The Secret Garden is a children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published as a book in 1911, after a version was published as an American magazine serial beginning in 1910. Set in England, it is one of Burnett's most popular novels and is considered a classic of English children's literature. Several stage and film adaptations have been made.
The American edition was published by Stokes with illustrations by Maria Louise Kirk (signed as M. L. Kirk) and the British edition by Heinemann with illustrations by Charles Heath Robinson.
Video The Secret Garden
Plot summary
At the turn of the 20th century, Mary Lennox is a sickly and unloved 10-year-old girl, born in India to wealthy British parents who never wanted her. She is cared for by servants, who allow her to become a spoiled, aggressive and selfish child.
After a cholera epidemic kills her parents and the servants, Mary is discovered alive but alone in the empty house. She briefly lives with an English clergyman and his family before she is sent to Yorkshire, in England, to live with Archibald Craven, an uncle whom she has never met, at his isolated house, Misselthwaite Manor.
At first, Mary is as rude and sour as ever. She dislikes her new home, the people living in it, and most of all, the bleak moor on which it sits. However, a good-natured maid named Martha Sowerby tells Mary about the late Mrs Craven, who would spend hours in a private walled garden growing roses. Mrs Craven died after an accident in the garden, and the devastated Mr. Craven locked the garden and buried the key. Mary becomes interested in finding the secret garden herself, and her ill manners begin to soften as a result. Soon she comes to enjoy the company of Martha, the gardener Ben Weatherstaff, and a friendly robin redbreast. Her health and attitude improve, and she grows stronger as she explores the moor and plays with a skipping rope that Mrs Sowerby buys for her. Mary wonders about both the secret garden and the mysterious cries that echo through the house at night.
As Mary explores the gardens, her robin draws her attention to an area of disturbed soil. Here Mary finds the key to the locked garden and eventually the door to the garden itself. She asks Martha for garden tools, which Martha sends with Dickon, her 12-year-old brother. Mary and Dickon take a liking to each other, as Dickon has a kind way with animals and a good nature. Eager to absorb his gardening knowledge, Mary tells him about the secret garden.
One night, Mary hears the cries once more and decides to follow them through the house. She finds a boy named Colin living in a hidden bedroom. She soon discovers that they are cousins, Colin being the son of Mr and Mrs Craven, and that he suffers from an unspecified spinal problem. Mary visits him every day that week, distracting him from his troubles with stories of the moor, Dickon and his animals, and the secret garden. Mary finally confides that she has access to the secret garden, and Colin asks to see it. Colin is put into his wheelchair and brought outside into the secret garden. It is the first time he has been outdoors for years.
While in the garden, the children are surprised to see Ben Weatherstaff looking over the wall on a ladder. Startled and angry to find the children in the secret garden, he admits that he believed Colin to be a cripple. Colin stands up from his chair and finds that his legs are fine, though weak from long disuse. Colin soon spends every day in the garden, sometimes with Dickon as company. The children conspire to keep Colin's recovering health a secret, so as to surprise his father, who is travelling abroad. As Colin's health improves, his father sees a coinciding increase in spirits, culminating in a dream where his late wife calls to him from inside the garden. When he receives a letter from Mrs Sowerby, he takes the opportunity finally to return home. He walks the outer garden wall in his wife's memory, but hears voices inside, finds the door unlocked, and is shocked to see the garden in full bloom, and his son healthy. The servants watch, stunned, as Mr Craven and Colin walk back to the manor together.
Maps The Secret Garden
Rejuvenation theme
The secret garden at Misselthwaite Manor is the site of both the near-destruction and the subsequent regeneration of a family. Also the theme is, when a thing is neglected it withers and dies, but when it is worked on and cared for it thrives, as Mary and Colin do.
Publication history
In part written on Burnett's visits to Buile Hill Park, The Secret Garden was first serialised, starting in autumn 1910, in The American Magazine, a publication aimed at adults. The entire book was first published in summer 1911 by Frederick A. Stokes in New York, and published that year by William Heinemann in London. Its copyright expired in the United States in 1987, and in most other parts of the world in 1995, placing the book in the public domain. As a result, several abridged and unabridged editions were published during the late 1980s and early 1990s, such as the full-color illustrated edition from David R. Godine, Publisher in 1989.
Maytham Hall in Kent, England, where Burnett lived for a number of years during her marriage, is often cited as the inspiration for the book's setting. Burnett kept an extensive garden, including an impressive rose garden. However, it has been noted that besides the garden, Maytham Hall and Misselthwaite Manor are physically very different.
The book's working title was Mistress Mary, in reference to the English nursery rhyme Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.
Public reception
Marketing to both adult and juvenile audiences may have had an effect on its early reception; the book was not as celebrated as Burnett's previous works during her lifetime. The Secret Garden paled in comparison to the popularity of Burnett's other works for a long period. Tracing the book's revival from almost complete eclipse at the time of Burnett's death in 1924, Anne H. Lundin noted that the author's obituary notices all remarked on Little Lord Fauntleroy and passed over The Secret Garden in silence.
