excerpt from THE SECTRET GARDEN, Part-2

- By Frances Hodgson Burnett
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British novelist and playwright (1849–1924) Frances Hodgson BurnettBurnett in 1888BornFrances Eliza Hodgson(1849-11-24)24 November 1849Cheetham, Manchester, England, United KingdomDied29 October 1924(1924-10-29) (aged 74)Plandome Manor, New York, United StatesOccupationNovelist, playwrightCitizenship United Kingdom (from birth) United States (from 1905) Spouse Swan Burnett ​ ​(m. 1873; div. 1898)​ Stephen Townsend ​ ​(m. 1900; div. 1902)​ Children2Signature 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 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 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 Townsend 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. Biography[edit] Childhood in Manchester, United Kingdom[edit] Frances Eliza Hodgson was born at 141 York Street[note 1] in Cheetham, Manchester on 24 November 1849. She was the third of five children of Edwin Hodgson, an ironmonger from Doncaster in Yorkshire, and his wife Eliza Boond, from a well-to-do Manchester family. Her father owned a business in Deansgate, selling ironmongery and brass goods. The family lived comfortably, employing a maid and a nurse-maid.[1] Frances had two older brothers and two younger sisters.[2] In 1852, the family moved about a mile away to a newly built terrace, opposite St Luke's Church, with greater access to outdoor space.[3][note 2] Barely a year later, on 1 September 1853 and with his wife pregnant for a fifth time, Hodgson died suddenly of a stroke, leaving the family without an income. Frances was cared for by her grandmother while her mother took over running the family business. From her grandmother, who bought her books, Frances learned to love reading, in particular her first book, The Flower Book, which had colored illustrations and poems. Because of their reduced income, Eliza had to give up their family home and moved with her children to live with relatives in Seedley Grove, Tanners Lane, Pendleton, Salford, where they lived in a house with a large enclosed garden in which Frances enjoyed playing.[5] For a year Frances went to a small dame school run by two women, where she first saw a book about fairies. When her mother moved the family to Islington Square, Salford, Frances mourned the lack of flowers and gardens. Their new home was located in a gated square of faded gentility adjacent to an area with severe overcrowding and poverty that "defied description", according to Friedrich Engels, who lived in Manchester at the time.[6] Frances had a fertile imagination, writing stories of her own creation in old notebooks. One of her favorite books was Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, and she spent many hours acting out scenes from the story.[7] Frances and her siblings were sent to be educated at The Select Seminary for Young Ladies and Gentlemen, where she was described as "precocious" and "romantic".[8] She had an active social life and enjoyed telling stories to her friends and cousins; in her mother, she found a good audience, although her brothers tended to tease her about her stories.[9] Manchester was almost entirely dependent on a cotton economy that was ruined by the Lancashire cotton famine brought about by the American Civil War.[10] In 1863, Eliza Hodgson was forced to sell their business and move the family once again to an even smaller home; at that time, Frances' limited education came to an end. Eliza's brother (Frances's uncle), William Boond, asked the family to join him in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he now had a thriving dry goods store. Within the year, Eliza decided to accept his offer and move the family from Manchester.[11] She sold their possessions and told Frances to burn her early writings in the fire.[10] In 1865, the family emigrated to the United States and settled near Knoxville.[12] Move to Tennessee[edit] After the end of the Civil War and the trade it had brought to the area, Frances's uncle lost much of his business and was unable to provide for the newly arrived family.[13] The family went to live in a log cabin during their first winter in New Market, outside Knoxville. They later moved to a home in Knoxville that Frances called "Noah's Ark, Mt. Ararat", a name inspired by the house's location atop an isolated hill.