| Title | : | The Secret Garden / A Little Princess |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0140381872 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | - |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1911 |
The Secret Garden / A Little Princess Reviews
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The secret Garden is probably the most amazing and thought provoking children's book every written. Such a profound insight into the hearts and minds of the main characters Mary, Colin, Dicken etc- a little romanticised perhaps but still amazing.
The story is set in Yorkshire and it starts off with a kind of dark Gothic atmosphere with Mary stuck in this monstrous and spooky house and her only comrade of sorts is the servant girl Martha - Dicken's elder sister. The house at night is filled with all sorts of horrible tormented wailing which Mary bravely follows until she meets her bedridden and hypochondriac cousin Colin, the heir of the great manor house who is certain he is crippled, deformed and destined to die at a young age. He is in fact incredibly neglected by his father who has been mourning for a decade or so over his late wife who dies tragically in the Garden. After that he locks the Garden and closes it forever.
The company of Mary cheers the child up a bit, but it is not until he hears stories of the Secret Garden that Mary has just rediscovered that his interest in life is renewed. Eventually with the help of Martha's little brother Dicken, the Master of animals, plants and all other sorts of enchantment, the Secret Garden is brought to life again and Colin finally has something to live for other than his imaginery hump and other illnesses.
The main theme of the book the Garden itself symbolizes a kind of Paradise Lost that must be regained through the spiritual innocence, love and lifeaffirming Joy of the three children. Dicken is the Nature child in the story, a kind of Pan figure and the symbol of the pure rustic peasant child who, with his ability to charm animals and breathe life back into the soil, works miracles on first Mary who is the Keeper of the Secret Garden and then on Colin - who, as the heir of the Manor itself, is its owner.
A final miracle takes place at the end of the book which although stretching our gullibility as readers to the limit brings about the perfect resolution to the story. It is a lovely plot twist which not only reunites father and son again, but also restores the social order of things left by a ten year old tragedy and the abandonment of the Father's duties as Lord of the Manor.
This book was written towards the end of the 19th century about a time when the social order of England and societies links with Mother Nature and the pastoral idyll of the country life was viewed as sacrosanct - The author lived in a time that had not been devastated by two world wars, the Holocust, Hiroshima and the current trend of globalisation, the digital revolution and the infotainment society.
It is therefore a pretty slow paced book, filled with didactic passages and pretty morals, as well as a gushing Romantic sentimentalism. Even in the time it was written it is clear that the novel looks back to a Golden Age where the servants, villagers and their leige Lord were meant to live in a social harmony of bliss and harmony based on a set hierarchical structure ordained by God himself. It is also clear that it draws upon the old Renaissance idea of Mother Nature as being God's second book of revelation and instruction (the first book being the Bible). As such Nature is viewed in a totally non-Dawinistic sense. Instead of being Red in tooth and claw, Nature is both a guide and teacher as well as a benevolent and nurturing Mother - She is the Faery Queen of the New Eden which awakens at the touch of those like Dicken, Mary and Colin who see her with pure vision.
Dicken of course is the High Priest of this Eden, he is an archetypal Pan figure, the go-between for Mother Nature and the Fallen Adam and Eve of her world, Colin and Mary. When he connects them both back to their original link to her, the two are totally enthralled and awaken not only to the Secret Garden around them, but also the Secret Garden inside their own hearts and souls.
Colin and Mary both call this mystical awakening to Nature's Wisdom, White Magic and when he discovers its amazing healing powers, Colin vows that he will write books on the mystery of this magical force inside him and the Secret Garden. When the world learns of this Magic and Knowledge then all its problems and misery will disappear and the Paradise that existed at the morning of the world will be regained. This is a very odd idea for us in our time, but you have to remember that in those days Milton's Paradise Lost, along with Tennyson's Idylls of the King were two of the most important and influential books in the period. So the idea of regaining the Lost Paradise of Eden was not out of the question for people of the 19th century!
The film I think that was based on the book I thought was also amazingly beautiful.
There was a second book written Back to the Secret Garden, based on the first. But this book was written post WW II and the age of England's innocence along with the mystique of her Gardens was no longer there anymore was it?
