The Railway Children By E. Nesbit The story concerns a family who move from London to "The Three Chimneys," a house near the railway in Yorkshire, after the father, who works at the Foreign Office, is imprisoned after being falsely accused of spying. The children befriend an Old Gentleman who regularly takes the 9:15 train near their home; he is eventually able to help prove their father's innocence, and the family is reunited. The family take care of a Russian exile, Mr Szczepansky, who came to England looking for his family (later located) and Jim, the grandson of the Old Gentleman, who suffers a broken leg in a tunnel. The theme of an innocent man being falsely imprisoned for espionage and finally vindicated might have been influenced by the Dreyfus Affair, which was a prominent worldwide news item a few years before the book was written. The Russian exile, persecuted by the Tsars for writing "a beautiful book about poor people and how to help them" and subsequently helped by the children, was most likely an amalgam of the real-life dissidents Sergius Stepniak and Peter Kropotkin who were both friends of the author.

Media	Books Paperback Book (Book with soft cover and glued back)
Released	June 11, 2016
ISBN13	9781534621169
Publishers	Createspace Independent Publishing Platf
Pages	154
Dimensions	178 × 254 × 8 mm · 276 g
Language	English

Show all

More by Edith Nesbit

More from this series

See all of Edith Nesbit ( e.g. Paperback Book , Hardcover Book , Book , CD and Audiobook (CD) )