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 (November 1910 – August 1911). 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 (signed as M. L. Kirk), and the British edition by Heinemann
with illustrations by Charles Heath
Robinson.[1][4]
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-centered. After a cholera epidemic kills her parents and the servants, Mary is
discovered alive but alone in the empty house. She briefly lives with an
English clergyman and his family in India before she is sent to Yorkshire, in England, to live with Archibald Craven, a wealthy,
hunchbacked uncle whom she has never met, at his isolated moorland house,
Misselthwaite Manor.
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 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. 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. 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 sees 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 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.[5] 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,[6] 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.[7] 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.[7]
Publication history
The
Secret Garden was first serialised in ten issues
(November 1910 – August 1911) of The American Magazine, with illustrations by J. Scott Williams.[8] It was first published in book form in August 1911 by the Frederick A. Stokes
Company in New York;[9]
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.[10] 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.[11]
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.[10] 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" (not
just children's novel).[12] Based on a 2007 online poll, the U.S. National Education
Association named it one of "Teachers' Top
100 Books for Children".[13] 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.[14] (A Little Princess was ranked number 56 and Little
Lord Fauntleroy did not make the Top 100.)[14] Jeffrey Masson considers The Secret Garden "one of the
greatest books ever written for children".[15] 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.[16]
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.[17]
Television
Dorothea
Brooking adapted the book as several
different television serials for the BBC: an eight-part serial in 1952, an
eight-part serial in 1960 (starring Colin
Spaull as Dickon), and a seven-part serial broadcast in 1975 also on DVD.[18]
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.[19][20]
In
Japan, NHK produced and broadcast an anime adaptation of the novel in 1991–1992 titled Anime Himitsu no Hanazono (アニメ
ひみつの花園). 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.[21] 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,
premiered 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.[22] In 2020, the Scottish family theatre company Red Bridge
Arts produced a contemporary telling of the story set in modern-day Scotland,
adapted by Rosalind Sydney.[23]
Other
A
multimedia web series adaptation of the novel titled The Misselthwaite
Archives was released on YouTube in 2015. The series consisted of 40 episodes, which aired
from January through October, as well as fictional letters, emails, text messages,
social media accounts, and other documents about the characters.[24][25]
References
· The Secret Garden
title listing at the Internet Speculative
Fiction Database. Retrieved 18 March 2017.
· · The Secret Garden (first edition). Library of Congress Online Catalog. LCCN
Permalink (lccn.loc.gov). Retrieved 2017-03-24. The catalog record reports 4
leaves of plates, 4 color illustrations (uncredited).
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