Frances Hodgson Burnett
Frances Hodgson Burnett | |
---|---|
Plandome Manor, New York , United States | |
Occupation | Novelist, playwright |
Citizenship |
|
Spouse | Swan Burnett
(m. 1873; div. 1898)Stephen Townsend
(m. 1900; div. 1902) |
Children | 2 |
Signature | |
Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (24 November 1849 – 29 October 1924) was a British-American novelist and playwright. She is best known for the three children's novels Little Lord Fauntleroy (published in 1885–1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911).
Frances Eliza Hodgson was born in
Beginning in the 1880s, Burnett began to travel to England frequently and in the 1890s bought a home there, where she wrote The Secret Garden. Her elder son, Lionel, died of tuberculosis in 1890, which caused a relapse of the depression she had struggled with for much of her life. She divorced Swan Burnett in 1898, married Stephen Townsend in 1900, and divorced him in 1902. A few years later she settled in Nassau County, New York, where she died in 1924 and is buried in Roslyn Cemetery.
In 1936, a memorial sculpture by Bessie Potter Vonnoh was erected in her honor in Central Park's Conservatory Garden. The statue depicts her two famous Secret Garden characters, Mary and Dickon.
Biography
Childhood in Manchester, United Kingdom
Frances Eliza Hodgson was born at 141 York Street
In 1852, the family moved about a mile away to a newly built terrace, opposite St Luke's Church, with greater access to outdoor space.
For a year Frances went to a small dame school run by two women, where she first saw a book about fairies. When her mother moved the family to Islington Square, Salford, Frances mourned the lack of flowers and gardens. Their new home was located in a gated square of faded gentility adjacent to an area with severe overcrowding and poverty that "defied description", according to Friedrich Engels, who lived in Manchester at the time.[6]
Frances had a fertile imagination, writing stories of her own creation in old notebooks. One of her favorite books was Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, and she spent many hours acting out scenes from the story.[7] Frances and her siblings were sent to be educated at The Select Seminary for Young Ladies and Gentlemen, where she was described as "precocious" and "romantic".[8] She had an active social life and enjoyed telling stories to her friends and cousins; in her mother, she found a good audience, although her brothers tended to tease her about her stories.[9]
Manchester was almost entirely dependent on a
Move to Tennessee
After the end of the Civil War and the trade it had brought to the area, Frances's uncle lost much of his business and was unable to provide for the newly arrived family.
Frances turned to writing to earn money. Her first story was published in Godey's Lady's Book in 1868. Soon after, she was being published regularly in Godey's Lady's Book, Scribner's Monthly, Peterson's Magazine and Harper's Bazaar.[2] Keen to escape from the family's poverty, she tended to overwork herself, later writing that she had been "a pen driving machine" during the early years of her career. For five years, she wrote constantly, often not worrying about the quality of her work.[16] Once her first story was published, before she was 18, she spent the rest of her life as a working writer.[17] By 1869, she had earned enough to move the family into a better home in Knoxville.[18]
Her mother died in 1870, and within two years, two of her sisters and a brother were married. Although she remained friends with Swan, neither was in a hurry to be married.[19]
Marriage
With the income from her writing, she returned to England for an extended visit in 1872,[2] and then went to Paris where, having agreed to marry Swan, she ordered an haute couture wedding dress to be made and shipped to Tennessee. Shortly afterward, she returned home and attempted to postpone the wedding until the dress arrived, but Swan insisted they marry as soon as possible, and they were married in September 1873. Writing about the dress disappointment to a Manchester friend, she said of her new husband: "Men are so shallow ... he does not know the vital importance of the difference between white satin and tulle, and cream-colored brocade".[20] Within the year, she gave birth to her first child, Lionel, in September 1874. Also during that year, she began work on her first full-length novel, That Lass o' Lowrie's, set in Lancashire.[21]
The couple wanted to leave Knoxville, and her writing income allowed them to travel to Paris, where Swan continued his medical training as an eye and ear specialist. The birth of their second son, Vivian, forced them to return to the United States.[14] She had wanted her second child to be a girl, and having chosen the name Vivien, changed to the masculine spelling for her new son. The family continued to rely on her writing income, and to economize she made clothing for her boys, often including many frills.[22] Later, Burnett continued to make clothing, designing velvet suits with lace collars for her boys and frilly dresses for herself. She allowed her sons' hair to grow long, which she then shaped into long curls.[22]
Moved to Washington, D.C.
After two years in Paris, the family intended to move to Washington, D.C., where Swan, now qualified as a doctor, wanted to start his medical practice.
