Publisher's Synopsis
Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924) was a British novelist and playwright who is best known for three children's novels, Little Lord Fauntleroy (1885-6), A Little Princess (1905) and The Secret Garden (1911). She was born in Manchester but following the death of her father in 1852 the family fell on straitened circumstances and in 1865 emigrated to the US where her uncle lived. From the age of 19 she began publishing stories to earn money for the family. Two years after her mother's death in 1870 she married Swan Burnett who became a doctor and the couple lived for two years in Paris where their two sons were born before settling in Washington, DC. Burnett began writing novels, achieving success with both her adult fiction and her children's novels, the proceeds from which allowed her to adopt a lavish lifestyle, making frequent trips to England where she bought property. She divorced in 1898, entering a second unsuccessful marriage in 1900 which again ended in divorce in 1902. This early novel was first published in 1879 and is reprinted from a later edition of 1907 including eight illustrations.
