Frances Hodgson Burnett

Burnett Resources

Frances Hodgson Burnett was born November 24, 1849 in Cheetham Hill, England, outside of Manchester. At this time Manchester was a thriving textile center fueled by the success of the cotton mills. Frances was one of five children born to Edwin and Eliza Burnett. Edwin had a successful home furnishings business, providing customers with such products as chandeliers, ironwork, and brass door fittings.

Tragedy struck though in 1853 when Frances was four, as Edwin died at age 38 of a stroke. Eliza tried to keep the business going but the start of the Civil War in the United States affected cotton imports and the textile industry experienced a tremendous rate of unemployment.

Eliza moved the family to Knoxville, Tennessee in 1865 where her brother had earlier moved and was struggling to keep a dry goods store going. He moved Eliza and the children to New Market where he had a cabin. The Burnett family had experienced quite a shift from upper middle class comfort to poverty, now often going to bed hungry.

The Burnett’s neighbors were Dr. John and Lydia Burnett and their son Swan, whose great-grandfather was Adam Peck, the earliest settler of what would become Jefferson City. Frances and Swan would spend much time together and would begin a relationship that would lead to marriage in 1873.

Frances began writing stories at the age of 17. As stories began to be published in Harper’s Atlantic, Scribner’s Monthly, and Peterson’s Ladies’ Magazine, she earned enough money to move her family back to Knoxville in 1869. However, the following year Eliza died.

The next several years would prove quite eventful. A year after her marriage to the now Dr. Swan Burnett, their first son, Lionel, was born in 1874. 1876 saw her first novel published, entitled That Lass o’Lowrie’s. (It was actually the second written. Dolly had been serialized in 1873 but was not published in book form until 1877.) In 1876, their second son, Vivian, was born. He would prove the inspiration for what would become perhaps Burnett’s most famous work, Little Lord Fauntleroy.

In 1877 Burnett moved to Washington, D.C. Little Lord Fauntleroy was serialized in St. Nicholas during 1885 and would be published in 1886 in book form. Two years later, in 1888, she moved to Kent, England with her two sons where she would live for the next twelve years. In 1890 tragedy struck again, however, as Lionel died of influenza.

Frances and Swan had been separated for some time and in 1898 they divorced. Two years later Frances married Stephen Townshend, but in 1900 they too would separate. In 1901 Frances moved to Long Island, New York. Swan would die three years later in Washington, D.C.

During the next several years Frances would write two of her most famous books, A Little Princess in 1905 and The Secret Garden in 1911. She died October 29, 1924 but would live to see her grandchildren and continue to recapture the magic of childhood through them. While her books have often been described as having a “saccharine” quality, she left an indelible mark on children’s literature, providing a path to the “secret garden” in all of us that is often lost in adulthood.