|
|
Frances Hodgson Burnett was born on 24th. November 1849 in
Manchester in England. She was the eldest of a family of five, three girls and
two boys. Her father was a well to do iron monger and silversmith. But
unfortunately, he died when she was just three years old and the family fell on
hard times. They then had to move to Salford, a poor neighborhood. Here Frances
saw and experienced how the poor lived and even wrote
about her experiences in some of her books. Her family immigrated to America in
1865, when she was fifteen years old, but she did not forget her life in
Manchester. Her novel ‘ Lass ‘o’ Lowries’ tells us about the life of the
working class in Manchester.
Frances and her sisters attended a
school in a neighboring house, which was known as ‘A select
Seminary for young Ladies and Gentlemen’. Even at a young age
she was fond of storytelling and was popular among her peers. In
her younger days she would write her stories in her cook’s old
notebooks. |
|
|
The family lived a poor life and was dependent on the two boys for
their survival. At the age of sixteen, Frances opened a small school, which had
only eight students. Her students could not pay her in money and paid her in
kind by giving her food, vegetables and eggs. When she was eighteen she wrote
her first short story for a women’s magazine and from then on there was no
looking back for her. She got paid more and more money as she became a famous
writer of short stories and novels.
She married Dr. Swan Burnett in 1874 and the couple had
two sons. Lionel was born in 1847 and Vivian, born in 1876. It was her second
son who inspired her to write the novel ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy’. The author
has admitted that though the novel was not a portrait of her son, ‘Little Lord
Fauntleroy’ would have never been written if Vivian
had not been born. The author into her book has incorporated much of what he
said and how he behaved. The book was released in 1886 and enjoyed immediate
success. Frances returned to England rich and famous but while there she
encountered a great deal of misfortune. First was her divorce from her husband
Dr. Burnett, followed by the failure of her second marriage to Stephen Townsend and
then finally the sad news of the death of her elder son.
After 1901, Frances lived in Bermuda and Long Island and
devoted herself to writing, gardening and Christian Studies. It was while she
was here that her novel ‘The Little Princess’ was finally published in book
form in 1905. It was also here, in her Long Island home that she conceived and
wrote ‘The Secret Garden’, which is thought to be her best and most famous
work. She continued to write until her death in 1924, shortly after she turned
seventy- five. Her novels have the element of escapism found in other books of
her time like’ Alice in Wonderland’ etc. Some of her books continue to be
popular even today and many have been enacted on stage and even been made into
motion pictures.
|