[2][12][14] Living across from them was the Burnett family, and Frances became friendly with Swan Burnett, introducing him to books by authors such as Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott and William Makepeace Thackeray that she had read in England. She may have befriended him because of a childhood injury that left him lame and unable to participate in physical activities. Not long after they met, Swan left for college in Ohio.[15] Burnett as a young woman Frances turned to writing to earn money. Her first story was published in Godey's Lady's Book in 1868. Soon after, she was being published regularly in Godey's Lady's Book, Scribner's Monthly, Peterson's Magazine and Harper's Bazaar.[2] Keen to escape from the family's poverty, she tended to overwork herself, later writing that she had been "a pen driving machine" during the early years of her career. For five years, she wrote constantly, often not worrying about the quality of her work.[16] Once her first story was published, before she was 18, she spent the rest of her life as a working writer.[17] By 1869, she had earned enough to move the family into a better home in Knoxville.[18] Her mother died in 1870, and within two years, two of her sisters and a brother were married. Although she remained friends with Swan, neither was in a hurry to be married.[19] Marriage[edit] With the income from her writing, she returned to England for an extended visit in 1872,[2] and then went to Paris where, having agreed to marry Swan, she ordered an haute couture wedding dress to be made and shipped to Tennessee. Shortly afterward, she returned home and attempted to postpone the wedding until the dress arrived, but Swan insisted they marry as soon as possible, and they were married in September 1873. Writing about the dress disappointment to a Manchester friend, she said of her new husband: "Men are so shallow ... he does not know the vital importance of the difference between white satin and tulle, and cream-colored brocade".[20] Within the year, she gave birth to her first child, Lionel, in September 1874. Also during that year, she began work on her first full-length novel, That Lass o' Lowrie's, set in Lancashire.[21] The couple wanted to leave Knoxville, and her writing income allowed them to travel to Paris, where Swan continued his medical training as an eye and ear specialist. The birth of their second son, Vivian, forced them to return to the United States.[14] She had wanted her second child to be a girl, and having chosen the name Vivien, changed to the masculine spelling for her new son. The family continued to rely on her writing income, and to economize she made clothing for her boys, often including many frills.[22] Later, Burnett continued to make clothing, designing velvet suits with lace collars for her boys and frilly dresses for herself. She allowed her sons' hair to grow long, which she then shaped into long curls.[22] Moved to Washington, D.C.[edit] Frances Hodgson Burnett (1890) After two years in Paris, the family intended to move to Washington, D.C., where Swan, now qualified as a doctor, wanted to start his medical practice.[2] However, as they were in debt, Frances was forced to live with Swan's parents in New Market while he established himself in D.C. Early in 1877, she was offered a contract to have That Lass o' Lowrie's published, which was doing well in its serialization, and at that point, she made her husband her business manager.[23] That Lass o' Lowrie's was published to good reviews, and the rights were sold for a British edition. Shortly after the publication of the book, she joined her husband in D.C., where she established a household and friends.[24] She continued to write, becoming known as a rising young novelist. Despite the difficulties of raising a family and settling into a new city, Burnett began work on Haworth's, which was published in 1879, as well as writing a dramatic interpretation of That Lass o' Lowrie's in response to a pirated stage version presented in London. After a visit to Boston in 1879, where she met Louisa May Alcott, and Mary Mapes Dodge, editor of children's magazine St. Nicholas, Burnett began to write children's fiction. For the next five years, she had published several short works in St. Nicholas. Burnett continued to write adult fiction as well: Louisiana was published in 1880; A Fair Barbarian in 1881; and Through One Administration in 1883.[2] She wrote the play Esmerelda in 1881 while staying at the "Logan House" inn near Lake Lure, North Carolina; it became the longest-running play on Broadway in the 19th century.[25] However, as had happened earlier in Knoxville, she felt the pressure of maintaining a household, caring for children and a husband, and keeping to her writing schedule, which caused exhaustion and depression.