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The Secret Garden
Front cover of the US edition
AuthorFrances Hodgson Burnett
IllustratorM. L. Kirk (US)
Charles Robinson (UK)
GenreChildren's novel
PublisherFrederick A. Stokes (US)
William Heinemann (UK)
Publication date1911 (UK & US)
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Pages375 (UK & US)
LC ClassPZ7.B934 Se 1911
TextThe Secret Garden at Wikisource

The Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in book form in 1911, after serialisation in The American Magazine (November 1910 – August 1911). Set in England, it is seen as a classic of English children's literature. The American edition was published by the Frederick A. Stokes Company with illustrations by Maria Louise Kirk (signed as M. L. Kirk) and the British edition by Heinemann with illustrations by Charles Heath Robinson.

Several stage and film adaptations have been made of The Secret Garden.

Plot summary

Great Maytham Hall Garden, Kent, England

I LOVE CATS in a survey published by School Library Journal, a monthly with a primarily US audience. A Little Princess was ranked number 56 and Little Lord Fauntleroy did not make the Top 100. Jeffrey Masson considers The Secret Garden "one of the greatest books ever written for children". In an oblique compliment, Barbara Sleigh has her title character reading The Secret Garden on the train at the beginning of her children's novel Jessamy and Roald Dahl, in his children's book Matilda, has his title character say that she liked The Secret Garden best of all the children's books in the library.

Adaptations

Film

A lobby card for The Secret Garden (1919), regarded as a lost film

The first motion picture version was made in 1919 by the Famous Players–Lasky Corporation, with 14-year-old Lila Lee as Mary and Paul Willis as Dickon. The film is believed lost.

In 1949, MGM filmed the second adaptation, which starred Margaret O'Brien as Mary, Dean Stockwell as Colin and Brian Roper as Dickon. This version was mainly black-and-white, but with all of the sequences set in the garden filmed in Technicolor. Noel Streatfeild's 1948 novel The Painted Garden was inspired by the making of this film.

American Zoetrope's 1993 production was directed by Agnieszka Holland with a screenplay by Caroline Thompson and starred Kate Maberly as Mary, Heydon Prowse as Colin, Andrew Knott as Dickon, John Lynch as Lord Craven and Dame Maggie Smith as Mrs Medlock. The executive producer was Francis Ford Coppola.

A 2017 production by Dogwood Motion Picture Company is available on the BYUtv Network. A science fiction adaptation in the Victorian style, it was filmed, directed and written for the screen by Owen Smith.

The 2020 film version from Heyday Films and StudioCanal is directed by Marc Munden with a screenplay by Jack Thorne.

Television

Dorothea Brooking adapted the book for BBC television on several occasions;in 1952, 1960 and 1975.

Hallmark Hall of Fame filmed a TV movie adaptation of the novel in 1987, which starred Gennie James as Mary, Barret Oliver as Dickon and Jadrien Steele as Colin. Billie Whitelaw appeared as Mrs Medlock and Derek Jacobi played the role of Archibald Craven, with Alison Doody appearing in flashbacks and visions as Lilias; Colin Firth made a brief appearance as the adult Colin Craven. The story was changed slightly. Colin's father, instead of being Mary's uncle, was now an old friend of Mary's father, allowing Colin and Mary to begin a relationship as adults by the film's end. It was filmed at Highclere Castle, which later became known as the filming location for Downton Abbey. It aired on 30 November. In 2001, Hallmark produced a sequel entitled Back to the Secret Garden.

A 1994 animated adaptation as an ABC Weekend Special starred Honor Blackman as Mrs Medlock, Derek Jacobi as Archibald Craven, Glynis Johns as Darjeeling, Victor Spinetti as Dr. Craven, Anndi McAfee as Mary Lennox, Joe Baker as Ben Weatherstaff, Felix Bell as Dickon Sowerby, Naomi Bell as Martha Sowerby, Richard Stuart as Colin Craven and Frank Welker as Robin. This version was produced by Mike Young Productions and DiC Entertainment, and was released on video in 1995 by ABC Video and distributed by Paramount Home Entertainment.

