The Secret Garden

On October 29, 1924, England and America’s bestselling children’s book writer died in New York. After leaving her native land, she lived for years in the United States, and a New York Times obituary mourned the passing of this beloved figure. She was, by way of an easy comparison, the J.K. Rowling of her day; she was read with equal enthusiasm by adults and children. Her works had been successfully adapted for theater and for a then-new media, motion pictures.

She is still, today, a household name—but not for the books mentioned in that obituary. Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic works, The Secret Garden and The Little Princess, were considered of minor importance in her lifetime, but long ago people stopped reading what her contemporaries felt to be her masterpiece, Little Lord Fauntleroy. Her story reminds us that many of our literary classics were not as successful during the author’s lifetime as they became after his or her death.

Sometimes called the first modern novel for children, The Secret Garden features two sickly, unlikable protagonists. However, in the process of the narrative, Colin Craven and Mary Lennox undergo personal transformations, as they set out to revive a languishing garden in Misselthwaite Manor. The author excelled in the telling detail. A gardener could learn how to prune roses from the book! In fact, Burnett once said, “It is not enough to mention they have tea, you must specify the muffins.”

In Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children’s Book, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Katherine Paterson writes about the sense of wonder she feels when she reads The Secret Garden: “that a shriveled brown bulb can produce a tulip, that dead sticks can give birth to roses, and that even people shriveled by illness and deadened by grief can still blossom. Her book helped me to see the miracle of new life bursting forth from apparent death.” Recently, an eleven-year-old Texan girl told me that The Secret Garden was her favorite book because it showed her that no matter how hurt or damaged a child has become, she can still be healed. Both of these comments cut to the heart of this timeless and magnificent story.

Next to my desk I keep a first edition of The Secret Garden. It was purchased by my mother’s great aunt, born in 1865 at the end of the Civil War. She read it and passed it on to my mother, who gave it to me. When I look at the book, I am connected to all the members of my family back to the time of the Civil War. To me The Secret Garden demonstrates how great children’s books transcend history and bring generations together. I have read this amazing story every few years throughout my life, and each time I find different meaning. No matter what Frances Hodgson Burnett’s contemporaries thought, I believe The Secret Garden, over one hundred years old, stands as one of the greatest children’s books of all times.

Here’s a passage from The Secret Garden: