The Secret Garden (1911) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters edit see section history

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• Mary Lennox: A young, sour-looking girl, bitter orphan girl born in India, who comes to live with her rich uncle at Misselthwaite Manor. Mary was once a very mean girl but learned to socialize by meeting new friends by the names of Dickon and Martha.
• Dickon: Gentle boy that befriends Mary who has a way with animals and nature. Martha's brother.
• The Ayah: An Indian servant who took care of young Mary.
• Colin: A boy who thinks he is going to die and doesn't think positively.
• Martha: Sister of Dickon Sowerby. A hired help by Mary's uncle.
• Mrs. Lennox: Mary's neglectful mother, called Mem Sahib by the Indian servants out of respect. She is more concerned about parties and dresses than about Mary.
• Phillips: Add a description of this character.
• Judith
• English Minister: He and his family of five children keep Mary just after the death of her parents.
• Norton
• Phyllis Bixler
• Lionel
• Jane Eyre
• Heathcliff
• Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina
• Cathy
• Hughes
• Gaskell
• Haraway
• Mcgillis
• Robinson
• Smuts
• Moore
• Unwin
• Haworth
• James
• Keyser
• Fleischman
• Basil: the mean son of the English minister
• Mr. Archibald Craven: Mary's uncle, who takes Mary in to live with him at his home, Misselthwaite Manor, in Yorkshire, England
• Mrs. Medlock: Mr. Craven's strict housekeeper who likes to keep order
• Martha Sowerby: A young housemaid at Misselthwaite Manor and friend to Mary
• Archibald Craven: Mary's uncle and a widower who often travels abroad.
• Mother (Susan Sowerby): Martha's and Dickon's mother.
• Mr. Pitcher: The servant who waits upon Mr. Craven.
• Colin: Mr. Craven's sickly, spoiled, and lonely son
• Dr. Craven: Colin's doctor and uncle.
• Robin, Captain, Soot, Nut, Shell, and Jump: Dickon's bird and animal friends
• The Nurse: Colin's nurse.
• Martha Phoebe Sowerby: Mary´s chambermaid who takes interest in her and helps Mary´s bitterness by being kind and cheerful with Mary. Dickon´s sister.
• Ben Weatherstaff: An elderly gardener at Misselthwaite Manor that befriends Mary and Dickon.
• Colin Craven: Mary's lonely, hypochondriac bed-ridden cousin, the son of Archibald Craven.
• Susan Sowerby: Dickon and Martha's mother; a wise, poor yet happy woman.
• Mr. Roach: The head gardener who is imperiously summoned by Colin
• Bob Haworth: Champion wrestler who tells Dickon how to do exercises to make a person strong.
• Lilias Craven: Archibald Craven's deceased wife; Colin's mother
• The robin: A red robin who was also abandoned by his flock. He befriends Ben Weatherstaff, Miss Mary, and Dickon. Helps Miss Mary find the garden.
• John
• Missel Moor
• Mrs. Craven
• Lizabeth Ellen: Sister of Martha
• Jem Fettleworth
• Mrs. Crawford
• Mr. Rajah

Quotes edit see section history

• “Where u tend a rose a thistle cannot grow”

• “Where you tend a rose, my lad, A thistle cannot grow.”

  Frances Hodgenson Burnettte

• “One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun—which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so...And it was like that with Colin when he first saw and heard and felt the Springtime inside the four high walls of a hidden garden.That afternoon the whole world seemed to devote itself to being perfect and radiantly beautiful and kind to one boy. Perhaps out of pure heavenly goodness the spring came and crowned everything it possibly could into.”

• “Tha' an' me are a good bit alike," <Ben> said. "We was wove out of th' same cloth. We're neither of us good lookin' an' we're both of us as sour as we look. We've got the same nasty tempers, both of us, I'll warrant.”

• “When you will not fly into a passion people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wish they hadn't said afterward. There's nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in--that's stronger. It's a good thing not to answer your enemies.”

• “If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”

• “To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet-fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in, you may never get over it as long as you live.”

• “She had felt as if she had understood a robin and that he had understood her; she had run in the wind until her blood had grown warm; she had been healthily hungry for the first time in her life; and she had found out what it was to be sorry for someone.”

• “So long as Mistress Mary's mind was full of disagreeable thoughts about her dislikes and sour opinions of people and her determination not to be pleased by or interested in anything, she was a yellow-faced, sickly, bored and wretched child...When her mind gradually filled itself with robins, and moorland cottages crowded with children, with queer crabbed old gardeners and common little Yorkshire housemaids, with springtime and with secret gardens coming alive day by day, and also with a moor boy and his "creatures," there was no room left for the disagreeable thoughts which affected her liver and her digestion and made her yellow and tired.”

• “Two things cannot be in one place. "Where you tend a rose, my lad, A thistle cannot grow."”

