Frances Hodgson Burnett, (November 24, 1849
- October 29, 1924)
was an English playwright and author. She is best known for her children's stories, in
particular The Secret Garden,
A Little Princess,
and Little Lord
Fauntleroy.
She emigrated to Knoxville, Tennessee
in the United States in 1865.
The move, which they made at the request of an uncle, made no difference to the
family's poverty, but at least they were now living in a better environment.
Following the death of her mother in 1867, an 18-year-old
She married Dr. Swan Burnett of Washington, D.C. in 1873.
Her first novel was published in 1877; That Lass o' Lowrie's was a story of Lancashire life.
After moving with her husband to Washington, D.C., Burnett wrote the novels
Haworth's (1879), Louisiana
(1880), A Fair Barbarian
(1881), and Through One
Administration (1883), as well as a play, Esmeralda
(1881), written with William Gillette.
In 1886 she published Little Lord
Fauntleroy. It was originally intended as a children's book, but
had a great appeal to mothers. It created a fashion of long curls (based on her
son Vivian's) and velvet suits with lace collars (based on Oscar Wilde's attire). The book sold more than
half a million copies. In 1888 she won a lawsuit in
In 1898 she divorced Dr. Burnett. She later
re-married, this time to Stephen Townsend (1900),
her business manager. Her second marriage would last less than two years,
ending in 1902.
Her later works include Sara
Crewe (1888) - later rewritten as A Little Princess (1905); The Lady of Quality (1896) - considered
one of the best of her plays; and The Secret Garden (1909), the children's
novel for which she is probably best known today. The Lost Prince
was published in 1915, and The Head of the House of Coombe was published
in
In 1893 she published a memoir of her youth, The One I Knew
Best of All. From the mid-1890s
she lived mainly in England, and in particular at Great Maytham Hall
(from 1897 to 1907) where she really did discover a secret garden, but in 1909
she moved back to the United States, after having become a U.S. citizen in 1905.
After her first son Lionel's death of consumption in 1890,
Burnett delved into spiritualism and
apparently found this a great comfort in dealing with her grief (she had
previously dabbled in Theosophy, and some of its
concepts are worked into The Secret Garden, where a crippled boy thinks
he can heal himself through positive thinking and affirmations). During World War I, Burnett put her beliefs about
what happens after death into writing with her novella The
White People.
Frances Hodgson Burnett lived for the last 17 years of her life in Plandome, New York.[1] She is buried in Roslyn Cemetery nearby, next to her son
Vivian. A life-size effigy of Lionel stands at their feet.
1.
^ O'Connell, Pamela Licalzi. "LITERATURE; 'The Secret Garden' Has Deep Island
Roots", The New York Times, August 8, 2004.
Accessed November 11, 2007.
"Mrs. Burnett, the author of The Secret Garden and other enduring
children's classics, lived on a grand estate in Plandome the last 17 years of
her life."
