The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1912

Children's classics

An isolated child arrives at a Yorkshire house with a neglected garden and unfamiliar possibilities.

Read the book Contents

Length: 27 chapters
Reading time: About 5 hr 38 min
Words: 80,359

About the book

Mary Lennox has grown up in India with little affection and few reasons to consider other people. Sent to live with her uncle, she enters a household whose unfamiliar arrangements challenge the expectation that everything will be done for her.

Burnett begins with an unflattering portrait of her heroine, making change a question rather than an assumption. The story links the discovery of places with learning how to attend to living things. Its domestic mystery develops through curiosity, routine and the effort required to move beyond a child's habitual self-absorption.

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Children's classics

This edition

Text from Standard Ebooks, who proofread and typeset it and dedicate their edition to the public domain. Frances Hodgson Burnett died more than 70 years ago, so the work is out of copyright in the UK.