[24] Frances Hodgson Burnett, date unknown (1890–1910) Within a few years, Burnett became well known in Washington society and hosted a literary salon on Tuesday evenings, often attended by politicians, as well as local literati.[26] Swan's practice grew and had a good reputation, but his income lagged behind hers, so she believed she had to continue writing.[14] Unfortunately she was often ill and suffered from the heat of D.C., which she escaped whenever possible. In the early 1880s she became interested in Christian Science as well as Spiritualism and Theosophy. These beliefs would affect her later life as well as being incorporated into her later fiction.[2] She was a devoted mother and took great joy in her two sons. She doted on their appearance, continuing the practice of curling their long hair each day, which became the inspiration for Little Lord Fauntleroy.[14] In 1884, she began work on Little Lord Fauntleroy, with the serialization beginning in 1885 in St. Nicholas, and the publication in book form in 1886. Little Lord Fauntleroy received good reviews, became a bestseller in the United States and England, was translated into 12 languages and secured Burnett's reputation as a writer.[2] The story features a boy who dresses in elaborate velvet suits and wears his long hair in curls.[26] The central character, Cedric, was modeled on Burnett's younger son Vivian, and the autobiographical aspects of Little Lord Fauntleroy occasionally led to disparaging remarks from the press. After the publication of Little Lord Fauntleroy, Burnett's reputation as a writer of children's books was fully established. In 1888 she won a lawsuit in England over the dramatic rights to Little Lord Fauntleroy, establishing a precedent that was incorporated into British copyright law in 1911. In response to a second incident of pirating her material into a dramatic piece, she wrote The Real Little Lord Fauntleroy, which was produced on stage in London and on Broadway.[2] The play went on to make her as much money as the book.[26] Return to England[edit] In 1887, Burnett traveled to England for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, which became the first of yearly transatlantic trips from the United States to England.[2] Accompanied by her sons, she visited tourist attractions such as Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in London. In her rented rooms, she continued the Tuesday evening salon and soon attracted visitors, meeting Stephen Townsend for the first time. Despite her busy schedule, she felt ill from the heat and the crowds of tourists, spending protracted periods in bed.[27] With her sons, she moved on to spend the winter in Florence, where she wrote The Fortunes of Philippa Fairfax, the only book to be published in England but not in the United States.[27] That winter Sara Crewe or What Happened at Miss Minchin's was published in the United States.[28] She would go on to make Sara Crewe into a stage play, and later rewrite the story into A Little Princess.[2] In 1888, Burnett returned to Manchester, where she leased a large home off Cromwell Road, had it decorated, and then turned it over to cousins to run as a boarding house, after which she moved to London, where she again took rooms, enjoyed the London season, and prepared Phyllis for production, a stage adaptation of The Fortunes of Philippa Fairfax. When the play ran she was disappointed by the bad reviews and turned to socialize. During this period she began to see more of Stephen Townsend, whom she had met during the Jubilee year.[29] In December 1890, Burnett's elder son Lionel died from consumption in Paris, which greatly affected her life and her writing.[2] Burnett had sought a cure for her son from physicians, also taking him to Germany to visit spas.[30] Following his death, before she sank into a deep depression, she wrote in a letter to a friend that her writing was insignificant in comparison to having been the mother of two boys, one of whom died.[31] At this time she turned away from her traditional faith in the Church of England and embraced Spiritualism and Christian Science.[14] She returned to London, where she sought the distraction of charity work and formed the Drury Lane Boys' Club, hosting an opening in February 1892. Also during this period, she wrote a play with a starring role for Stephen Townsend in an attempt to establish his acting career.[32] After a two-year absence from her Washington, D.C. home, her husband, and her younger son, Burnett returned there in March 1892, where she continued charity work and began writing again.