Secret Garden

frances hodgson burnett

In this beloved story, readers travel with Mary Lennox, a spoiled and sullen orphan, from colonial India to Misselthwaite Manor, a forbidding estate on the Yorkshire moors. There, in the unlikeliest of places, Mary discovers and helps restore an abandoned garden and, in the process, blossoms herself into a creature of loving kindness. Mary’s transformation begins when she meets a no-nonsense housekeeper, a brusque gardener, and a sprightly robin that leads her to the hidden garden. With the help of Dickon, a boy with an almost supernatural affinity for animals and plants, and Colin, her frail cousin, Mary works in secret to bring new life to the old garden. The three friends find their efforts rewarded not only with all the pleasure that blooming flowers bring, but also the blessings of good health and high spirits.
Since its initial appearance in 1911, this cherished classic of children’s literature by the author of A Little Princess has enchanted readers. Now available in this unabridged, modestly priced edition, The Secret Garden will continue to charm modern readers of all ages.

Genres fictionclassicschildrensyoung adulthistorical fictionmiddle gradeaudiobookfantasyhistoricalliterature

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 1,1911

Literary awards

lewis carroll shelf award,

Places

yorkshire england, england, united kingdom,

This edition

Format: 256 pages, Paperback
Published: June 10, 1999 by Dover Publications
ISBN: 9780486407845
ASIN: 0486407845
Language: English

Characters More characters

About the author

frances hodgson burnett

Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett was a British-American novelist and playwright. She is best known for the three children's novels Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911).
Frances Eliza Hodgson was born in Cheetham, Manchester, England. After her father died in 1853, when Frances was 4 years old, the family fell on straitened circumstances and in 1865 emigrated to the United States, settling in New Market, Tennessee. Frances began her writing career there at age 19 to help earn money for the family, publishing stories in magazines. In 1870, her mother died. In Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1873 she married Swan M. Burnett, who became a medical doctor. Their first son Lionel was born a year later. The Burnetts lived for two years in Paris, where their second son Vivian was born, before returning to the United States to live in Washington, D.C. Burnett then began to write novels, the first of which (That Lass o' Lowrie's), was published to good reviews. Little Lord Fauntleroy was published in 1886 and made her a popular writer of children's fiction, although her romantic adult novels written in the 1890s were also popular. She wrote and helped to produce stage versions of Little Lord Fauntleroy and A Little Princess.
Beginning in the 1880s, Burnett began to travel to England frequently and in the 1890s bought a home there, where she wrote The Secret Garden. Her elder son, Lionel, died of tuberculosis in 1890, which caused a relapse of the depression she had struggled with for much of her life. She divorced Swan Burnett in 1898, married Stephen Townesend in 1900, and divorced him in 1902. A few years later she settled in Nassau County, New York, where she died in 1924 and is buried in Roslyn Cemetery.
In 1936, a memorial sculpture by Bessie Potter Vonnoh was erected in her honor in Central Park's Conservatory Garden. The statue depicts her two famous Secret Garden characters, Mary and Dickon.