Five stars for the Secret Garden - three stars for its sequel.
Review by Manfred
Heavily Rewritten 19-1-2017
Really like the whole India thing thats in it as well. Mary originally lived in India before she came to the Manor, so she brings some of the old stories and ideas from India which she learnt from her Ayah or Nurse there. Along with her meeting Dicken and finding the Garden, the stories from India help inspire her belief and Philosophy of White Magic. -
"Mary had worn her contrary scowl for an hour after that, but it made her think several entirely new things." En typisk mening av den allvetande berättaren. Nu vid omläsningen tänkte jag på de inre konflikter som varje karaktär mer eller mindre motvilligt får arbeta på att övervinna. Sambandet mellan brist på fysisk aktivitet och frisk luft med psykisk ohälsa betonas också, 110 år före hjärnstark. Positivt tänkande betonas och kapitelrubriken '- Might I have a bit of earth?' säger något om trädgårdsterapi.
"And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed." Det finaste är förstås beskrivningarna av den hemliga trädgården. Sista tredjedelen tycker jag fokuserar för mycket på Colin. Han är inte mer intressant som karaktär än de andra. I bokens inledning är det också besvärligt med den koloniala synen på Indien och dess invånare, även om det hörde tiden till.
Det första av antagligen flera Secret Garden-halsband. Längtar efter att se den nya filmatiseringen.
https://www.etsy.com/se-en/listing/75... -
One of my most beloved novels. The Secret Garden has the first real great female character of children literature: Mary Lennox. She is the first heroin girl is realy human described with hard-temper, opinion. She is the garden: sick, alone, almost dead, forgoten by men/adult people. The lonely and sad girl grows with the garden and became a better person learning with nature and real friendship be a person for the first tim since she born one decade before.
Reminds me Charles dickens... as Pip, Stella, Oliver Twist, Mary Lennox represents the suffering of the children lost in middle of the problems of adults while they can´t deal with their own problems and ignore (or explore) their responsabilities with young people. Mary Lennox discover she is alive, not dead, and have the right to exist. She starts her adventure inside a dark house of 100 closed rooms and inside the garden, the unique world accepted her well. with nature and her frienship with a boy (good and pure spirit of nature) she change her own destiny and do more: she do the same for her cousin and save him and make him exist also. Mary´s courage to discover the garden and her own fault of life and make her own will happen until the end is amazing.
The Secret Garden reminds me other great novels like White Fang by Jack London, the young man having as better friend a wolf. And reminds me more of Mauler by Shawn Williamson, I read in the same year. Williamson´s novel is also great because as Dickens and Burnett describes the changes ocurred in England during the modernity of Industrial Revolution... turns men so lost, hurted, empty, worst, corrupt, bad, indiferent crashed by all news at the same time in a world without imediate answers... the unique salvation to young people was be in contact with nature or the most deep goodness (Oliver Twist) to be cured from the problems of modern man created to himself.
I like to read novels about the early period of modernity until the beginning of 20th century because them described in many ways the same agony actual men are living now. The darkness showed in The Secret Garden is the same showed in Frankestein by Mary Shelley... at least in Mary Lennox´s story she met the light in a closed garden while Pip and Stella don´t because they are more realistic like Daniel "fell boy" from Mauler... a character good but imperfect living in middle of brutality of his time... is just a person who learnt some lesson but will do mistakes as all of us. Because he is too human like Mary to be as Oliver. -
Wonderful story that inspires me to love beauty and nature. A must read aloud for small children
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Un clásico compañeras un clásico✨
Me siento más intelectual 🤓
Amé este librooooo<3 -
Lo leía de chica y me encantaba, ahora que lo volví a leer lo redescubrí. Es una historia muy buena, me gusta como el autor muestra el proceso de pensamiento de los niños y las razones por las que se van transformando.
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Lovely Classics . . . it's been awhile.
