The Secret Garden: Difference between revisions

The Secret Garden

1911 edition cover
Author	Frances Hodgson Burnett
Language	English
Genre	Children's novel
Publisher	William Heinemann
Publication date	1909
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN	NA

The Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, first published in 1909. It is one of Burnett's most popular novels, and is now considered a classic of children's literature.

Plot summary

Template:Spoiler Mary Lennox is a sickly, sour-faced little girl who was born in India to wealthy, British parents. Her parents mostly ignore her, leaving her in the care of their servant Ayah. When a cholera epidemic makes her an orphan, she is sent to Misselthwaite Manor, an isolated country house in Yorkshire, England. There she is again left mostly to her own devices - this time by her father's brother-in-law, Archibald Craven, a widower who travels constantly in hopes of escaping painful memories of his beautiful young wife who has been dead for ten years. The Manor is left in the charge of the stern Mrs. Medlock. The only person who has any time for Mary is the chambermaid Martha, who tells Mary about a walled garden that was the late Mrs. Craven's favourite. No one has entered the garden since she died because her grieving widower locked it and buried the key.

While exploring the grounds, Mary discovers the key, which had been turned up by a robin digging for worms; soon after she manages to find the hidden door. Once inside, she discovers that although the roses seem lifeless, some of the other flowers have survived. She resolves to tend the garden herself, but to keep it a secret. She recruits the assistance of Martha's brother Dickon, who is known for being exceptional with plants and wild animals. He provides gardening implements, bought with money from Mary, and demonstrates that the roses, though neglected, are not dead. When Mary's uncle visits the house briefly for the first time since she arrived, Mary asks him for a bit of earth to make a flower garden, and he agrees. Thanks to the invigorating Yorkshire air and her new-found fascination with the garden, Mary herself begins to blossom, and loses her sickly look and unpleasant manner.

One night Mary hears the sound of someone weeping in another part of the house. When she inquires about it, the servants evade her questions, saying they cannot hear anything. Shortly after her uncle's visit, she goes exploring and discovers her uncle's son, Colin, a lonely boy as petulant and disagreeable as Mary used to be. His father shuns him because not only does the child closely resemble his mother, but because Mr. Craven suffers from mild kyphosis and is slightly hunchbacked, he is morbidly convinced that Colin will develop the same condition. This fear has transferred to Colin, who, for purely psychological reasons, is a bedridden invalid and has never learned to walk. The servants have been keeping Mary and Colin a secret from one another because Colin doesn't like strangers staring at him, and is prone to terrible tantrums. Colin, however, accepts Mary and insists on her visiting him often. During these visits, Mary tells him about the secret garden.

As spring approaches, Colin becomes jealous because Mary is spending more time out in the garden with Dickon than indoors with him. One day he voices his resentment and, when Mary resists, he throws a tantrum. To the horror of the servants, Mary continues to stand her ground. When Colin calms down he asks if he can visit the garden with her. She agrees, as she and Dickon had been planning to suggest it themselves, feeling that it would do Colin good. Colin's doctor, (Mr Craven's brother and Colin's uncle) agrees to have Dickon and Mary take Colin outside in a wheelchair. Colin is delighted with the garden, and visits it with Mary and Dickon whenever the weather allows. As the garden revives and flourishes, so does he.

The first person to discover what the children are doing is the old gardener Ben Weatherstaff, who was a favorite of Colin's mother. He has been secretly visiting her garden, by scaling the wall with a ladder, once or twice a year since it was locked up. When he visits the garden for the first time since Mary's arrival (having had to miss several visits because of rheumatism), he is initially angry with the children until he sees how improved both the garden and Colin are. Colin orders him not to tell anybody, and he agrees. Colin becomes determined that by the next time his father returns from abroad he will be able to walk and run like a normal boy. He accomplishes this through a combination of simple physical exercise and positive thinking. He refuses to think of himself as crippled, and he invents a kind of mantra to keep himself in the right, or "magic," frame of mind. He makes great progress, but keeps it hidden from everyone but Mary, Dickon, and Ben, wanting it to be a surprise.

Mr. Craven has been traveling throughout Europe but hurries home after seeing a vision of his dead wife, imploring him to come to her "in the garden!" Martha and Dickon's mother, who also knows about the secret, has written him, saying "I think your lady would ask you to come if she was here." He returns home and arrives while the children are outdoors. He goes out to see Colin for himself, and finds himself drawn to the secret garden, where he is astonished first to hear children's voices and then to find Colin not only racing Mary and Dickon around the garden, but winning. They take Mr. Craven into the secret garden to tell him everything, then they walk back to the house where the servants are astonished to see two miracles: Colin is walking and his father looks happy again. Template:Endspoiler

Major themes

The author, Frances Hodgson Burnett, was a practicioner of Christian Science due to the premature death of her son as well as personal illness. As a result, The Secret Garden espouses the benefits of New Thought and theosophy as well as ideas about the healing powers of the mind.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

The Secret Garden has been adapted many times for stage and screen. The first filmed version was made in 1919 by the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation with 17 year old Lila Lee as Mary, but it is considered lost. MGM filmed the second adaptation in 1949, with Margaret O'Brien. This version was mostly in black-and-white, but was colorized whenever the restored garden was shown. It was also adapted by Dorothea Brooking into a six-part BBC television serial in 1959 starring Colin Spaull as Dickon. Brooking was also responsible for adaptions in 1952 and 1975, also for the BBC. 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. A young Colin Firth also made a brief appearance as an adult version of Colin Craven.

One notable stage 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 the youngest person ever to win a Tony).

The most acclaimed film adaptation was American Zoetrope's 1993 production. It was directed by Agnieszka Holland and starred Kate Maberly as Mary, Heydon Prowse as Colin, and Andrew Knott as Dickon. In 2000, a sequel movie entitled Return to the Secret Garden was produced. It was directed by Scott Featherstone and won the Director's Gold Award at the 2001 Santa Clarita International Film Festival. In 2001, Back to the Secret Garden starring Camilla Belle as the American orphan, Lizzie, was directed by Michael Tuchner. It is set when Mary and Colin have married and turned the Craven Manor into a shelter for orphans.

In 1991, a Japanese Animation, version of The Secret Garden was made. Another anime movie, Sōkō no Strain (2006), based on another of Frances Hodgson Burnett's novels A Little Princess, draws some elements from The Secret Garden, most notably the names of Colin, Mary, Martha and Dickon.

External links

• The Secret Garden at Project Gutenberg
• The Secret Garden text - second version from Project Gutenberg
• audio book at librivox.org