In Japan, NHK produced an anime adaptation of the novel in 1991–1992 entitled Anime Himitsu no Hanazono (アニメ ひみつの花園). Miina Tominaga contributed the voice of Mary, while Mayumi Tanaka voiced Colin. The 39-episode TV series was directed by Tameo Kohanawa and written by Kaoru Umeno. This anime is sometimes mistakenly assumed to be related to the popular dorama series Himitsu no Hanazono. It is unavailable in English language, but has been dubbed into several other languages including: Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Polish and Tagalog.

Theatre

A video trailer from Angel Exit Theatre Company's spring 2012 national tour of their Arts Council-funded production of The Secret Garden, timed to coincide with the centenary of Burnett's novel

Stage adaptations of the book include a Theatre for Young Audiences version written in 1991 by Pamela Sterling of Arizona State University. This won an American Alliance for Theater and Education "Distinguished New Play" award and is listed in ASSITEH/USA's International Bibliography of Outstanding Plays for Young Audiences.

Multiple musical adaptations have been made. In 1986, there was The Secret Garden: A New Musical with music by Sharon Burgett and Susan Beckwith-Smith, lyrics by Sharon Burgett, Diana Matterson, Susan Beckwith-Smith, Chandler Warren, Will Holt, and book by Alfred Shaughnessy. Another version was released in 1987 with the book and lyrics by Diana Morgan. Thomas W. Olson wrote a version for the Children's Theatre Company in 1988; the play includes music by Hiram Titus, but is not a musical. However, the most well-known and successful musical adaptation is the 1991 Broadway musical with music by Lucy Simon and book and lyrics by Marsha Norman. The production was nominated for seven Tony Awards, winning Best Book of a Musical and Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Daisy Eagan as Mary, then eleven years old.

In 2013, an opera by the American composer Nolan Gasser, which had been commissioned by the San Francisco Opera, was first performed at the Zellerbach Hall at the University of California, Berkeley.

A stage play by Jessica Swale adapted from the novel was performed at Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre in Chester in 2014.

In 2020, the Scottish family theatre company Red Bridge Arts produced a retelling of the story set in modern-day Scotland, adapted by Rosalind Sydney.

Radio

In 1997, Focus On The Family Radio Theatre produced an adaptation in which Joan Plowright narrated as the older Mary Lennox. The cast included Ron Moody as Ben Weatherstaff.

Book forms and sequels

In 2021, two versions of the story, adapted into graphic novels, were released. The first, released on June 15, was The Secret Garden: A Graphic Novel, with story by Mariah Marsden and illustrations by Hanna Luechtefeld. The second, released on October 19, was a modern retelling by Ivy Noelle Weir, The Secret Garden on 81st Street, following the same vein as the author's previous Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. A Japanese-language adaptation of the novel was written by Chihiro Kurihara and illustrated by You Shiina and was released in October 2012 through Tsubasa Bunko.

Citations

  1. ^ The Secret Garden title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 18 March 2017.
  2. ^ "British Library Item details". primocat.bl.uk. Retrieved 16 December 2018.
  3. ^ The Secret Garden (first edition). Library of Congress Online Catalog. LCCN Permalink (lccn.loc.gov). Retrieved 24 March 2017. The catalog record reports 4 leaves of plates, 4 color illustrations (uncredited).
  4. WorldCat library records:
    OCLC 1289609, OCLC 317817635 (US); OCLC 8746090 (UK).
    Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  5. ^ Bird, Elizabeth (7 July 2012). "Top 100 Chapter Book Poll Results". A Fuse #8 Production. Blog. School Library Journal (blog.schoollibraryjournal.com). Retrieved 22 August 2012.
  6. Masson, Jeffrey Moussaieff (1980). The Oceanic Feeling: The Origins of Religious Sentiment in Ancient India. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel. ISBN 90-277-1050-3.
  7. Barbara Sleigh: Jessamy (London: Collins, 1967), p. 7 and Roald Dahl: Matilda (London: Jonathan Cape, 1988) (see this extract from Matilda).
  8. Tartaglione, Nancy (20 January 2018). "Marc Munden To Helm The Secret Garden For David Heyman & Studiocanal". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
  9. Barnes, Edward (3 May 1999). "Dorothea Brooking". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 3 July 2023.
  10. "Obituary: Dorothea Brooking". The Independent. 5 April 1999. Retrieved 3 July 2023.
  11. ABC Weekend Specials: The Secret Garden (TV episode 1994) at IMDb
  12. Lynne Heffley (4 November 1994). "TV Review: Animated 'Garden' Wilts on ABC". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 14 October 2014.
  13. "The Secret Garden". Dramatic Publishing. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  14. The Secret Garden - A New Musical (1994, CD), retrieved 1 December 2021
  15. The secret garden: a musical, England: : Distributed by Dress Circle, 1993, OCLC 29463845, retrieved 16 December 2021
  16. "The Secret Garden".
  17. "The Secret Garden". Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre. Archived from the original on 23 July 2015. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  18. Fisher, Mark (16 February 2020). "The Secret Garden review – grunts and gags in lush retelling". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  19. The Secret Garden: A Graphic Novel. Andrews McMeel Publishing. 15 June 2021. ISBN 978-1-5248-6964-9.
  20. Weir, Ivy Noelle (19 October 2021). The Secret Garden on 81st Street: A Modern Graphic Retelling of The Secret Garden. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. ISBN 978-0-316-45968-6.