[33] In 1893, Burnett published an autobiography, devoted to her elder son, titled The One I Knew Best of All.[2] Also in that year, she had a set of her books displayed at the Chicago World Fair.[34] Divorce and move to Great Maytham Hall[edit] Burnett returned to London in 1894; there she heard the news that her younger son Vivian was ill, so she quickly went back to the United States. Vivian recovered from his illness, but missed his first term at Harvard University. Burnett stayed with him until he was well, then returned to London. At this time, she began to worry about her finances: she was paying for Vivian's education; keeping a house in Washington D.C. (Swan had moved out of the house to his own apartment); and keeping a home in London. As she had in the past, she turned to writing as a source of income and began to write A Lady of Quality.[35] A Lady of Quality, published in 1896, was to become the first of a series of successful adult historical novels, which was followed in 1899 with In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim; and in 1901 she had published The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst.[2] In 1898, when Vivian graduated from Harvard, she divorced Swan Burnett.[2] Officially, the cause for the divorce was given to be desertion, but in reality, Burnett and Swan had orchestrated the dissolution of their marriage some years earlier. Swan took his own apartment and ceased to live with Burnett so that after a period of two years she could plead desertion as a reason for the divorce. The press was critical, calling her a New Woman, with The Washington Post writing that the divorce resulted from Burnett's "advanced ideas regarding the duties of a wife and the rights of women".[36] From the mid-1890s, she lived in England at Great Maytham Hall—which had a large garden where she indulged her love for flowers—where she made her home for the next decade, although she continued annual transatlantic trips to the United States.[2] Maytham Hall resembled a feudal manor house which enchanted Burnett.[14] She socialized in the local villages and enjoyed the country life. She filled the house with guests and had Stephen Townsend move in with her, which the local vicar considered a scandal.[37] In February 1900 she married Townsend.[38] Remarriage and later life[edit] Frances Hodgson Burnett in 1901 The marriage took place in Genoa, Italy, and the couple went to Pegli for their honeymoon, where they endured two weeks of steady rain. Burnett's biographer Gretchen Gerzina writes of the marriage, "it was the biggest mistake of her life".[38] The press stressed the age difference—Townsend was ten years younger than she—and she referred to him as her secretary.[38] Biographer Ann Thwaite doubts Townsend loved Burnett, claiming that 50-year-old Burnett was "stout, rouged and unhealthy" - presuming that this would automatically impact the physical attraction - and believes Townsend needed Burnett to help with his acting career, and support him financially. Within months, in a letter to her sister, Burnett admitted the marriage was in trouble, describing Townsend as scarcely sane and hysterical. Thwaite argues that Townsend blackmailed Burnett into the marriage, and he just wanted her money and to be in control of her as a husband.[39] Unable to bear the thought of continuing to live with Townsend at Maytham, Burnett rented a house in London for the winter of 1900–1901. There she socialized with friends and wrote. She worked on two books simultaneously: The Shuttle, a longer and more complicated book; and The Making of a Marchioness, which she wrote in a few weeks and published to good reviews. In the spring of 1901, when she returned to the country, Townsend tried to replace her long-time publisher Scribner's with a publishing house offering a larger advance.[40] In the autumn of 1902, after a summer of socializing and filling Maytham with house-guests, she suffered a physical collapse. She returned to America, and in the winter of 1902 entered a sanatorium. There she told Townsend she would no longer live with him, and the marriage ended.[41] She returned to Maytham two years later in June 1904.[42] Maytham Hall had a series of walled gardens and in the rose garden she wrote several books; it was there she had the idea for The Secret Garden, mainly written at the manor house in Buile Hill Park while visiting Manchester.[43] In 1905 A Little Princess was published, after she had reworked the play into a novel.[2] Once again Burnett turned to writing to increase her income. She lived an extravagant lifestyle, spending money on expensive clothing.