The Secret Garden
Frances Hodgson-Burnett
The reception of the book
• While The Secret Garden is now catalogued as
Children's Literature, it was originally serialised in
a magazine for adults before being published in
its entirety in 1911.
• Marketed to both young and adult readers, it had
lukewarm success and became little more than a
footnote in Burnett's prolific career.
• Her other novels, such as (Sara Crewe) or A Little
Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy, were far more
popular at the time of her death in 1924.
Childhood
• The 1900s introduced what Reynolds (2011)
terms, a ‘spate of lively girl characters’
• The girls may have had their own stories, but
they included particular ideas about girls.
• This session will conclude by looking at ‘Anne’
from Anne of Green Gables (1908) – to
consider how ‘Mary’ is very different to such
girls as ‘Anne’, ‘Pollyanna’ and ‘Rebecca’
(Sunnybrook Farm).
Nature
• From the beginning of
the 20th Century, Anglo
–American books for
children depicted
childhood as associated
with nature.
• Dickon is the
embodiment of ‘Pan’
and Rousseau’s ‘Emile’.
• The desire to gain entry
into the garden is
somewhat Edenic,
except that the garden
in question has been
responsible for Mrs
Craven’s death.
Looking for the Garden
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz1ksanKbE&list=PL574F732B785C442C
The Gothic
• The novel does not always offer comfortable
ideas about childhood and nature.
• The ‘queer’ and the ‘sick’ combine to produce
‘secrets’. This suggest connections with earlier
novels about childhood – like Jane Eyre and
Estella in Great Expectations.
• These secrets are about parentage,
inheritance and secret rooms.
Collin
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZKBRF1rY
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A feminist text?
• It has been argued that this novel is an
example of feminist children’s literature,
Carroll (2011) because Mary is able to
influence events.
• She is also headstrong and given freedom.
• But there is the question of the ending of the
novel.
Collin is able to walk
• There is no explanation of his illness – but,
there is the suggestion that the power of
nature has cured him.
• The time between Mary finding the garden
and Collin’s return to health is nine months.
• The garden is a symbol of the mother, but the
restoration of the Craven lineage is about the
father. Why do you think this happens?
Class and restoration
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v66HanUv
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