Frances Hodgson Burnett

 Born in England in 1849, children’s fiction writer Frances Hodgson Burnett, most famous for her classic novel The Secret Garden, began life in a prosperous household that declined upon the death of her father. The family moved to America, where, to assist with their diminished finances Frances Hodgson Burnett began writing fiction books for children that she sold for publication. The writer married Dr. Swann Burnett in 1873, and it was not long after that that Frances Hodgson Burnett’s fiction books for children were bringing in a regular income; no small feat considering many women writers of her age, including Louisa May Alcott, used pseudonyms or published anonymously until they gained respect. Few may know that the first of Hodgson Burnett’s bestselling books, Little Lord Fauntleroy, was inspired by her sons who as children she dressed in velvet and kept their hair long. When her eldest died of consumption, she succumbed to depression, divorced her husband eight years later and returned to England where, ensconced at her country home, found the inspiration for still one of the most famous fiction books for children today, The Secret Garden. Her second marriage to a man 10 years her junior also ended in divorce, but Hodgson Burnett’s career writing children’s fiction books, among them A Little Princess, based on a stage play of her novel, Sara Crewe, continued until her death on Long Island, New York, where she lived the last 17 years of her life.