With the rise of scholarly work in children's literature over the past quarter-century, The Secret Garden has risen steadily in prominence. It is often noted as one of the best children's books of the twentieth century. In 2003 it ranked number 51 in The Big Read, a survey of the British public by the BBC to identify the "Nation's Best-loved Novel" (not children's novel). Based on a 2007 online poll, the U.S. National Education Association named it one of "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children". In 2012 it was ranked number 15 among all-time children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal, a monthly with primarily U.S. audience. (A Little Princess was ranked number 56 and Little Lord Fauntleroy did not make the Top 100.) Jeffrey Masson considers The Secret Garden "one of the greatest books ever written for children". In an oblique compliment, Barbara Sleigh has her title character reading The Secret Garden on the train at the beginning of her children's novel Jessamy.
Dramatic adaptations
The first filmed version was made in 1919 by the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation with 17-year-old Lila Lee as Mary and Paul Willis as Dickon, but the film is thought lost.
In 1949, MGM filmed the second adaptation with Margaret O'Brien as Mary, Dean Stockwell as Colin and Brian Roper as Dickon. This version was mostly in black-and-white, but the sequences set in the restored garden were filmed in Technicolor.
Dorothea Brooking adapted the book into several different television serials for the BBC: an eight-part serial in 1952, an eight-part serial in 1960 (starring Colin Spaull as Dickon) and a seven-part serial broadcast in 1975, which last has been released on DVD.
Hallmark Hall of Fame filmed a TV adaptation of the novel in 1987, starring Gennie James as Mary, Barret Oliver as Dickon, and Jadrien Steele as Colin. Billie Whitelaw appeared as Mrs Medlock and Derek Jacobi played the role of Archibald Craven, with Alison Doody appearing in flashbacks and visions as Lilias; Colin Firth made a brief appearance as the adult Colin Craven. It was filmed at Highclere Castle, which later became known as the filming location for Downton Abbey.
American Zoetrope's 1993 production was directed by Agnieszka Holland, with a screenplay by Caroline Thompson, and starred Kate Maberly as Mary, Heydon Prowse as Colin, Andrew Knott as Dickon, John Lynch as Lord Craven and Dame Maggie Smith as Mrs. Medlock. The executive producer was Francis Ford Coppola.
A Theatre for Young Audiences version was written in 1991 by Pamela Sterling of Arizona State University. The adaptation won an American Alliance for Theatre and Education "Distinguished New Play" award and is listed in ASSITEH/USA's International Bibliography of Outstanding Plays for Young Audiences.
A 1994 animated adaptation as an ABC Weekend Special starred Honor Blackman, Sir Derek Jacobi, Glynis Johns, Victor Spinetti, Anndi McAfee as Mary Lennox, Joe Baker as Ben Weatherstaff, Felix Bell as Dickon, Naomi Bell as Martha, Richard Stuart as Colin, and Frank Welker as Robin. This version was released on video in 1995 by Paramount Home Video.
In Japan, NHK produced and broadcast an anime adaptation of the novel in 1991-1992 titled Anime Himitsu no Hanazono (??? ??????). Miina Tominaga was featured as the voice of Mary, while Mayumi Tanaka voiced Colin. The 39-episode TV series was directed by Tameo Kohanawa and written by Kaoru Umeno. Based on the title, this anime is sometimes mistakenly assumed to be related to the popular dorama series Himitsu no Hanazono. Surprisingly unavailable in the English language, it has been dubbed into several other languages including Spanish, Italian, Polish and Tagalog.
Stage adaptations of the book have also been created. In 1991, a musical version opened on Broadway, with music by Lucy Simon, and book and lyrics by Marsha Norman. The production was nominated for seven Tony Awards, winning Best Book of a Musical and Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Daisy Eagan as Mary, then eleven years old. In 2013 an opera by the American composer Nolan Gasser, which had been commissioned by the San Francisco Opera, premiered at the Zellerbach Hall at the University of California, Berkeley.
A stage play by Jessica Swale adapted from the novel was performed at Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre in Chester 2014.
A multimedia web series adaptation of the novel titled The Misselthwaite Archives was released on YouTube in 2015. The series consisted of 40 episodes, which aired from January through October, as well as fictional letters, emails, text messages, social media accounts, and other documents about the characters.
See also
- The Painted Garden - a 1949 children's novel that describes the making of a film of The Secret Garden
References
External links
- The Secret Garden at Project Gutenberg (plain text and HTML illustrated)
- The Secret Garden, available at Internet Archive. New York : F. A. Stokes, 1911 (color scanned book)
- The Secret Garden public domain audiobook at LibriVox
- The Secret Garden From the Collections at the Library of Congress
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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