FOR FURTHER READING

Biography

 

Burnett, Constance Buel. Happily Ever After: A Portrait of Frances Hodgson Burnett. New York: Vanguard Press, 1965.

Burnett, Frances Hodgson. The One I Knew Best of All: A Memory of the Mind of a Child. London: Frederick Warne, 1893. Burnett’s memoir of her Victorian childhood, her early years in America, and her beginnings as a writer.

Burnett, Vivian. The Romantick Lady: The Life Story of an Imagination. New York: Scribner, 1927. An affectionate memoir by Burnett’s son.

Gerzina, Gretchen Holbrook. Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Unexpected Life of the Author of The Secret Garden. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004. The definitive biography, superbly researched.

Laski, Marghanita. Mrs. Ewing, Mrs. Molesworth, and Mrs. Hodgson Burnett. Edited by Hebert van Thai. London: Arthur Barker, 1950.

Thwaite, Ann. Waiting for the Party:The Life of Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1849-1924. New York: Scribner, 1974.

 

 

 

General Background

 

Brooke, Avery, and Madeleine L’Engle. Trailing Clouds of Glory: Spiritual Values in Children’s Books. Westminster, MD: Westminster Press, 1985.

Carpenter, Humphrey. Secret Gardens: A Study of the Golden Age of Children’s Literature. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1985. Refers only briefly to The Secret Garden but places it in an important context of other classic children’s writings with pastoral and arcadian themes, such as The Wind in the Willows and Peter Pan.

 

 

 

Critical Studies

 

 

Bixler, Phyllis. The Secret Garden: Nature’s Magic. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996. A discussion of major themes in Burnett’s novel, and a summary of critical responses.

. Frances Hodgson Burnett. Twayne’s English Authors series. Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers, 1984. An introduction to the full range of Burnett’s writings for both children and adults.

 

 

 

For Young Adults

 

Carpenter, Angelica Shirley, and Joan Shirley. Frances Hodgson Burnett: Beyond the Secret Garden. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 1990. A well-illustrated, engagingly written introduction to Burnett’s life and work.

 

 

 

Other Works Cited in the Introduction

 

 

Burnett, Frances Hodgson. In the Garden. Boston and New York: Medici Society of America, 1925.

The Land of the Blue Flower. New York: Moffat, Yard, 1909.

James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience. 1902. New York: Triumph Books, 1991.

Lurie, Alison. “Introduction.” In The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. New York: Penguin Books, 1999.

Price, Danielle E. “Cultivating Mary: The Victorian Secret Garden.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 26:1 (2001), pp. 4-14.