Readings Classics: The Secret Garden

Description

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a magical novel for adults and children alike

‘I’ve stolen a garden,’ she said very fast. ‘It isn’t mine. It isn’t anybody’s. Nobody wants it, nobody cares for it, nobody ever goes into it. Perhaps everything is dead in it already; I don’t know.’

After losing her parents, young Mary Lennox is sent from India to live in her uncle’s gloomy mansion on the wild English moors. She is lonely and has no one to play with, but one day she learns of a secret garden somewhere in the grounds that no one is allowed to enter. Then Mary uncovers an old key in a flowerbed – and a gust of magic leads her to the hidden door. Slowly she turns the key and enters a world she could never have imagined.

Author Biography

Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924) was born in Manchester, England, but moved to America as a teenager. “Little Lord Fauntleroy” was published in 1886 and was dramatized during Burnett’s lifetime. The story lives on today in videos and movies. Though she began writing novels for adults, she gained lasting success writing for children. She is best known for “Little Lord Fauntleroy, A Little Princess” (1905), and “The Secret Garden” (1911).