CONSIDERED the first modern children’s author and the inventor of the children’s adventure story, E Nesbit holds a place in the hearts the world over.

Her wonderfully imaginative and original books influenced many bestselling authors including JK Rowling, Jacqueline Wilson, CS Lewis, PL Travers, Francesca Simon, Neil Gaiman, Kate Saunders and Julia Donaldson.

But few know the extraordinary life led by the author of The Railway Children and Five Children and It.

Eleanor Fitzsimons, the author of The Lives and Loves of E. Nesbit (Duckworth £20), the first major biography of E Nesbit in 30 years, will be at Bridport Literary Festival in the Bull Ballroom on Tuesday, November 5 at 11.30am.

She has used Nesbit’s letters and deep archival research to reveal an extraordinary life story, bringing new light to the life and works of this famous literary icon.

As an adult, Nesbit found herself in a desperately difficult situation at the centre of a love triangle between her husband and her close friend, Alice Hoatson. When Alice became pregnant she adopted both their children and raised them with her own. However, both children were left out of her will.

She was close friends with HG Wells and taught him how to play badminton but they fell out after he seduced her adopted daughter. Wells justified his behaviour by insisting that he was saving the girl from her father’s incestuous intentions.

A staunch socialist, lecturer and writer on socialism she was a founding member of the Fabian Society. She incorporated her avant-garde ideas into her writing, influencing a generation of children.

A conflicted feminist, she threw away her corsets, cut her hair short and took up smoking, defying convention. Yet she once delivered an uncharacteristic speech so vehemently opposed to women’s rights that it was supressed by George Bernard Shaw, who was one of her many lovers.

Celia Brayfield, who will be in conversation with Eleanor Fitzsimmons is no stranger to fascinating women, having penned Rebel Writers, which takes a long, hard look at seven ‘accidental feminists’: Shelagh Delaney (A Taste of Honey), Edna O’Brien (The Country Girls), Lynne Reid-Banks (The L-Shaped Room), Charlotte Bingham (Coronet Among the Weeds), Nell Dunn (Up the Junction), Virginia Ironside (Chelsea Bird) and Margaret Forster (Georgy Girl).

Brayfield, an author and creative writing lecturer who lives locally, maintains that these women completely changed the way female writers were supposed to be. She’ll be talking as part of Brid Lit in the Bull Ballroom on Wednesday, November 6 at 4pm.

She says: "Actually, they changed the way women were supposed to be, too, simply because they told the truth about what it was like being female in the 1950s or early 1960s – pretty tough," she says.

"No power, no money, no control over your life, or even over your own body. And everything changed for us because of feminism, but before second-wave feminism these writers were getting death threats and accusations of satanic possession, just because they spoke up. These writers were my inspiration and I wrote this book to say thank you, to pay it forward."

*Bridport Literary Festival, Sunday November 3 to Sunday, November 9. Programmes and tickets for BridLit are available from Bridport Tourist Information Centre behind the Town Hall in South Street, telephone 424901, or visit bridlit.com for more information.