The Secret Garden
By Frances Hodgson Burnett
“The place was a wilderness of autumn gold and purple and violet blue and flaming scarlet on every side were sheaves of late lilies standing together–lilies which were white or white and ruby…Late roses climbed and hung and clustered and the sunshine deepening the hue of the yellowing trees made one feel that one stood in an empowered temple of gold.” The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett.
I don't know how I made it so long without reading the story The Secret Garden. I watched the movie when I was younger, but I had no idea that it was based on a book. I feel that I really missed out all these years on reading a great novel.
The Secret Garden was first published in its entirety in 1911 and is one of Frances Burnett's most popular novels and is considered a classic in children's literature. Several films have been made after the book.
Mary Lennox is a spoiled girl growing up in India with her English parents. She is kept hidden away and only interacts with her servants. Her parents severely neglect her so naturally she feels unloved and loves no one. She is demanding, sickly and unpleasant. Her whole village is wiped out by a cholera epidemic. The servants have all fleed or died and have forgotten about this spoiled 10-year-old girl.
After being found by soldiers, Mary is sent to England to live with an uncle whom she has never met or heard of. Mr. Craven lives in a mysterious manor with over 100 rooms, most of which are unused after the death of his wife. Mr. Craven also keeps himself locked up adding to the mystery of the manor. At nights Mary hears crying down one of the corridors, but the maids are unwilling to answer any of her questions regarding where or who it is coming from.
Mary is left to entertain herself and the gardens around the manor become her only escape. She learns of a garden locked up after the death of Mrs. Craven. No one has been in it for 10 years and the key has been lost. With the help of an unexpected companion, Mary finds a way in and is determined to bring the garden back to life.
As Mary nurtures this dead garden to life with the help of two companions, relationships are also nurtured to life and healed.
Old and young alike will enjoy this read. As I read it to my children I couldn't help but feel a little bit sorry for this spoiled child that was neglected for 10 years of her life. No one took the time to teach her manners or even how to dress. She expected maids to take care of her every need. It was refreshing to see that the maid at the manor wasn't willing to give into her demands.
Mary is faced with several challenges in her life, the death of her parents and everyone she knows and being sent to a new country to live with a grieving uncle. Despite the hardships in her life, she becomes stronger and finds a sense of belonging in doing so she also helps heal those around her. There is a lot we can learn from Mary. Filling her mind with a purpose changed who she was.
“When her mind gradually filled itself with robins, and moorland cottages crowded with children, with queer crabbed old gardeners and common little Yorkshire housemaids, with springtime and secret gardens coming alive day by day, and also with a moor boy and his ‘creatures,’ there was no room left for disagreeable thoughts which affected her liver and her digestion and made her yellow and tired.” The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett.
About the Author:
Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (24 November 1849 – 29 October 1924) was a British-American novelist and playwright. She is best known for the three children's novels Little Lord Fauntleroy (published in 1885–1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden(1911).
Frances Eliza Hodgson was born in Cheetham, Manchester, England. After her father died in 1852, the family fell on straitened circumstances and in 1865 immigrated to the United States, settling in Jefferson City, Tennessee. There Frances began writing to help earn money for the family, publishing stories in magazines from the age of 19. In 1870, her mother died, and in 1872 Frances married Swan Burnett, who became a medical doctor. The Burnetts lived for two years in Paris, where their two sons were 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.
Burnett enjoyed socializing and lived a lavish lifestyle. Beginning in the 1880s, she began to travel to England frequently and in the 1890s bought a home there, where she wrote The Secret Garden. Her oldest 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 Townsend in 1900, and divorced him in 1902. A few years later she settled in Nassau County, Long Island, where she died in 1924 and is buried in Roslyn Cemetery.
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