Frances Hodgson Burnett

English-American playwright and author (1849–1924)

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Lived 1849–1924, aged 75United States

United States WritersWriter / Author

Wikipedia
56 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1849–1924
Aged 75
Known for
The Secret Garden
1993

Summary

Updated 2026-06-09

She wrote the children's stories that became shorthand for transformation: the sullen girl who finds a hidden garden, the orphan who becomes a princess, the boy in a velvet suit. Three novels still read more than a century later, each one a fable about what changes when someone believes in you.

Biography

About

Frances Hodgson was four when her father died in Manchester, and the family's fortunes collapsed with him. They emigrated to Tennessee in 1865, where at 19 she began selling stories to magazines to keep them afloat. She married Swan Burnett in 1873, had two sons, and published her first novel to good reviews before Little Lord Fauntleroy made her a children's literature phenomenon in 1886. The 1890s brought wealth and adult novels, but also her elder son Lionel's death from tuberculosis in 1890, which pulled her back into the depression she'd fought most of her life. She divorced in 1898, rema…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frances Hodgson Burnett

said1911

Perhaps if her mother had carried her pretty face and her pretty manners oftener into the nursery Mary might have learned some pretty ways too.

— Chapter 2

Frances Hodgson Burnett

said1911

Eh!” she said, “but you are like an old woman. Don’t you care?”“It doesn’t matter,” said Mary, “whether I care or not.”“You are right enough there,” said Mrs. Medlock. “It doesn’t.

— Chapter 2

Frances Hodgson Burnett

said1911

So she began to feel a slight interest in Dickon, and as she had never before been interested in any one but herself, it was the dawning of a healthy sentiment.

— Chapter 4

Frances Hodgson Burnett

said1911