This was the best book!!! I had recently read The Secret Garden for the first time. It was so nice to see the background of the author and her life. This book made me want to read The Secret Garden again.

Competent, thorough, well-researched and balanced – an enjoyable and illuminating biography of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Originally published in 2007 and now reissued, it may be that further material has become available in the meantime, but that aside this is a must-read for anyone interested in Burnett’s life and work.

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Beyond The Secret Garden
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Ann Thwaite
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An objective, factual and well paced biography about Frances Hodgson Burnett, the author of one of my favourite books, The Secret Garden.
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I felt though, that to remain objective, Thwaite compromised on some of the detail of the magic behind Hodgson Burnett’s writing. Frances Hodgson Burnett comes across as a lady who above all wanted fairness, happiness and justice in the world, and when she realised it couldn’t be achieved wrote it into her novels instead. She wrote in a letter to her son, Vivian ‘I have tried to write more happiness into the world’
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The book contextualises the life and times of Hodgson Burnett, which was fascinating, especially to see a life of extravagance from such humble beginnings. There was a little too much detail though for me, with minute detail around the transactions and commercials around her novels, rather than the writing itself.
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I hadn’t realised quite how well known she and her novels were at the time of writing, with Little Lord Fauntleroy the Harry Potter of its day. However, as interesting as I found this, I did feel it dominated far more of the biography than the title would suggest, with very little reference to The Secret Garden.
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Overall, an insightful and fascinating read, but one to enter with the expectation that it’s not all flowers and gardens, but a lot more commercial and business-like.
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I read this ARC for an honest review
All thoughts and opinions are mine

Frances Hodgson Burnett is one of my favourite authors from childhood and The Secret Garden was my favourite childhood book, so being able to read this was thrilling

This was a quick read

I loved the way this was written - clearly written affectionately and with much feeling.
A beautiful read

Beautifully written and moving - this was a quick and enjoyable read, I really felt connected with the story