[14] It was reported in 1905 that Burnett was a semi-vegetarian. She had eliminated meat almost entirely from her diet.[44] In 1907, she returned permanently to the United States, having become a citizen in 1905, and built a home, completed in 1908, in the Plandome Park section of Plandome Manor on Long Island outside New York City. Her son Vivian was employed in the publishing business, and at his request, she agreed to be an editor for Children's Magazine. Over the next several years she had published in Children's Magazine several shorter works. In 1911 she had The Secret Garden published.[2] In her later years she maintained the summer home on Long Island, and a winter home in Bermuda.[14] The Lost Prince was published in 1915, and The Head of the House of Coombe and its sequel, Robin, were published in 1922.[2] Burnett lived for the last 17 years of her life in Plandome Manor,[45] where she died on 29 October 1924, aged 74.[2] She was buried in Roslyn Cemetery. Reception[edit] During the serialization of Little Lord Fauntleroy in St. Nicholas in 1885, readers looked forward to new installments. The fashions in the book became popular, with velvet Fauntleroy suits being sold; other Fauntleroy merchandise included velvet collars, playing cards, and chocolates.[26] Sentimental fiction was then the norm, and "rags to riches" stories were popular in the United States; in time, however, Little Lord Fauntleroy lost the popularity that The Secret Garden has retained.[46] Several of Burnett's novels for adults were also very popular in their day, according to the Publishers Weekly list of bestselling novels in the United States. A Lady of Quality was second in 1896, The Shuttle was fourth in 1907 and fifth in 1908, T. Tembarom was tenth in 1913 and sixth in 1914, and The Head of the House of Coombe was fourth in 1922.[47] Selected works[edit] Advertisement of Burnett's works The Secret Garden (1911) Source:[48] That Lass o' Lowrie's (1877)[49] Surly Tim (1877) Theo: A Sprightly Love Story (1877) Lindsay's Luck (1878) Haworth's (1879) Miss Crespigny (1879) Louisiana (1880) A Fair Barbarian (1881) Esmerelda (1881), with William Gillette[50] Through One Administration (1883) Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) Editha's Burglar: A Story for Children (1888) The Fortunes of Philippa Fairfax (1888) The Pretty Sister of José (1889) The Drury Lane Boys' Club (1892) The One I Knew the Best of All: A Memory of the Mind of a Child (1893) Little Saint Elizabeth, and Other Stories (1893)[51] Two Little Pilgrims' Progress. A Story of the City Beautiful (1895) A Lady of Quality (1896) In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim (1899) The Making of a Marchioness (1901), reprinted by Persephone Books The Land of the Blue Flower (1904) A Little Princess: Being the Whole Story of Sara Crewe Now Told for the First Time (1905) Queen Silver-Bell (1906) Racketty-Packetty House (1906) The Dawn of A To-morrow (1905) The Shuttle (1907), reprinted by Persephone Books in 2007 The Good Wolf (1908) The Secret Garden (1911) My Robin (1912)[52] T. Tembarom (1913)[53] The Lost Prince (1915) The Little Hunchback Zia (1916) The White People (1917) The Head of the House of Coombe (1922) Robin (1922) – sequel to The Head of the House of Coombe Citations[edit] ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 12–13 ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Rutherford 1994 ^ Thwaite 1991, p. 4 ^ Anon, City of Manchester commemorative plaques, Manchester City Council ^ Thwaite 1991, p. 8 ^ Thwaite 1991, p. 12 ^ Robin Bernstein, Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights, (New York: New York University Press, 2011), 69–71. See also Robin Bernstein, Children's Books, Dolls, and the Performance of Race; or, The Possibility of Children's Literature, PMLA 126.1: 160–169. ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 17–18 ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 20 ^ a b Gerzina 2004, p. 3 ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 24 ^ a b Jack Neely, "Frances Hodgson Burnett, the Knoxville Years," Knoxville Mercury, 18 November 2015. ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 6 ^ a b c d e f g h Hofstader 1971 ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 27–28 ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 30–31 ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 35 ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 25 ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 39–41 ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 53 ^ Thwaite 1991, p. 46 ^ a b Horvath 2004, p. xii ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 62–64 ^ a b Gerzina 2004, pp. 67–69 ^ James Robert Proctor (May 1999). "Pine Gables" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places – Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved 1 February 2015. ^ a b c d Horvath 2004, p. xi ^ a b Thwaite 1991, pp. 101–104 ^ Thwaite 1991, p. 105 ^ Thwaite 1991, pp. 122–123 ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 138 ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 142 ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 151–152 ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 158–160 ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 166 ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 171–176 ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 202 ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 205–207 ^ a b c Gerzina 2004, pp. 214–215 ^ Thwaite 1991, pp. 190–191 ^ Thwaite 1991, pp. 196–199 ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 229 ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 231 ^ "Buile Hill Park". Salford Borough Council. Retrieved 16 February 2012. ^ On Vegetarianism. The Hartford Republican (24 February 1905). ^ O'Connell, Pamela Licalzi. "Literature; 'The Secret Garden' Has Deep Island Roots", The New York Times, 8 August 2004. Accessed 11 November 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." ^ Horvath 2004, p. xiv ^ Hackett, Alice Payne and Burke, James Henry (1977). 80 Years of Bestsellers: 1895 – 1975. New York: R.R. Bowker Company. pp. 60, 71, 72, 78, 80, 93. ISBN 0-8352-0908-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 355–356. ^ "That Lass o' Lowrie's". digital.library.upenn.edu. ^ "Frances Hodgson Burnett – Biography and Works. Search Texts, Read Online. Discuss". www.online-literature.com. Retrieved 21 January 2021. ^ "Little Saint Elizabeth, and Other Stories". digital.library.upenn.edu. Retrieved 21 January 2021. ^ "My Robin". digital.library.upenn.edu. ^ Burnett, Frances Hodgson (1 February 2001). T. Tembarom – via Project Gutenberg. Explanatory notes[edit] ^ York Street was later renamed and became Cheetham Hill Road. The house, along with the other houses in the terrace, was demolished in the 1990s to make way for new development. ^ The house, which was extant when Thwaite's book was published in 1991, later became number 385 Cheetham Hill Road. Manchester City Council mounted a blue plaque on the front which read "Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924) Novelist and Authoress of 'Little Lord Fauntleroy' and many other works lived here (1852–1854)" The house was later demolished and the plaque is now on show at the Metropolitan University of Manchester.[4] General sources[edit] Gerzina, Gretchen (2004), Frances Hodgson Burnett: the unexpected life of the author of The Secret Garden, Rutgers University Press, ISBN 0-8135-3382-1 Hofstader, Beatrice (1971), "Burnett, Frances Hodgson", Notable American Women: 1607–1950, Cambridge: Harvard University Press Horvath, Polly (2004), "Foreword", Little Lord Fauntleroy, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 978-0-689-86994-5 Rutherford, L. M. (1994), "British Children's Writers 1880–1914", in Laura M. Zaldman (ed.), Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 141, Detroit: Gale Research Literature Resource Center (subscription required) Thwaite, Ann (1991), Waiting for the Party: The Life of Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1849–1924, David R. Godine, ISBN 978-0-87923-790-5 External links[edit] Wikisource has original works by or about:Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett Wikimedia Commons has media related to Frances Hodgson Burnett. Library resources about Frances Hodgson Burnett Online books Resources in your library Resources in other libraries By Frances Hodgson Burnett Online books Resources in your library Resources in other libraries Complete Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett including articles and short stories Works by Frances Hodgson Burnett in eBook form at Standard Ebooks Works by Frances Hodgson Burnett at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Frances Hodgson Burnett at Internet Archive Works by Frances Hodgson Burnett at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) Frances Hodgson Burnett at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database Little Lord Fauntleroy: Frances Hodgson Burnett victorian-era vteNovels by Frances Hodgson