The Secret Garden

Hardcover

English language

Published Jan. 6, 1995 by Kidsbooks.com.

ISBN:: 978-1-56156-312-8

(5 reviews)

The Secret Garden has awakened the spirits of four generations of children to the hope of growth and rebirth as well as the beauty of nature, which mirrors the possibility of eternal spring in the human soul. Ten year-old Mary Lennox discovers a long-neglected and completely enclosed garden that she sets out to bring back to life. As the garden revives, so do the long unhappy and unhealthy people associated with it. This vivid, almost poetic tale is as immortal as the themes it portrays—life from death, hope from apathy, joy from despair, and health from illness.

50 editions

Stephanie Jane reviewed The Secret Garden (Penguin Classics) by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Still inspirational

4 stars

When my sister spotted on Facebook that I had signed up for the Classics Club Challenge, she kindly lent me three classics from her bookshelves: The Secret Garden, Heidi and Animal Farm (I do know Animal Farm isn't a kids' book!) The first two I haven't read in well over thirty years and I hadn't read Animal Farm at all so I was keen to start them. I remembered some of the illustrations in a Ladybird copy of The Secret Garden and am sure we must have had a full text version too, however a lot of the storyline details seemed new to me this time around.

The Secret Garden is, of course, a children's book, but I was happy reading it as an adult and I didn't think the prose style was particularly younger than some modern young adult novels I've read in the past few years! The adult …

When my sister spotted on Facebook that I had signed up for the Classics Club Challenge, she kindly lent me three classics from her bookshelves: The Secret Garden, Heidi and Animal Farm (I do know Animal Farm isn't a kids' book!) The first two I haven't read in well over thirty years and I hadn't read Animal Farm at all so I was keen to start them. I remembered some of the illustrations in a Ladybird copy of The Secret Garden and am sure we must have had a full text version too, however a lot of the storyline details seemed new to me this time around.

The Secret Garden is, of course, a children's book, but I was happy reading it as an adult and I didn't think the prose style was particularly younger than some modern young adult novels I've read in the past few years! The adult characters are perhaps too stereotyped - the poor-but-always-happy mother, the gruff-but-with-a-heart-of-gold old gardener - but the children, whose story it is after all, are wonderfully real and for most of the book are actually pretty unlikeable. I was shocked by the initial depiction of Mary's life in India. Simultaneously spoilt yet neglected it's not any wonder that she is so insular and awkward.

Where The Secret Garden absolutely shines for me is in the depiction of the eponymous garden and the natural world surrounding Misselthwaite. I loved the idea of this secluded estate isolated on the moor and began to feel enthusiastic at the thought of joining Mary in her efforts to regenerate the Garden (even though in truth I loathe weeding!) Burnett manages to teach without preaching and I imagine I was just as inspired to get out into the countryside when I first read this book as I am now. A true classic!