the secret garden

The Secret Garden

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The Secret Garden 

1911 edition cover

Author(s)         Frances Hodgson Burnett

Country           United States /United Kingdom

Language        English

Genre(s)          Children's novel

Publisher         Frederick A. Stokes (US)

Heinemann (UK)

Publication date         1911

Media type     Print (Hardback & Paperback)

Pages  234

The Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was initially published in serial format starting in autumn 1910; the book was first published in its entirety in 1911.

Its working title was Mistress Mary, in reference to the English nursery rhyme Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary. It is now one of Burnett's most popular novels, and is considered to be a classic of children's literature.

Contents

•1 Major themes

•2 Publication history

•3 Public reception

•4 Dramatic adaptations

•5 Sequels

•6 References

•7 External links

Major themes

The author, Frances Hodgson Burnett, was a practitioner of Christian Science due to the premature death of her son as well as personal illness.

Great Maytham Hall Garden, Kent, England, provided the inspiration for The Secret Garden

The garden is the book's central symbol. The secret garden at Misselthwaite Manor is the site of both the near-destruction and the subsequent regeneration of a family.Using the garden motif, Burnett explores the healing power inherent in living things.

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 besides the garden, Maytham Hall and Misselthwaite Manor are physically very different.

Publication history

The Secret Garden was first serialized, starting in autumn 1910, in The American Magazine, a publication aimed at adults. The entire book was first published in the summer 1911 by Frederick A. Stokes in New York, and by 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 during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Public reception

Marketing to both adult and juvenile audiences may have had an effect on its early reception; the book was not as celebrated as Burnett's previous works during her lifetime.[4]

The Secret Garden paled in comparison to the popularity of Burnett's other works for a long period. 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 steadily risen to prominence, and is now one of Burnett's best-known works. The book is often noted as one of the best children's books of the twentieth century.

Dramatic adaptations

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 lost.

In 1949, MGM filmed the second adaptation with Margaret O'Brien. This version was mostly in black-and-white, but the sequences set in the restored garden were filmed in Technicolor.

Dorothea Brooking adapted the book into several different television serials for the BBC: an eight-part serial in 1952, a eight-part serial in 1960 (starring Colin Spaull as Dickon), and a seven-part serial in 1975.

In 1987, Hallmark Hall of Fame filmed a TV adaptation of the novel starring Gennie James as Mary, Barret Oliver as Dickon, and Jadrien Steele as Colin. Billie Whitelaw as Mrs Medlock 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.

American Zoetrope's 1993 production was directed by Agnieszka Holland and starred Kate Maberly as Mary, Heydon Prowse as Colin, Andrew Knott as Dickon and Dame Maggie Smith as Mrs. Medlock.

Stage adaptations of the book have also been created. One notable adaptation is a musical with music by Lucy Simon and book and lyrics by Marsha Norman, which opened on Broadway in 1991. The production was nominated for seven Tony Awards, winning Best Book of a Musical and Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Daisy Eagan as Mary, at eleven years old is the youngest girl ever to win a Tony, Frankie Michaels is the youngest person to ever win a Tony at age ten for his performance in the Broadway musical Mame in 1966).Sequels

Noel Streatfeild's 1949 novel The Painted Garden (U.S. title Movie Shoes) has as its central story the filming of The Secret Garden in Hollywood. A novel about the adult lives of Mary, Colin, and Dickon was written by Susan Moody in 1995 and published under two different titles: Misselthwaite: The Sequel To The Secret Garden and Return To The Secret Garden. The New York Times also published a brief parodical sequel in 1995. A different sequel novel, Till All the Seas Run Dry, was written by Susan Webb and published in 1998.

A 2000 sequel, Return to the Secret Garden, was directed by Scott Featherstone and won the Director's Gold Award at the 2001 Santa Clarita International Film Festival.

In 2001, the TV movie Back To The Secret Garden, directed by Michael Tuchner, shows Mary and Colin as married adults who have made Misselthwaite Manor into a shelter for orphans. It stars Joan Plowright as Martha and George Baker as Will Weatherstaff (a younger relative of Ben Weatherstaff), with Camilla Belle as an American.