Unearthing The Secret Garden
The Plants and Places That Inspired Frances Hodgson Burnett
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
“Affectionate and informative, Unearthing the Secret Garden is not unlike a garden itself, with its smooth lawns of prose and striking shows of illustration and photography.” —The Wall Street Journal
“With a sprightly tone, infectious enthusiasm, and a professor’s penchant for scholarly detail, McDowell brings keen insight and critical assessment to the life and works of this beloved author.” —Booklist
The Secret Garden is one of the most beloved children’s classics, and its author Frances Hodgson Burnett was not only a prolific writer but also a lover of flowers and gardens. In Unearthing The Secret Garden, Marta McDowell delves into Burnett’s professional and gardening life. McDowell chronicles how Burnett’s interest in gardens developed along with her work as a writer. Readers will learn about Burnett’s three gardens in England, Long Island, and Bermuda. Gardeners will delight in the guide to plats featured in The Secret Garden and McDowell’s transcriptions of three of Burnett’s garden-themed short stories. Throughout, the delightful text is complimented by period illustrations and contemporary photographs.
This deeply moving and gift-worthy book is a must-read for fans of The Secret Garden and anyone who loves the story behind the story.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With this consideration of the English novelist Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924), garden historian McDowell (Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life) continues tripping down the verdant paths of writer-gardeners to study the ways plants informed their creations. Burnett, who wrote more than 50 novels, had four gardens: "a lost one in Kent, a fictional one in Yorkshire, and her last two gardens on Long Island and Bermuda." McDowell explains how Burnett based the garden in The Secret Garden on the first one she had created at Maytham Hall in England. In this garden "of her own invention," she planted roses and trained them up the walls, and hired a gardener, very like Weatherstaff in her novel. When Maytham's owner sold the hall, Burnett returned bereft to New York, where she had spent part of her girlhood. "If she had stayed, The Secret Garden might never have been written," McDowell asserts, because it was created in its memory. In addition to lists of Burnett's plants, including her beloved delphiniums, McDowell includes Burnett's posthumously published essay "In the Garden," and photographs and illustrations add depth and context. Gardeners and book lovers alike will delight in this colorful survey.
