O Jardim Secreto by Frances Hodgson Burnett

When I was a young man, I said I do not want thick books because I do not have time for them until I read 'War and Peace' and 'The Fountainhead' and I said, wow, thick books can be really engaging and finishing them can give you a different high! When I was a teenager, I said I don't like to read books that are hard to understand and read by adults until I read 'Lolita' by Vladimir Nabokov and I said, wow, I did not know that there are authors who write this way! Until I read 'Silas Marner' with no pictures and I said, wow, books with no pictures are also great! When I was a kid, I wanted to read only books with pictures like the illustrated 'Alice in the Wonderland' or 'Rip Van Winkle'. I do not know anymore what is my preference when it comes to books.

Primarily remembered today for her trio of classic children's novels - Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911) - Burnett was also a popular adult novelist, in her own day, publishing romantic stories such as The Making of a Marchioness (1901) for older readers. She died in her Long Island, New York home, in 1924. Following her great success as a novelist, playwright, and children's author, Burnett maintained homes in both England and America, traveling back and forth quite frequently. In 1900 Burnett married actor Stephen Townsend until 1902 when they got divorced. Swan Burnett, with whom she had two sons, Lionel and Vivian. Here Hodgson began to write, in order to supplement the family income, assuming full responsibility for the family upon the death of her mother, in 1870. She was educated at The Select Seminary for Young Ladies and Gentleman until the age of fifteen, at which point the family ironmongery, then being run by her mother, failed, and the family emigrated to Knoxville, Tennessee. Frances Eliza Hodgson was the daughter of ironmonger Edwin Hodgson, who died three years after her birth, and his wife Eliza Boond.

O Jardim Secreto by Frances Hodgson Burnett