The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a magical novel for adults & children alike
'I've stolen
...
' It was the garden that did it
- & Mary & Dickon & the creatures
- & the Magic.' An orphaned girl, a grim moorland manor with hundreds of empty rooms, strange cries in the night, a walled garden, with its door locked & the key buried
- & a boy who talks to animals. These are the ingredients of one of the most famous & well-loved of children's classics. Through her discovery of the secret garden, Mary Lennox is gradually transformed from a spoilt & unhappy child into a healthy, unselfish girl who in turn redeems her neglected cousin & his gloomy, Byronic father. Frances Hodgson Burnett's inspiring story of regeneration & salvation gently subverted the conventions of a century of romantic & gothic fiction for girls. After a hundred years, The Secret Garden's critique of empire & of attitudes to childhood & gender, & its advocacy of a holistic approach to health remains remarkably contemporary & relevant.