The Secret Garden
The Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in book form in 1911, after serialization in The American Magazine. Set in England, it is one of Burnett's most popular novels and seen as a classic of English children's literature. Several stage and film adaptations have been made. The American edition was published by the Frederick A. Stokes Company with illustrations by Maria Louise Kirk, and the British edition by Heinemann with illustrations by Charles Heath Robinson.
Plot summary
At the turn of the 20th century, Mary Lennox is a sickly, neglected, unloved 10-year-old girl, born in India to wealthy British parents who never wanted her and made an effort to ignore the girl. She is cared for primarily by native servants, who allow her to become spoiled, aggressive and self-centred. After a cholera epidemic kills Mary's parents and the few surviving servants flee the house, Mary awakes to find herself alone. She is discovered by British soldiers who place her in the care of an English clergyman, whose children taunt her by calling her "Mistress Mary, quite contrary". However, this is only temporary: she is soon sent to England, to live with her wealthy hunchbacked uncle Archibald Craven at his isolated mansion Misselthwaite Manor on the Yorkshire Moors.At first, Mary is as obnoxious and sour as ever. She dislikes her new home, the people living in it, and most of all, the bleak moor on which it sits. She only begins to like a good-natured maid named Martha Sowerby, who tells Mary about Mary's aunt, the late Lilias Craven, who would spend hours in a private walled garden growing roses. Mrs Craven died after an accident in the garden, and the devastated Mr Craven locked the garden and buried the key. Mary becomes interested in finding the secret garden herself, and her ill manners begin to soften as a result. Soon she comes to enjoy the company of Martha, the gardener Ben Weatherstaff, and a friendly robin redbreast. Her health and attitude improve with the bracing Yorkshire air, and she grows stronger as she explores the moor and plays with a skipping rope that Mrs Sowerby buys for her. Mary wonders about the secret garden and about some mysterious cries that echo through the house at night.
As Mary explores the gardens, her robin draws her attention to an area of disturbed soil. Here Mary finds the key to the locked garden, and eventually she discovers the door to the garden. She asks Martha for garden tools, which Martha sends with Dickon, her 12-year-old brother, who spends most of his time out on the moors. Mary and Dickon take a liking to each other, as Dickon has a kind way with animals and a good nature. Eager to absorb his gardening knowledge, Mary tells him about the secret garden.
One night, Mary hears the cries once more and decides to follow them through the house. She is startled to find a boy of her age named Colin, who lives in a hidden bedroom. She soon discovers that they are cousins, Colin being the son of Mr and Mrs Craven, and that he suffers from an unspecified spinal problem which precludes him from walking and causes him to spend most of his time in bed. He, like Mary, has grown spoiled and self-centred, with the servants obeying his every whim in order to prevent the frightening hysterical tantrums Colin occasionally flies into. Mary visits him every day that week, distracting him from his troubles with stories of the moor, Dickon and his animals, and the secret garden. Mary finally confides that she has access to the secret garden, and Colin asks to see it. Colin is put into his wheelchair and brought outside into the secret garden. It is the first time he has been outdoors for several years.
While in the garden, the children look up to see Ben Weatherstaff looking over the wall on a ladder. Startled and angry to find the children in the secret garden, he admits that he believed Colin to be a cripple. Furious at being called crippled, Colin stands up from his chair and finds that his legs are fine, though weak from long disuse. Colin and Mary soon spend almost every day in the garden, sometimes with Dickon as company. The children and Ben conspire to keep Colin's recovering health a secret from the other staff, so as to surprise his father, who is travelling abroad. As Colin's health improves, his father experiences a coinciding increase in spirits, culminating in a dream where his late wife calls to him from inside the garden. When he receives a letter from Mrs Sowerby, he takes the opportunity finally to return home. He walks the outer garden wall in his wife's memory, but hears voices inside, finds the door unlocked, and is shocked to see the garden in full bloom, and his son healthy, having just won a race against Mary. The children tell him the story, and the servants watch, stunned, as Mr Craven and Colin walk back to the manor together.
Rejuvenation theme
The secret garden at Misselthwaite Manor is the site of both the near-destruction and the subsequent regeneration of a family. Another theme is the way a thing that is neglected withers and dies, but when it is worked on and cared for, it thrives, as Mary and Colin do.Background
The book's working title was Mistress Mary, a reference to the English nursery rhyme Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary. Parts of it were written during Burnett's visits to Buile Hill Park, Maytham Hall in Kent, England, where Burnett lived for a number of years during her marriage, is often cited as the inspiration for the book's setting. Burnett kept an extensive garden, including an impressive rose garden. However, it has been noted that apart from the garden, Maytham Hall and Misselthwaite Manor are physically very different.Publication history
The Secret Garden was first serialised in ten issues of The American Magazine, with illustrations by J. Scott Williams. It was first published in book form in August 1911 by the Frederick A. Stokes Company in New York; it was also published that year by William Heinemann in London. Its copyright expired in the United States in 1987, and in most other parts of the world in 1995, placing the book in the public domain. As a result, several abridged and unabridged editions were published in the late 1980s and early 1990s, such as a full-colour illustrated edition from David R. Godine, Publisher in 1989.Inga Moore's abridged edition of 2008, illustrated by her, is arranged so that a line of the text also serves as a caption to a picture.
