LightNovelLingo
Home / Library / English / The Railway Children

The Railway Children

by E. Nesbit

When their father vanishes, three children move beside a railway.

Read this book free →

Original language: EnglishLevel: Beginner3,538 characters · ≈ 5 minSource: Project Gutenberg

Opening lines

They were not railway children to begin with. I don't suppose they had ever thought about railways except as a means of getting to Maskelyne and Cook's, the Pantomime, Zoological Gardens, and Madame Tussaud's. They were just ordinary suburban children, and they lived with their Father and Mother in an ordinary red-brick-fronted villa, with coloured glass in the front door, a tiled passage that was called a hall, a bath-room with hot and cold water, electric bells, French windows, and a good deal of white paint, and 'every modern convenience', as the house-agents say.

There were three of them. Roberta was the eldest. Of course, Mothers never have favourites, but if their Mother HAD had a…

Read free →

About the book

The Railway Children is a children's book by Edith Nesbit, serialised in The London Magazine in thirteen instalments from January 1905 to January 1906 and published in book form in 1906. It begins when the father suddenly leaves and three children move with their mother to live beside a railway. The book has been adapted for the screen several times, most famously in the 1970 film version.

About the author

Edith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland; 15 August 1858 – 4 May 1924) was an English writer and poet who published her books for children and others as E. Nesbit, writing or collaborating on more than 60 such books. She was also a political activist and co-founder of the Fabian Society, a socialist organisation later affiliated to the Labour Party.

Summary prepared with AI from Wikipedia: The Railway Children (CC BY-SA)

How the glosses are made

Word glosses and sentence translations are generated in context by AI models (DeepSeek and Zhipu GLM), and every word is checked to have a gloss. AI can make mistakes; you can report problems from the book page.

FAQ

Is this the original text?

Yes. The library holds the opening section of the public-domain original, taken from Project Gutenberg.

Do I need to pay or sign up?

Library books are free to read without an account. Other gloss languages and importing your own texts need an account and credits.

What level is it?

This one is marked “Beginner”. Every word is glossed, so you can keep reading even with a small vocabulary.

Can I use another gloss language?

English and Chinese glosses are prepared in advance; signed-in readers can generate other languages.

More in this language

Read this book free →