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Loved 'A Little Princes' but did not enjoyed 'The Secret Garden' at all because of the Yorkshire talk. It's one thing to hear Yorkshire accent in movies but it's altogether a different thing trying to read English written in Yorkshire accent! E.g. "Canna' tha' dress thysen?" means "Can't you dress yourself?". Took me so long to figure out -tha'- means -you- and I was annoyed trying to decipher the dialogues that took up a good portion of the book. Another issue I had with this book was the numerous typos and Caps in the middle of a sentence for no reason that I suspect this is an advance review copy that was somehow sold during a book sale. Publisher trying to make a quick buck? Oh, it was printed and binded in such as way that I had to really open the book wide so that I can read the words at the inner side of the page.
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Not many books that I've read and reread, but this one is definitely one of them! One of the first books I read when I was growing up and for sure one of the more memorable ones. There are so many movie versions of the book as well, but you definitely can't go wrong with this one:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108071/
The book is simple, clean, and easy to read, but it's very easy to love the characters and the book. I would definitely recommend this to anyone, young or old. A classic and one of my favorite books of all time. -
I remember watching these movies as a child, and though I remember A Little Princess as being more dramatic in the film than what the book actually portrays, these two stories are adorable and I can only hope to have a son as soft and caring as Dickon and a daughter as smart and kind and poised as Sara
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This review is for the audiobook version published by Our Life Publishing, narrated by Heidi Gregory, as posted by me on Audible:
'The Secret Garden' and 'A Little Princess' were among my favourites when I was a kid. I read them so many times I can't even remember not knowing them...But I've only known them in translation - in my native Polish. So it was real pleasure to finally get to know them in their original - and with such a fantastic narrator as Ms Gregory:)
Both stories send a wonderful, positive message to kids - life is full of magic, you'll find it everywhere, you just have to open up and listen, to the nature and to yourself. And no, it's not the elf, dwarves and goblins kind of magic that is found in fairy-tales and fantasy books; it's a kind of magic that we call love, God, goodness (whichever is closest to your heart)... Kids in both tales survive because they find or show kindness, use imagination, care about others... That's how we all survive in life, really, and that's what Frances Hodgson Burnett has been teaching kids for years now:)
Ms Gregory just makes the stories even more magical. She has a very nice voice, and she adds quite a bit of nice acting to her reading, which I think is important when it comes to books for kids. The listener has no problem recognizing the characters and the voices given to them nicely mirror their personalities. Definitely a win in terms of book interpretations:)
DISCLAIMER: I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. -
***spoiler alert***
A setting that I found interesting in this book was 'The Secret Garden'. Not only because it's one of the key settings in this book, it's also described as a beautiful garden and it has a lot of memories in. A forgotten garden that was soon to be discovered my Mary Lennox. Mary Lennox is the main character, she lived with her parents before moving in with her uncle in his mansion. Before she moved she appeared to be a very ignorant and even bratty kid but then she later became nicer and more caring. It's just so interesting to see her behaviour and personality change through the book.
A quote that I found very important and inspiring is: “If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”. The quote is trying to tell us that we have so many problems in our world and we're just so focused on them and forget all the good things that are out there. Instead of focusing so much on the negative things that the world is going through, look at the positive things and focus on them, then you'll realize just how beautiful the world is, just like a beautiful garden.
I feel like all the books I've read made me realize just how lucky I am and I don't have to go through all the things that the characters went through: like losing your mother and your father isolated you in a room hesitating to talk to you or hiding in your room while you listening to the sound of guns and screaming in the hallway and in the morning, you found your parents dead. -
When Mary Lennox, a ten year old girl who has a sour expression and woebegone face was sent to manor in Yorkshire there she befriends Colin, a rambunctious and obstinate child of about 10 years who was the son of the owner of the mansion. He is bed ridden for most of the years and has never seen any of the seasons in a year. He has always between the four walls and never seen sun and moon. He has forlorn face and said to have a hunch back and bad in temper. Soon Mary finds a secret garden in the moor while playing around. With that the story incites with growing secret garden which was been locked for about 10 years. With the help of Ben an old man who is surly and Backon, Mary works a great deal for secret garden. Meanwhile she become close to colin and share her excitement and everything with him. Colin becomes inquisitive of secret garden and one day they both plan to take colin to moor. With 'the magic' theory Colin becomes hale and healthy. His father is exultant of his son and the secret garden that redefined everyone's lives in the mansion of Yorkshire.
