The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett,...

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Description

Frightened orphan Mary discovers the joyful wonders of life on the Yorkshire Moors with the help of two local boys and a mysterious, abandoned garden...where all things seem possible.

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Summary

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Cast of Characters/Important People

Mary Lennox: A young, sour-looking girl who comes to live at Misselwaithe Manor and care for the garden hidden there.
Colin Craven: Mary's lonely, bed-ridden cousin.
Dickon Sowerby: A boy with a certain charm for plants and animals.
Ben Weatherstaff: The gardener.
Archibald Craven: Mary's uncle and a widower who often travels abroad.
Mrs. Medlock: The housekeeper of the manor who supervises it in the absence of Mr. Craven.
Martha Sowerby: A chambermaid who takes an interest in Mary.

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Memorable Quotes

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

First Sentence

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.

Chapter 1 - There's No One Left
Chapter 2 - Mistress Mary Quite Contrary
Chapter 3 - Across the Moor
Chapter 4 - Martha
Chapter 5 - The Cry in the Corridor
Chapter 6 - "There Was Some One Crying-There Was"
Chapter 7 - The Key of the Garden
Chapter 8 - The Robin Who Showed the Way
Chapter 9 - The Strangest House
Chapter 10 - Dickon
Chapter 11 - The Nest of the Missel Thrush
Chapter 12 - "Might I Have a Bit of Earth?"
Chapter 13 - "I Am Colin"
Chapter 14 - A Young Rajah
Chapter 15 - Nest Building
Chapter 16 - "I Won't!" Said Mary
Chapter 17 - A Tantrum
Chapter 18 - "Tha' Munnot Waste No Time"
Chapter 19 - "It Has Come!"
Chapter 20 - "I Shall Live Forever"
Chapter 21 - Ben Weatherstaff
Chapter 22 - When the Sun Went Down
Chapter 23 - Magic
Chapter 24 - "Let Them Laugh"
Chapter 25 - The Curtain
Chapter 26 - "It's Mother!"
Chapter 27 - In the Garden