29 October 1924: Frances Hodgson Burnett dies

Frances Hodgson Burnett, best known for her beloved children’s classics The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, and Little Lord Fauntleroy, passed away on 29 October 1924. Though she gained early fame for her writing, it was in her later years that her work took on a greater depth.

Frances began her writing career at age 19 to help earn money for the family, publishing stories in magazines. After moving to the United States in the early 1870s, she married Dr Swan Burnett in 1873. Her first son Lionel was born a year later and the family moved to Paris for two years, where their second son Vivian was born. Returning to Washington DC, Frances then began to write novels, the first of which, That Lass o’ Lowrie’s, was published to good reviews.

Her first novel for children, Little Lord Fauntleroy was published in 1886. It sold more than half a million copies and made her a popular writer of children’s fiction. It established the main character’s long curls (based on her son Vivian’s) and velvet suit with lace collar as a mother’s model for small boys (who generally hated this look).

Beginning in the 1880s, Frances began to travel to England frequently, and in the 1890s, she bought a home there, where she wrote The Secret Garden. Her first son, Lionel, died of tuberculosis in 1890, which greatly affected her life and her writing. She divorced Swan Burnett in 1898, married Stephen Townsend in 1900, and divorced him in 1902. She wrote and helped to produce stage versions of Little Lord Fauntleroy and A Little Princess and her romantic adult novels written in the 1890s were also popular.

Frances lived an extravagant lifestyle, so once again she turned to writing to increase her income, and in 1905 A Little Princess was published. At this time, she was living at Great Maytham Hall, where the overgrown and neglected walled garden dating from 1721 provided the inspiration for one of her most famous books, The Secret Garden. It was first published in book form in 1911, after serialisation the previous year, and several stage and film adaptations have since been made. Even though she wrote more than 30 books, she is best known today for her children’s novels.

Frances Burnett’s health began to decline in the early 1920s, and she passed away in New York, at the age of 74 and was buried in Roslyn Cemetery next to her son Vivian. Today, there is a statue in her honour in Central Park, New York, featuring two of her characters from The Secret Garden.

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