Her first story was published in 1868. Her main talent as a writer? It was to blend a romantic plot with realistic details of the working class. Frances Hodgson Burnett was an English born playwright and author. After her father died, her family emigrated to the United States. It was there that she began writing. The statue depicts her two famous Secret Garden characters (Mary and Dickon), was erected in her honour in Central Park’s Conservatory Garden. She waiting foryou in Nassau County (Long Island), in Roslyn Cemetery. https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Garden-Frances-Hodgson-Burnett/dp/0451528832 The Secret Garden, a beloved classic of children’s literature, tells an inspirational tale of transformation. Mary Lennox (a sickly little girl), is orphaned to dim prospects in a gloomy English manor. Her only friend is Colin (a bed-ridden boy), whose prospects may be dimmer than hers. (From the Chapter I. There is No One Left): “When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another. Her father had held a position under the English Government and had always been busy and ill himself, and her mother had been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself with gay people”.