Burnett Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) A Lady of Quality (1896) The Making of a Marchioness (1901) A Little Princess (1905) Queen Silver-Bell (1906) The Shuttle (1907) The Secret Garden (1911) The Lost Prince (1915) The Head of the House of Coombe (1922) vteVictorian-era children's literatureAuthors Henry Cadwallader Adams R. M. Ballantyne Lucy Lyttelton Cameron Lewis Carroll Christabel Rose Coleridge Harry Collingwood E. E. Cowper Frank Cowper Maria Edgeworth Evelyn Everett-Green Juliana Horatia Ewing Frederic W. Farrar G. E. Farrow Agnes Giberne Anna Maria Hall L. T. Meade G. A. Henty Frances Hodgson Burnett Thomas Hughes Richard Jefferies Charles Kingsley W. H. G. Kingston Rudyard Kipling Andrew Lang Frederick Marryat George MacDonald Mary Louisa Molesworth Kirk Munroe E. Nesbit Frances Mary Peard Beatrix Potter William Brighty Rands Talbot Baines Reed Elizabeth Missing Sewell Anna Sewell Mary Martha Sherwood Flora Annie Steel Robert Louis Stevenson Hesba Stretton Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna Charlotte Maria Tucker Charlotte Mary Yonge Illustrators Eleanor Vere Boyle Gordon Browne Randolph Caldecott Thomas Crane Walter Crane George Cruikshank Thomas Dalziel (engraver) Richard Doyle H. H. Emmerson Edmund Evans (engraver) Kate Greenaway Sydney Prior Hall Edward Lear Harold Robert Millar Arthur Rackham J. G. Sowerby Millicent Sowerby John Tenniel Books List of 19th-century British children's literature titles Types Toy book Publishers Blackie & Son Marcus Ward & Co. Frederick Warne & Co vteFrances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret GardenFilm The Secret Garden (1919) The Secret Garden (1949) The Secret Garden (1993) The Secret Garden (2020) Television The Secret Garden (1975) The Secret Garden (1987) Anime Himitsu no Hanazono (1991) Other The Secret Garden (1989 musical) Back to the Secret Garden (2001 sequel movie) The Secret Garden (2013 opera) vteFrances Hodgson Burnett's Little Lord FauntleroyFilms Little Lord Fauntleroy (1914) Little Lord Fauntleroy (1921) The Last Lord (1926) Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936) Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980) Cedie (1996) TV series Little Lord Fauntleroy (1988) vteFrances Hodgson Burnett's A Little PrincessFilm A Little Princess (1917) The Little Princess (1939) A Little Princess (1995) Sarah... Ang Munting Prinsesa (1995) A Little Princess (1997) TV series A Little Princess (1973) Princess Sarah (1985) episodes A Little Princess (1986) Princess Sarah (2007) Shōkōjo Seira (2009) Other A Little Princess (musical) Authority control databases International FAST ISNI 2 VIAF National Norway Chile Spain France BnF data Argentina Catalonia Germany Italy Israel United States Sweden Latvia Japan Czech Republic Australia Greece 2 Korea 2 Croatia Netherlands Poland Portugal Russia Vatican Academics CiNii Artists MusicBrainz ULAN People Deutsche Biographie Trove Other SNAC IdRef
1 After that, appalling things happened, and the mysteriousness of the morning was explained to Mary. The cholera had broken out in its most fatal form and people were dying like flies. The Ayah had been taken ill in the night, and it was because she had just died that the servants had wailed in the huts. Before the next day three other servants were dead and others had run away in terror. There was panic on every side, and dying people in all the bungalows.
2 During the confusion and bewilderment of the second day Mary hid herself in the nursery and was forgotten by everyone. Nobody thought of her, nobody wanted her, and strange things happened of which she knew nothing. Mary alternately cried and slept through the hours. She only knew that people were ill and that she heard mysterious and frightening sounds. Once she crept into the dining-room and found it empty, though a partly finished meal was on the table and chairs and plates looked as if they had been hastily pushed back when the diners rose suddenly for some reason. The child ate some fruit and biscuits, and being thirsty she drank a glass of wine which stood nearly filled. It was sweet, and she did not know how strong it was. Very soon it made her intensely drowsy, and she went back to her nursery and shut herself in again, frightened by cries she heard in the huts and by the hurrying sound of feet. The wine made her so sleepy that she could scarcely keep her eyes open and she lay down on her bed and knew nothing more for a long time.
3 Many things happened during the hours in which she slept so heavily, but she was not disturbed by the wails and the sound of things being carried in and out of the bungalow.
