Frances Hodgson Burnett was a late nineteenth century British writer known for her children’s books. In her day the best known by far was Little Lord Fauntleroy but we perhaps know her best today for The Secret Garden. My favourite, as a child, was The Little Princess. Ann Thwaite’s biography of the author, Beyond the Secret Garden, tells the story of her life and shows us why so much of her writing had themes of the reversal of fortune. It’s a readable and interesting book which I enjoyed a lot.
Frances was born in the UK but her family found it difficult to cope financially, especially after the death of her father, and so they moved to the United States to be near to distant relatives. Life in America wasn’t always easy either and the family was near to destitution on more than one occasion. Frances turned to writing to bring in money and was immediately successful. She kept writing all her life as she was frightened of losing her money and she also supported other relatives. Her story reminds me a little of that of Louisa M Alcott(read here for a review of an excellent biography I read of hers) who also wrote to support a family after a difficult childhood.
Frances ended up dividing her time between America and the UK and crossed the Atlantic at least 30 times which was quite an achievement in the nineteenth century. She experienced the usual copyright issues which affected all writers at the time and was influential in new legislation being brought in to protect books. She made an unfortunate marriage and had to cope with the difficulties of fame as well as the tragic death of her son. She was exceedingly generous with her wealth and was fond of buying new houses to live in.
This is an interesting book about an interesting woman. It does not assume that you have read her books (I have only read two) and it talks about other works which are much less well known than her children’s stories. If you like a good biography of a writer than you will enjoy this book. I would have liked the book (I read a paperback copy) to have some photos in it though – there were no illustrations at all.
Anne Is Reading 