It's one of the masterpieces from child's fiction written by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Being a non reader of child's fiction I wondered how the tale would be. But it has gone against my grains. Every character has justified its presence. The concept of 'Magic' has explained in a sharp witted poignant way. It can be applied to our daily lives in its own way and has brought a strong story line in the end. -
"There is a sour girl named Mary, addressed as Mistress Mary. She has a hot temper, is sort of ugly, and was used to being waited on by servants. When she has to move to Yorkshire because she became an orphan and her uncle lived there she doesn’t like it at first. She starts to get used to it over time and stayed in the gardens throughout the day. She finds out about a locked up garden where her aunt died because of a fallen branch 10 years ago. Getting curious, she’s determined to open it up.
Mary makes friends with Ben the gardener’s friend robin, who lives in the secret garden Mary likes to call it. Thanks to him she found it’s buried key. She replants the garden and it’s wonderful. She also gets stronger over time and becomes friends with Marta the housekeeper and her brother. It’s a really good book overall, and I like it.
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روايه الحديقه السريه روايه جميله سرديه موجهه للأطفال ، و تحتوي على قيم و فوائد جميله و مفيده ، حيث احتوت على عدم الاستسلام للفشل او الاستماع لما هو سلبي و حثت على التفكير بالإيجابيات و الدعم و التوجه للدعاء و تكرير الكلمات الايجابيه و المحفزة و التركيز على الهدف بالتكرار و الإصرار اليومي و عدم نسيان العيش ببساطه و تأمل الطبيعه و الاكل الجيد و تكوين حياه اجتماعيه طيبه العلاقات المتوازنه. .
روايه جميله جدا و اكيد مفيده ، من وجهه نظري كثير من البالغين بحاجه لقراءة روايه الحديقه السريعه .
ملاحظه الروايه كتبت ١٩١١ لما تقرأها تحس انها مكتوبه ٢٠١٨ 💓
الروائع ٣ افلام عروضها سنه ١٩٧٥ و ١٩٨٧ و ١٩٩٣ ورسوم م��حركه
احلى تصوير ١٩٩٣ بس في بعض التغيرات الخفيفه بالروايه ، الترجمه جميله💓 -
Originally written in 1911, the Secret Garden is about a girl who is called Mary who imergrates to Yorkshire from India after her parents die of Cholera. Misslewait Manor becomes her new home and as the story develops Mary explores, finding a fanatical Secret garden.
The secret garden is a fairly slow paced story that doesn't have many dramatic elements. But the author Frances Burnett is able to develop the characters within the book superbly.
In conclusion, the Secret Garden is a beautiful story but due to the story not having many unique elements, I don't feel that this classic story will be memorable for me in years to come. -
Mary, an orphan is sent to Yorkshire to keep her safe and she discovers a secret garden. During the nights, she hears crying sounds and finds a boy called Colin weeping. Why is he crying? Will the two children ever be able to keep the Secret Garden SECRET?
It has a sprinkle of friendship when the children work their hardest together to revive the nearly dead garden.This book shows how Mary who was once very surly become one who had many friends with the help of a garden.
This book would most appeal to those who have a taste of classic novels and evergreen stories by Frances Hodgson Burnett. -
Both books are amazing I loved reading them. I have also watched both movies, there are different versions in which I probably watched all of them, but the little princess in 1995 and the secret garden in 1993 is my favorite. I think the movies captivated the magic and the wonder of hope, like in the books. The little princess is my number 1, out of the two.
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This is hands down one of my favourite books ever. The writing is descriptive and magical, reflecting the story of this book. We met our main character, and are immediately aware of how the author knows her faults, and we see Mary Lennox go throughout the book, becoming the person she once envied.
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Audible!This is a fine reading of two classic works by Francess Hodgson. I enjoyed listening to it very much. Heidi Gregory brings both books to life with her perfect nrration. I was given this book by the narrator,author or publisher free for an honest review.