4 When she awakened she lay and stared at the wall. The house was perfectly still. She had never known it to be so silent before. She heard neither voices nor footsteps, and wondered if everybody had got well of the cholera and all the trouble was over. She wondered also who would take care of her now her Ayah was dead. There would be a new Ayah, and perhaps she would know some new stories. Mary had been rather tired of the old ones. She did not cry because her nurse had died. She was not an affectionate child and had never cared much for any one. The noise and hurrying about and wailing over the cholera had frightened her, and she had been angry because no one seemed to remember that she was alive. Everyone was too panic-stricken to think of a little girl no one was fond of. When people had the cholera it seemed that they remembered nothing but themselves. But if everyone had got well again, surely some one would remember and come to look for her.
5 But no one came, and as she lay waiting the house seemed to grow more and more silent. She heard something rustling on the matting and when she looked down she saw a little snake gliding along and watching her with eyes like jewels. She was not frightened, because he was a harmless little thing who would not hurt her and he seemed in a hurry to get out of the room. He slipped under the door as she watched him.
6 "How queer and quiet it is," she said. "It sounds as if there were no one in the bungalow but me and the snake."
7 Almost the next minute she heard footsteps in the compound, and then on the veranda. They were men's footsteps, and the men entered the bungalow and talked in low voices. No one went to meet or speak to them and they seemed to open doors and look into rooms. "What desolation!" she heard one voice say. "That pretty, pretty woman! I suppose the child, too. I heard there was a child, though no one ever saw her."
8 Mary was standing in the middle of the nursery when they opened the door a few minutes later. She looked an ugly, cross little thing and was frowning because she was beginning to be hungry and feel disgracefully neglected. The first man who came in was a large officer she had once seen talking to her father. He looked tired and troubled, but when he saw her he was so startled that he almost jumped back.
9 "Barney!" he cried out. "There is a child here! A child alone! In a place like this! Mercy on us, who is she!"
10 "I am Mary Lennox," the little girl said, drawing herself up stiffly. She thought the man was very rude to call her father's bungalow "A place like this!" "I fell asleep when everyone had the cholera and I have only just wakened up. Why does nobody come?"
11 "It is the child no one ever saw!" exclaimed the man, turning to his companions. "She has actually been forgotten!"
12 "Why was I forgotten?" Mary said, stamping her foot. "Why does nobody come?"
13 The young man whose name was Barney looked at her very sadly. Mary even thought she saw him wink his eyes as if to wink tears away.
14 "Poor little kid!" he said. "There is nobody left to come."
15 It was in that strange and sudden way that Mary found out that she had neither father nor mother left; that they had died and been carried away in the night, and that the few native servants who had not died also had left the house as quickly as they could get out of it, none of them even remembering that there was a Missie Sahib. That was why the place was so quiet. It was true that there was no one in the bungalow but herself and the little rustling snake.

Current Page: 1

GRADE:4

Word Lists:

Bungalow : a low house, with a broad front porch, having either no upper floor or upper rooms set in the roof, typically with dormer windows.

Disgracefully :

Nursery : a room in a house for the special use of young children.

Bewilderment : a feeling of being perplexed and confused

Wail : a prolonged high-pitched cry of pain, grief, or anger

Veranda : a roofed platform along the outside of a house, level with the ground floor

Drowsy : sleepy and lethargic; half asleep

Appalling : causing shock or dismay; horrific

Frightened : afraid or anxious

Desolation : a state of complete emptiness or destruction

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Additional Information:

Rating: A Words in the Passage: 1018 Unique Words: 354 Sentences: 70
Noun: 194 Conjunction: 126 Adverb: 84 Interjection: 0
Adjective: 69 Pronoun: 128 Verb: 217 Preposition: 80
Letter Count: 4,211 Sentiment: Positive Tone: Conversational Difficult Words: 135
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