Book Bearings
The Secret Garden
- 256 pages · about 4 hours
- First published 1912
- 1,598 editions
- Free to read
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1 About this book
Mary Lennox is ten years old, sour and neglected, when her parents die of cholera in India and she is sent to England to live at Misselthwaite Manor, her uncle's great, gloomy house on the Yorkshire moors. Left to herself, she hears of a walled garden that has been locked for ten years, and at night she hears crying somewhere in the house. With the help of a robin, of Dickon, a local boy who has a way with animals, and of a secret she uncovers indoors, Mary sets about bringing the garden back to life, and it changes her in turn. Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel was first published in book form in 1911.
- Friendship
- Great britain, history
- Coming of age
- Fantasy
- Gardening
- Mystery
- Private investigators
- People with disabilities
2 What to expect
A children's classic about a sour, lonely orphan sent to a great house on the Yorkshire moors, where she finds a locked garden and brings it back to life. Its belief is that fresh air, growing things and friendship can mend unhappy children, and the story follows the seasons from winter to summer. It is gentle and slow, with Yorkshire dialect in the speech, and it carries the colonial attitudes to India of its time.
Good for readers who want: a classic children's story, gardens and nature, and a gentle, hopeful read.
3 Read it free, right here
A free scan from the Internet Archive opens right here on the page, with no sign-up.
Read it on the Internet Archive4 About Frances Hodgson Burnett
Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
5 More by Frances Hodgson Burnett
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