Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (24 November 1849 – 29 October 1924) was a British-American novelist and playwright. She is best known for the three children's novels Little Lord Fauntleroy (published in 1885–1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911).
Frances adored her two sons, Lionel and Vivien, and dressed them in very fancy clothes. Her famous character Little Lord Fauntleroy, who had long golden curls and wore velvet suits, was based on Vivien.
After the death from consumption of her older son Lionel, Frances turned to Spiritualism and Christian Science. The ideas she learned from these belief systems found their way into her books, especially The Secret Garden, in which Mary Lennox persuades her sick young cousin that he can heal himself though the power of positive thinking.
“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.” - The Secret Garden