Public reception
Marketing to both adult and juvenile audiences may have had an effect on its early reception; the book was far from so celebrated as Burnett's previous works during her lifetime. Tracing the book's revival from almost complete eclipse at the time of Burnett's death in 1924, Anne H. Lundin noted that the author's obituary notices all remarked on Little Lord Fauntleroy and passed over The Secret Garden in silence.With the rise of scholarly work in children's literature over the past quarter-century, The Secret Garden has risen steadily in prominence. It is often noted as one of the best children's books of the 20th century. In 2003 it ranked No. 51 in The Big Read, a survey of the British public by the BBC to identify the "Nation's Best-loved Novel". Based on a 2007 online poll, the U.S. National Education Association named it one of "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children". In 2012 it was ranked No. 15 among all-time children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal, a monthly with a primarily US audience. Jeffrey Masson considers The Secret Garden "one of the greatest books ever written for children". In an oblique compliment, Barbara Sleigh has her title character reading The Secret Garden on the train at the beginning of her children's novel Jessamy.
Adaptations
Film
The first filmed version was made in 1919 by the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, with 17-year-old Lila Lee as Mary and Paul Willis as Dickon, but the film is thought to be lost.In 1949, MGM filmed the second adaptation with Margaret O'Brien as Mary, Dean Stockwell as Colin and Brian Roper as Dickon. This version was mainly black-and-white, with the sequences set in the restored garden filmed in Technicolor. Noel Streatfeild's 1948 novel The Painted Garden deals with the making of this film.
American Zoetrope's 1993 production was directed by Agnieszka Holland, with a screenplay by Caroline Thompson, and starred Kate Maberly as Mary, Heydon Prowse as Colin, Andrew Knott as Dickon, John Lynch as Lord Craven and Dame Maggie Smith as Mrs Medlock. The executive producer was Francis Ford Coppola.
The 2020 film version from Heyday Films and StudioCanal is directed by Marc Munden with a screenplay by Jack Thorne.
Television
adapted the book as several different television serials for the BBC: an eight-part serial in 1952, an eight-part serial in 1960, and a seven-part serial broadcast in 1975.Hallmark Hall of Fame filmed a TV adaptation of the novel in 1987, starring Gennie James as Mary, Barret Oliver as Dickon, and Jadrien Steele as Colin. Billie Whitelaw appeared as Mrs Medlock and Derek Jacobi played the role of Archibald Craven, with Alison Doody appearing in flashbacks and visions as Lilias; Colin Firth made a brief appearance as the adult Colin Craven. The story was changed slightly, with Colin's father, instead of being Mary's uncle, being an old friend of Mary's father, allowing Colin and Mary to start a relationship as adults by the film's end. It was filmed at Highclere Castle, which later became known as the filming location for Downton Abbey.
A 1994 animated adaptation as an ABC Weekend Special starred Honor Blackman as Mrs. Medlock, Derek Jacobi as Archibald Craven, Glynis Johns as Darjeeling, Victor Spinetti, Anndi McAfee as Mary Lennox, Joe Baker as Ben Weatherstaff, Felix Bell as Dickon Sowerby, Naomi Bell as Martha Sowerby, Richard Stuart as Colin Craven, and Frank Welker as Robin. This version was released on video in 1995 by ABC Video.
In Japan, NHK produced and broadcast an anime adaptation of the novel in 1991–1992 titled Anime Himitsu no Hanazono. Miina Tominaga contributed the voice of Mary, while Mayumi Tanaka voiced Colin. The 39-episode TV series was directed by Tameo Kohanawa and written by Kaoru Umeno. Based on the title, this anime is sometimes mistakenly assumed to be related to the popular dorama series Himitsu no Hanazono. Unavailable in the English language, it has been dubbed into several other languages including Spanish, Italian, Polish and Tagalog.
Theatre
Stage adaptations of the book have been created. A Theatre for Young Audiences version was written in 1991 by Pamela Sterling of Arizona State University. This won an American Alliance for Theater and Education "Distinguished New Play" award and is listed in ASSITEH/USA's International Bibliography of Outstanding Plays for Young Audiences. In 1991, a musical version opened on Broadway, with music by Lucy Simon, and book and lyrics by Marsha Norman. The production was nominated for seven Tony Awards, winning Best Book of a Musical and Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Daisy Eagan as Mary, then eleven years old. In 2013 an opera by the American composer Nolan Gasser, which had been commissioned by the San Francisco Opera, was first performed at the Zellerbach Hall at the University of California, Berkeley.A stage play by Jessica Swale adapted from the novel was performed at Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre in Chester in 2014. In 2020, the Scottish family theatre company Red Bridge Arts produced a retelling of the story set in modern-day Scotland, adapted by Rosalind Sydney.