FUN FACTS ABOUT FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT | Author of “The Secret Garden”

We learned a lot of new fun facts about the beloved author of “The Secret Garden”, Frances Hodgson Burnett, after having an exclusive conversation with her Great-Great-Grand-Daughter, Keri Wilt.

Things that you might not know about Frances Hodgson Burnett!

– She was born a storyteller and told her classmates’ chapters of her stories during recesses.

– Frances had to prove to her first publisher that “a young lady from England really could write” by submitting another story to prove she had written it. She was never turned down by a publisher again.

-She loved roses but didn’t start gardening herself until she was 55.

– The majority of her writing was romance novels.

-She loved to travel and crossed the Atlantic 33 times by steamship

– Frances was the best-paid author at the time of her career. She built a mansion on Long Island with just 4 months of writing royalties.

Frances Hodgson Burnett, “The Romantick Lady” that defeated her childhood’s poverty.

Frances Hodgson Burnett was born in Manchester, England 1849. She had a childhood of poverty and her family later relocated to Tennessee where she began her writing career and later met her husband. She lived in an unhappy marriage, but her two sons, Lionel and Vivian were her pride and joy in life.

They were both inspirations for different characters in her writing. Lionel for Colin in “The Secret Garden”, and Vivian as “Little Lord Fauntleroy”. Lionel struggled with his health and tragically died at an age of 16. One could only wish that he could have had a similar transformation as Colin, yet the tragedies of Frances’ life inspired her writing to make it so touching and wonderful.

Frances struggled with depression, yet wrote happiness into the world.

When you read Frances’ books, experiencing her warm sentimentality in her writing, it is hard to believe that she struggled with so much depression throughout her life. She was even named “The Romantick Lady” by her son Vivian, in his biography about her, named “The Life Story of Imagination”.
She was 74 years old when she passed away at her Long Island home in 1924.

“With the best that I have in me, I have tried to write more happiness into the world”. – Frances Hodgson Burnett

It was in her Long Island home where she wrote “The Secret Garden” in her own garden filled with roses that she so much loved. We owe so much to Frances who brought hope and magic to our childhoods through her writing when her own childhood was filled with turmoil.

“The Secret Garden”, a commercial failure during her time.

Did you know that “The Secret Garden” was considered a commercial failure during Frances’ lifetime? It is thanks to librarians and teachers in the 1940s, that the book was brought forward and started to get the recognition it truly deserves.

A journey from India to the Yorkshire Moors.

The story begins in India, in 1911. It is a very dry and warm climate that Mary has grown up in. It is soon about to change to the opposite when her life takes a drastic turn and she is being sent to the Yorkshire moors at her uncle’s manor called Misselthwaite Manor. To get used to fog and rain, instead of sand and heat is not easily done. However, it is a perfect setting because sometimes you just need the opposite to learn who you really are.

Meet the characters.

Mary Lennox: A lonely, sour, and most unwanted person. Often bullied by the famous nursery rhyme “Mary quite contrary”. She was replanted like a tree from a longterm negative environment, to fresh soil, where she after a while begins to grow new roots. From not knowing anything else than feeling unwanted, she is transformed through having the new opportunity to care for small things in the hidden garden, and her first friend, the little robin redbreast, that lived there.

Colin Craven: A dramatic and insecure boy. Afraid of a future as a “cripple” like everyone had told him so many times. He is afraid to go out and leave his safe room where he has spent his whole life. He does not know what is out there, but realizes after he takes a leap of faith exploring the garden together with Mary, that the true safe place was to be outdoors, slowly healing in the garden.

Archibald Craven: Colin’s father. Heartbroken after his wife died (when Colin was born). He probably projected his own insecurity of being a father without his beloved wife at his side by loving his son from a distance through objects and toys instead of showing feelings. Perhaps keeping Colin safe inside, in the hands of “experts” made him feel less afraid of possibly losing him too. However, Archibald’s transformation would come in the end of the book when he actually sees, for the first time, his son running like a real boy.

Dickon: The only one that does not change through the story, he does not need to. He is important for both of the children, not in a medical profession, or a well-read way that grown-ups usually would assume. But, just being himself, a young “animal charmer”, loving the nature, and teaches the cousins how to garden. We learn through Colin’s own words that Dickon’s way with animals works on boys too.

Of course, there are many characters in this book that are worth mentioning, Ben Weatherstaff: The old faithful gardener. Martha Sowerby and the cottage family: Perhaps Mary’s role models of a real loving family. Mrs Medlock and Dr. Craven: The people that just are doing their duties.

Magic in “The Secret Garden”.

There are many important themes in the book about the healing power of nature. The children call it magic as a way to describe the transformation that is happening to them. A garden is a perfect symbol of that. Seeds look tiny and helpless when they have been in a pot for a long time, nothing seems to happen. The same with health, your thoughts might be the biggest chain that holds you back, but all of a sudden, that little seed that seemed so helpless takes off and grows big and beautiful. Water and care might be the same as positive attitudes, prayers of hope, and good words.

“Never thee stop believin’ in th’ Big Good Thing an’ knowin’ th’ world’s full of it – and call it what tha’ likes. Tha’ wert singin’ to it when I come into t’ garden.”

– Dickon’s mother, her lovely accent on her view of magic.

Next time you tuck a seed in the dirt, remember that magic is not pulling a bunny out of a hat. Neither boiling a potion or be able to determine the weather forecast through bones or coffee. Perhaps real magic is simpler than that, that something so small as a seed is created to fit a whole garden.

“The Secret Garden” was the obvious choice for our book club in the spring, this is why:

We decided to read Frances Hodgson Burnett’s beloved children’s classic, “The Secret Garden” in our book club during Spring. A decision that would be more than a great read in itself, but also a refreshing personal journey through a challenging season that few of us had lived through before. The life situation of the protagonists in the book, Mary and Colin, did not look positive. During our past months of Spring, we are many that can relate. Yet it is not a book about bleak times, but of healing and growing.

Reading “The Secret Garden” as adults! This is what happened to us:

Lindsay: I read “The Secret Garden” for the first time as an adult and I can confidently say it changed my life forever. I was just coming out of a very challenging health crisis which really changed my world and helped me to take better care of myself.

I started to read the book as the springtime arrived around our cottage and we planted our first little garden. It was like a spiritual awakening when I came to the chapter about “Magic” and saw how the Mary and Colin made sense of the transformation that was happening to them and in nature. My favorite quote is:

“…Being alive is the Magic—being strong is the Magic.
The Magic is in me…It’s in every one of us.”

Colin “The Secret Garden”

Jonas: Before I read “The Secret Garden” for the first time, I had just lost my job. It had been a poisoned situation that crippled my motivation and self-esteem. While starting the book I felt as Colin, because I had indeed been hidden in a dark room working for scraps.

During the book and the fact that we are lucky to have our own garden, I could perfectly relate to Mary’s discovery of it. When I ended the book, I was like Colin running inside it. It was a sort of healing experience that through quarantine had replanted me from a dying gardening bed to a most flourishing wild rose garden. I did not only read the book, but I also lived it, and I intend to continue doing so.

“I shall live forever and ever and ever ‘ he cried grandly. ‘I shall find out thousands and thousands of things. I shall find out about people and creatures and everything that grows – like Dickon – and I shall never stop making Magic. I’m well I’m well”

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