problem.

It's not like the same old fairy tale but more than that. I read it a long time ago when I was a student reading from library, just waiting for paperback so more suit to my pocket.

As an enormous E Nesbit fan and an avid collector of her books I can barely describe the glee with which I embarked upon Harding's Luck. Not only a new Nesbit book, but a sequel to The House of Arden - one of my top three Nesbit picks. Alas for me this book was a sad disappointment. It was bad enough that Edred's growing up in Arden eclipsed the truly magnificent Elfrida, but in Harding's Luck cousin Richard cheats them both out of any accomplishment. This would be bad enough, but Dickie our hero is cast in the `little lame beggar boy with the heart of gold' mold. After dozens of books with keen and natural renderings of children, this sugar spun Pollyanna crossed with Tiny Tim is flat and forced. As a bit of pure conjecture I will throw the blame on the social agenda of the plot thus demonstrating that very rarely does good art come from politics over observation. All that being said, it is Nesbit and it is the conclusion to the Arden story so I suppose it must be read. However for a book to wash down this one's bitter taste I suggest The Enchanted Castle, Five Children and It, or The Treasure Seekers.

if you like mouldiwarps, or interesting turn-of-the-century iconography of Jews (in this case, a kind-ish pawnbroker and a magic star of david, this is for you. it fills in the backstory of Nesbit's earlier book, and is of interest to scholars and enthusiasts if not every child reader.