The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Jan 1911 · Gramercy

About this ebook

Since its publication in 1911, The Secret Garden, a touchstone of children’s literature, has been adapted for plays and movies over a dozen times. Charming generations of readers, the story centers around the healing power of friendship, and the magic in the everyday. Burnett begins with a spoiled and unsympathetic heroine named Mary Lennox. When Mary is orphaned, she is shipped from her home in colonial India to a drab country house in Yorkshire. As she learns to tend the garden on the estate, Mary forms her first true friendships; when they bring a secret garden back to life, Mary and her friends are also transformed.

Ratings and reviews

This was so magical bec it shows how people change. You can influence someone by just loving them and showing them how you live your own life. I really loved this book bec Mary changed herself in little ways, and that influenced Colin to change his mind too. It does get a little slow in the last couple of chapters, but the ending was so great that it makes up for slowness at the end. I loved this book more than I thought I would.

What a wonderful, enlightening story of how "magic" is all around us if only you believe it is real. Have a bit of faith, and find yourself transformed... anything is possible with positive thinking.

The Secret Garden is a happily old-fashioned book. In it, a spoiled, miserable young girl, who has been neglected by her narcissistic mother, learns about nature and the pleasure of being a decent human being. At the same time, a young boy, equally neglected, learns to give up being a selfish, hysterical invalid and become a vigorous, loyal, normal, boy. As in the Harry Potter books, The Secret Garden frankly portrays adults as morally varied -- some are open-hearted, intelligent and loving Others are selfish and narrow minded. The author portrays parents as capable of putting their own whims and needs ahead of their children's lives, although the third child's mother is portrayed as warm, loving, and self-sacrificing for her children. The father of the boy is plainly suffering from a chronic depression that has made him entirely self-centered in his misery. The book reminded me of the turn of the century belief in a healthy outdoor life as being good for body and mind. Theordore Roosevelt is said to have transformed himself from a sickly invalid into a vigorous man by embracing a challenging experience

About the author

An immensely prolific author, Frances Hodgson Burnett was born in Manchester in 1849. Burnett’s family immigrated to the United States when she was a teenager, and from the age of 18, she helped support her family with her writing. She published more than two dozen books, and many were adapted into plays. Her memories of her childhood in England were her inspiration for some of the most vivid titles in children’s literature, including Little Lord Fauntleroy, A Little Princess, and The Secret Garden.