Puffin Classics (HB) : The Secret Garden

Author: Hodgson Burnett, Frances

Brand: Puffin

Color: Gold

Edition: Reprint

Features:

• Beautiful hardcover reprinting of a timeless story about a young girl who discovers a magical garden
• Encourages reading skills - Inspires children to read for enjoyment and exploration
• Discover the beauty and wonder hidden within secret places
• Beautiful cover design is aesthetically pleasing, enhances the reading experience
• Written by Frances Hodgson Burnett with introduction by Sophie Dahl

Binding: hardcover

Number Of Pages: 368

Release Date: 08-09-2011

Part Number: 9780141336534

Details: Product Description
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a magical novel for adults and children alike 'I've stolen a garden,' she said very fast. 'It isn't mine. It isn't anybody's. Nobody wants it, nobody cares for it, nobody ever goes into it. Perhaps everything is dead in it already; I don't know.' After losing her parents, young Mary Lennox is sent from India to live in her uncle's gloomy mansion on the wild English moors. She is lonely and has no one to play with, but one day she learns of a secret garden somewhere in the grounds that no one is allowed to enter. Then Mary uncovers an old key in a flowerbed - and a gust of magic leads her to the hidden door. Slowly she turns the key and enters a world she could never have imagined. ***Now in a beautiful clothbound cover*** ***With a heartwarming introduction by Sophie Dahl*** *** A behind-the-scenes jounrey, including an author profile, a guide to who's who, activities and more...*** Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924) was born in Manchester. She had a very poor upbringing and used to escape from the horror of her surroundings by writing stories. In 1865 her family emigrated to the USA where she married and became the successful author of many children's books including Little Lord Fauntleroy and A Little Princess.
Review
“It is only the exceptional author who can write a book about children with sufficient skill, charm, simplicity, and significance to make it acceptable to both young and old. Mrs. Burnett is one of the few thus gifted.”—
The New York Times
About the Author
Frances Hodgson Burnett lived from 1849 to 1924. She was born in Manchester and lived in great poverty after the death of her father in 1853. She escaped the horror of her surroundings by writing stories and often returned to a rags-to-riches or a riches-to-rags theme. In 1865 her family accepted a relative’s invitation to emigrate to America. They were still poor but the wide open spaces of Tennesssee were better than the slums of Manchester. Frances had to earn money so began writing short pieces for American magazines. In 1873 she married Dr Swan Burnett, and it was under her married name that she became a world-famous children’s writer.
Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote over forty books; the two that are best-known today are The Secret Garden and Little Lord Fauntleroy. In later life she became rather eccentric, turned to spiritualism and mystic cults and took to wearing frilly clothes and titian-coloured wigs – this earned her the nickname ‘Fluffy’.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER IThere Is No One Left

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another. Her father had held a position under the English Government and had always been busy and ill himself, and her mother had been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself with gay people. She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary was born she handed her over to the care of an Ayah, who was made to understand that if she wished to please the Mem Sahib she must keep the child out of sight as much as possible. So when she was a sickly, fretful, ugly little baby she was kept out of the way, and when she became a sickly, fretful, toddling thing she was kept out of the way also. She never remembered seeing familiarly anything but the dark faces of her Ayah and the other native servants, and as they always obeyed her and gave her her own way in everything, because the Mem Sahib would be angry if she was disturbed by her crying, by the time she was six years old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived.

EAN: 9780141336534

Package Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches

Languages: English