Reading the Classics: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The book:
Initially this book was published as a serial in The American Magazine beginning in 1910. Already in 1911 however it was published in book form in both the United States and the UK. The initial publication in the magazine was apparently aimed at adults, and it was not as popular as some of the author’s earlier works. Only after children’s literature in general became popular during the past 50 years or so did it start to receive some notice, and these days it is often considered one of the best children’s classics of the world.
The author:
Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett was born in 1849 in England, and after her father died the family emigrated to The United States in 1865, where they settled in Tennessee. When she was 19 Hodgson started publishing stories in magazines in order to help with the bills at home. in 1872 she married and the couple moved to Paris, where they lived for two years. After this they moved back to the states and lived in Washington D.C. Here she began writing novels, and these were well received in the public. In the 1890s she bought a home in England and that was where she wrote “The Secret Garden.” She suffered from depression for most of her life, and when her oldest son died from tuberculosis in 1890 she experienced a relapse. In 1898 she divorced her husband, married her second husband in 1900 and divorced him in 1902. She settled in Long Island, where she died in 1924.
Review:
I think almost everyone knows the basic plot of this book, but in case you don’t, here it is. We follow Mary, a young British girl living in India, I assume around the beginning of the 20th century. When her parents die, she is sent back to England to live with her uncle. When she arrives she finds the uncle to be an absent man consumed with grieving his dead wife. Mary is left to entertain herself and at first she is very put out and negative about the whole ordeal, but when she finds a secret garden and decides to take care of it she slowly becomes more positive and starts making friends in her new home.
Before I read this book I did watch a movie adaptation of it and as it pretty much followed the plot exactly there were no real surprises. There were a number of places where the story dragged out, and I think I would have felt the same even if I hadn’t watched the movie. There was just a lot of talk about the garden and the flowers and the moor and digging and weeding and so on. This is a children’s book and I feel like children would have found it more interesting (if they could get trough all the garden talk), because the “mystery” of the book was very quick to unravel and it wasn’t really used a whole lot in he plot. There was also a bit of religious talk, which I am never a fan of.
I gave this book 2,5 stars out of 5.
Is it still a classic to me?
Like I said, this is a children’s book, and it’s an okay story, but I do think it’s for rather older children, simply because it does drag a bit. It does have some nice messages about being nice to other people and animals, but again I’m not a fan of the religious bits.
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