This paper looks at Edith Nesbit’s the Phoenix and the Carpet in the tradition of children’s literature and looks at how the storybook straddles the world of the real and the fantastic simultaneously without creating an isolated binary between both these spaces. This paper looks at Nesbit’s work in the context of early twentieth century children’s writing and how she became an important predecessor to subsequent writers of children’s literature like Enid Blyton. The adventure story for children that emerges as a template in the subsequent decades—travelling between intimate domestic spaces and exotic fantastic locales is indebted to Nesbit’s writings which provides a new imaginary for children’s literature.