Within a few years, Burnett became well known in Washington society and hosted a literary
In 1884, she began work on
Return to England
In 1887, Burnett traveled to England for
In December 1890, Burnett's elder son Lionel died from consumption in Paris, which greatly affected her life and her writing.[2] Burnett had sought a cure for her son from physicians, also taking him to Germany to visit spas.[30] Following his death, before she sank into a deep depression, she wrote in a letter to a friend that her writing was insignificant in comparison to having been the mother of two boys, one of whom died.[31] At this time she turned away from her traditional faith in the Church of England and embraced Spiritualism and Christian Science.[14] She returned to London, where she sought the distraction of charity work and formed the Drury Lane Boys' Club, hosting an opening in February 1892. Also during this period, she wrote a play with a starring role for Stephen Townsend in an attempt to establish his acting career.[32] After a two-year absence from her Washington, D.C. home, her husband, and her younger son, Burnett returned there in March 1892, where she continued charity work and began writing again.[33] In 1893, Burnett published an autobiography, devoted to her elder son, titled The One I Knew Best of All.[2] Also in that year, she had a set of her books displayed at the Chicago World Fair.[34]
Divorce and move to Great Maytham Hall
Burnett returned to London in 1894; there she heard the news that her younger son Vivian was ill, so she quickly went back to the United States. Vivian recovered from his illness, but missed his first term at
In 1898, when Vivian graduated from Harvard, she divorced Swan Burnett.[2] Officially, the cause for the divorce was given to be desertion, but in reality, Burnett and Swan had orchestrated the dissolution of their marriage some years earlier. Swan took his own apartment and ceased to live with Burnett so that after a period of two years she could plead desertion as a reason for the divorce. The press was critical, calling her a New Woman, with The Washington Post writing that the divorce resulted from Burnett's "advanced ideas regarding the duties of a wife and the rights of women".[36]
From the mid-1890s, she lived in England at Great Maytham Hall—which had a large garden where she indulged her love for flowers—where she made her home for the next decade, although she continued annual transatlantic trips to the United States.[2] Maytham Hall resembled a feudal manor house which enchanted Burnett.[14] She socialized in the local villages and enjoyed the country life. She filled the house with guests and had Stephen Townsend move in with her, which the local vicar considered a scandal.[37] In February 1900 she married Townsend.[38]
Remarriage and later life
The marriage took place in Genoa, Italy, and the couple went to Pegli for their honeymoon, where they endured two weeks of steady rain. Burnett's biographer Gretchen Gerzina writes of the marriage, "it was the biggest mistake of her life".[38] The press stressed the age difference—Townsend was ten years younger than she—and she referred to him as her secretary.[38] Biographer Ann Thwaite doubts Townsend loved Burnett, claiming that 50-year-old Burnett was "stout, rouged and unhealthy" - presuming that this would automatically impact the physical attraction - and believes Townsend needed Burnett to help with his acting career, and support him financially. Within months, in a letter to her sister, Burnett admitted the marriage was in trouble, describing Townsend as scarcely sane and hysterical. Thwaite argues that Townsend blackmailed Burnett into the marriage, and he just wanted her money and to be in control of her as a husband.[39]
Unable to bear the thought of continuing to live with Townsend at Maytham, Burnett rented a house in London for the winter of 1900–1901. There she socialized with friends and wrote. She worked on two books simultaneously: The Shuttle, a longer and more complicated book; and The Making of a Marchioness, which she wrote in a few weeks and published to good reviews. In the spring of 1901, when she returned to the country, Townsend tried to replace her long-time publisher Scribner's with a publishing house offering a larger advance.[40] In the autumn of 1902, after a summer of socializing and filling Maytham with house-guests, she suffered a physical collapse. She returned to America, and in the winter of 1902 entered a sanatorium. There she told Townsend she would no longer live with him, and the marriage ended.[41]
She returned to Maytham two years later in June 1904.
In 1907, she returned permanently to the United States, having become a citizen in 1905, and built a home, completed in 1908, in the Plandome Park section of
Burnett lived for the last 17 years of her life in Plandome Manor,[45] where she died on 29 October 1924, aged 74.[2] She was buried in Roslyn Cemetery.
Reception
During the serialization of Little Lord Fauntleroy in St. Nicholas in 1885, readers looked forward to new installments. The fashions in the book became popular, with velvet Fauntleroy suits being sold; other Fauntleroy merchandise included velvet collars, playing cards, and chocolates.[26] Sentimental fiction was then the norm, and "rags to riches" stories were popular in the United States; in time, however, Little Lord Fauntleroy lost the popularity that The Secret Garden has retained.[46]
Several of Burnett's novels for adults were also very popular in their day, according to the
Selected works
Source:[48]
- That Lass o' Lowrie's (1877)[49]
- Surly Tim (1877)
- Theo: A Sprightly Love Story (1877)
- Lindsay's Luck (1878)
- Haworth's (1879)
- Miss Crespigny (1879)
- Louisiana (1880)
- A Fair Barbarian (1881)
- Esmerelda (1881), with William Gillette[50]
- Through One Administration (1883)
- Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886)
- Editha's Burglar: A Story for Children (1888)
- The Fortunes of Philippa Fairfax (1888)
- The Pretty Sister of José (1889)
- The Drury Lane Boys' Club (1892)
- The One I Knew the Best of All: A Memory of the Mind of a Child (1893)
- Little Saint Elizabeth, and Other Stories (1893)[51]
- Two Little Pilgrims' Progress. A Story of the City Beautiful (1895)
- A Lady of Quality (1896)
- In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim (1899)
- The Making of a Marchioness (1901), reprinted by Persephone Books
- The Land of the Blue Flower (1904)
- A Little Princess: Being the Whole Story of Sara Crewe Now Told for the First Time (1905)
- Queen Silver-Bell (1906)
- Racketty-Packetty House(1906)
- The Dawn of A To-morrow (1905)
- The Shuttle (1907), reprinted by Persephone Books in 2007
- The Good Wolf (1908)
- The Secret Garden (1911)
- My Robin (1912)[52]
- T. Tembarom (1913)[53]
- The Lost Prince(1915)
- The Little Hunchback Zia (1916)
- The White People (1917)
- The Head of the House of Coombe (1922)
- Robin (1922) – sequel to The Head of the House of Coombe
Citations
- ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 12–13
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Rutherford 1994
- ^ Thwaite 1991, p. 4
- ^ Anon, City of Manchester commemorative plaques, Manchester City Council
- ^ Thwaite 1991, p. 8
- ^ Thwaite 1991, p. 12
- ^ Robin Bernstein, Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights, (New York: New York University Press, 2011), 69–71. See also Robin Bernstein, Children's Books, Dolls, and the Performance of Race; or, The Possibility of Children's Literature, PMLA 126.1: 160–169.
- ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 17–18
- ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 20
- ^ a b Gerzina 2004, p. 3
- ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 24
- ^ a b Jack Neely, "Frances Hodgson Burnett, the Knoxville Years," Knoxville Mercury, 18 November 2015.
- ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 6
- ^ a b c d e f g h Hofstader 1971
- ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 27–28
- ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 30–31
- ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 35
- ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 25
- ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 39–41
- ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 53
- ^ Thwaite 1991, p. 46
- ^ a b Horvath 2004, p. xii
- ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 62–64
- ^ a b Gerzina 2004, pp. 67–69
- ^ James Robert Proctor (May 1999). "Pine Gables" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places – Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved 1 February 2015.
- ^ a b c d Horvath 2004, p. xi
- ^ a b Thwaite 1991, pp. 101–104
- ^ Thwaite 1991, p. 105
- ^ Thwaite 1991, pp. 122–123
- ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 138
- ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 142
- ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 151–152
- ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 158–160
- ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 166
- ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 171–176
- ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 202
- ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 205–207
- ^ a b c Gerzina 2004, pp. 214–215
- ^ Thwaite 1991, pp. 190–191
- ^ Thwaite 1991, pp. 196–199
- ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 229
- ^ Gerzina 2004, p. 231
- Salford Borough Council. Retrieved 16 February 2012.
- ^ On Vegetarianism. The Hartford Republican (24 February 1905).
- ^ O'Connell, Pamela Licalzi. "Literature; 'The Secret Garden' Has Deep Island Roots", The New York Times, 8 August 2004. Accessed 11 November 2007. "Mrs. Burnett, the author of The Secret Garden and other enduring children's classics, lived on a grand estate in Plandome the last 17 years of her life."
- ^ Horvath 2004, p. xiv
- ISBN 0-8352-0908-3.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - ^ Gerzina 2004, pp. 355–356.
- ^ "That Lass o' Lowrie's". digital.library.upenn.edu.
- ^ "Frances Hodgson Burnett – Biography and Works. Search Texts, Read Online. Discuss". www.online-literature.com. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
- ^ "Little Saint Elizabeth, and Other Stories". digital.library.upenn.edu. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
- ^ "My Robin". digital.library.upenn.edu.
- ^ Burnett, Frances Hodgson (1 February 2001). T. Tembarom – via Project Gutenberg.
Explanatory notes
- ^ York Street was later renamed and became Cheetham Hill Road. The house, along with the other houses in the terrace, was demolished in the 1990s to make way for new development.
- ^ The house, which was extant when Thwaite's book was published in 1991, later became number 385 Cheetham Hill Road. Manchester City Council mounted a blue plaque on the front which read "Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924) Novelist and Authoress of 'Little Lord Fauntleroy' and many other works lived here (1852–1854)" The house was later demolished and the plaque is now on show at the Metropolitan University of Manchester.[4]
General sources
- Gerzina, Gretchen (2004), Frances Hodgson Burnett: the unexpected life of the author of The Secret Garden, Rutgers University Press, ISBN 0-8135-3382-1
- Hofstader, Beatrice (1971), "Burnett, Frances Hodgson", Notable American Women: 1607–1950, Cambridge: Harvard University Press
- Horvath, Polly (2004), "Foreword", Little Lord Fauntleroy, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 978-0-689-86994-5
- Rutherford, L. M. (1994), "British Children's Writers 1880–1914", in Laura M. Zaldman (ed.), Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 141, Detroit: Gale Research Literature Resource Center (subscription required)
- Thwaite, Ann (1991), Waiting for the Party: The Life of Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1849–1924, David R. Godine, ISBN 978-0-87923-790-5
External links
- Complete Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett including articles and short stories
- Works by Frances Hodgson Burnett in eBook form at Standard Ebooks
- Works by Frances Hodgson Burnett at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Frances Hodgson Burnett at Internet Archive
- Works by Frances Hodgson Burnett at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Frances Hodgson Burnett at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Little Lord Fauntleroy: Frances Hodgson Burnett
- victorian-era