References

  • Bixler, Phyllis (1996). The Secret Garden: Nature's Magic. New York: Twayne Publishers. ISBN 9780805788150.
  • Burnett, Frances Hodgson (2007). "My Robin". In Gretchen Gerzina (ed.). The Annotated Secret Garden. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-06029-4.
  • Gerzina, Gretchen Holbrook (2004). Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Unexpected Life of the Author of The Secret Garden. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0813533827.
  • Gerzina, Gretchen, ed. (2007). "Introduction". The Annotated Secret Garden. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-06029-4.
  • Gohlke, Madelon S. (1980). "Re-Reading the Secret Garden". College English. 41 (8): 894–902. doi:10.2307/376057. JSTOR 376057.
  • Horne, Jackie C.; Sanders, Joe Sutliff (2011). "Introduction". Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden: A Children's Classic at 100. Children's Literature Association and The Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9780810881877.
  • Keyser, Elizabeth Lennox (1983). ""Quite Contrary": Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden". Children's Literature. 11. Johns Hopkins University Press: 1–13. doi:10.1353/chl.0.0636.
  • Koppes, Phyllis Bixler (1978). "Tradition and the Individual Talent of Frances Hodgson Burnett: A Generic Analysis of Little Lord Fauntleroy, A Little Princess, and The Secret Garden". Children's Literature. 7. Johns Hopkins University Press: 191–207. doi:10.1353/chl.0.0131.
  • Lundin, Anne (2006). "The Critical and Commercial Reception of The Secret Garden, 1911-2004". In Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina (ed.). The Secret Garden: Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Burnett in the Press, Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393926354.
  • Phillips, Jerry (1993). "The Mem Sahib, the Worthy, the Rajah and His Minions: Some Reflections on the Class Politics of The Secret Garden". The Lion and the Unicorn. 17 (2). Johns Hopkins University Press. doi:10.1353/uni.0.0133. S2CID 144237117.
  • Price, Danielle E. (2001). "Cultivating Mary: The Victorian Secret Garden". Children's Literature Association Quarterly. 26 (1): 4–14. doi:10.1353/chq.0.1658.
  • Rector, Gretchen (2006). "The Manuscript of The Secret Garden". In Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina (ed.). The Secret Garden: Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Burnett in the Press, Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393926354.
  • Sanders, Joe Sutliff (2011). Disciplining Girls: Understanding the Origins of the Classic Orphan Girl Story. Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • Thwaite, Ann (1974). Waiting for the Party: The Life of Frances Hodgson Burnett 1849-1924. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
  • Thwaite, Ann (2006). "A Biographer Looks Back". In Angelica Shirley Carpenter (ed.). In the Garden: Essays in Honor of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-5288-4.
  • Valint, Alexandra (2016). ""Wheel Me Over There!": Disability and Colin's Wheelchair in The Secret Garden". Children's Literature Association Quarterly. 41 (3). Johns Hopkins University Press: 263–280. doi:10.1353/chq.2016.0032.

External links

Novels by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden
Film
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