• “I am going to try a scientific experiment," explained the rajah. "When I grow up I am going to make great scientific discoveries and I am going to begin now with this experiment.' 'Aye, aye, sir!' said Ben Weatherstaff promptly, though this was the first time he had heard of great scientific discoveries. It was the first time Mary had heard of them, either, but even at this stage she had begun to realize that, queer as he was, Colin had read about a great many singular things and was somehow a very convincing sort of boy. When he held up his head and fixed his strange eyes on you, it seemed as if you believed him almost in spite of yourself, though he was only ten years old - going on eleven. At this moment he was especially convincing because he suddenly felt the fascination of actually making a sort of speech like a grown-up person. 'The great scientific discovery I am going to make,' he went on, 'will be about Magic.'”

• “'Magic is a great thing, and scarcely anyone knows anything about it except a few people in old books - and Mary a little, because she was born in India, where that are fakirs. I believe Dickon knows some Magic, but perhaps he doesn't know he knows it. He charms animals and people. I would never have let him come to see me if he had not been an animal-charmer - which is a boy-charmer, too, because a boy is an animal. I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us - like electricity and horses and steam.'”

Setting & Locations edit see section history

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• India: where Mary was born
• Misselweith manor
• Secret Garden
• England: country where Mary had to move to
• New york
• London: city in which Mrs. Medlock met Mary and picked her up
• Cambridge
• Brontë
• Britain
• White People
• Big Idea
• Chicago
• America
• Iowa
• Seedfolks
• Beast
• Utopia
• Rochester
• Yorkshire: location of Misselthwaite Manor
• Long Walk
• Mem Sahib
• Misselthwaite Manor: Mary's uncle's home
• Missel Moore: The Yorkshire moor upon which Misselthwaite Manor sits.
• Thwaite: The town near Misselthwaite Manor.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Ayah: A native (in India) nursemaid who looks after children.
• Queer: Strange or odd.
• Desolation: A bleak and forlorn atmosphere; the state of being decayed or destroyed.
• Bewilderment: Confused or perplexed.
• Disdain: To look upon or treat with contempt; to despise or scorn.
• Trifle: A thing of very little value.
• Moor: An open, often hilly, expanse of land covered with patches of heath, and having a poor, light soil, but sometimes marshy, and abounding in peat; a heath.
• Marred: Blemished or spoiled.
• Wick: Yorkshire dialect; alive or lively.
• Wuthering: Yorkshire dialect; describing a wind blowing strongly and making aloud, roaring sound; subject to blustrery or noisy winds.
• Obsequious: Obedient or attentive to an excessive or servile degree.
• Languid: Lacking spirit or liveliness; without force or effort; indisposed to exertion.
• Brougham: A four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage, with an open seat for the driver in front of the closed cabin for two or four passengers.
• Pinafore: A sleeveless dress resembling an apron; worn over other clothing.
• Forrad: Yorkshire dialect for "forward".
• Moithered: Yorkshire dialect; bothered or harassed.
• Nesh: Yorkshire dialect; soft and weak, susceptible to cold weather or harsh conditions.
• Missel: Of or relating to mistletoe. Often used in reference to the missel thrush (Turdus viscivorus), which is named for its habit of eating mistletoe berries.
• Volubly: Fluent or having a ready flow of speech; chatty.
• Clemmin: Yorkshire dialect; starving; suffering from hunger, thirst or cold.
• Servitor: Servant; someone who performs the duties of an attendant for someone else.
• Graidely: Yorkshire dialect; satisfying, excellent or great. Used in reference to things like food, in order to express particular satisfaction.
• Besom: A broom made of twigs tied together on a long handle.
• Restive: Edgy; being in a tense state.
• Salver: A flat tray of silver or other metal used for carrying or serving glasses, cups and dishes at table.

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• The power of Thought and Nature: Frances Hodgson Burnett was a Christian scientist and spiritualist. Her beliefs are shown throughout the book with the garden's healing powers, and through Colin's scientific experiment
• Growing up: Describe this theme.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Frances Hodgson Burnett (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Troy Howell (Illustrator) - illustrated the first edition
2. Frederick A. Stokes (Publisher) - published the first US edition
3. Heinemann (Publisher) - published the first UK edition
4. Margaret DeKeyser (Adapter)
5. Phil Devine (Illustrator)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• BBC's Big Read (April 2003: Best Loved Novel, #51)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 813.4

Notes for Parents edit see section history

This a great read aloud for younger readers as well.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Children's Books › Authors & Illustrators, A-Z › ( B ) › Burnett, Frances Hodgson
• Books › Children's Books › Literature › Classics by Age
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Project Gutenberg: Free e-book, full text
• Librivox Free Audio Book: Read by Karen Savage (Total running time: 6:57:27)

Movie Connections edit see section history

• The Secret Garden (IMDb): 1993
• The Secret Garden (IMDb): 1949

More Books Like This edit see section history

Books Influenced by This Book edit see section history

Books That Cite This Book edit see section history