There's no other way to put it - this book was utterly magical. The Secret Garden was the first 'real book' I ever read entirely by myself when I was a child and it's always held a very special and specific part of my heart, and Marta McDowell's 'Unearthing The Secret Garden' felt like a gorgeous window into Frances Hodgson Burnett's world, The sheer amount of research and passion that has gone into creating this book is evident in every single page, and the illustrations only enhanced what was already a lush and beautiful read.

This beautiful book had me engaged from beginning to end! I have always been a big fan of The Secret Garden, however, I did not know a lot about its author, Frances Hogsdon Burnett. This book was the perfect remedy to that. It is beautifully illustrated, with abundant photographs from Burnett's life, and masterfully written. I loved learning about how her life experiences impacted her writing and found it intriguing that she developed her love for gardening when quite a bit older. The book includes pictures of Burnett and her gardens, as well as flowers from The Secret Garden and its inspiration. This book will be loved by bibliophiles who love this classic and gardeners alike!

This was much more than I expected it to be. The layout of the book is beautiful and the photographs of the flowers are gorgeous. Even if not a true fan of The Secret Garden, gardeners will appreciate this book for its attention to detail. This book centers her life and literary works around her flowers and gardening. The not from a descended family member was especially relevant and a surprise. I think researchers, students, and gardeners will enjoy this to reference.
Thank you NetGalley for an a galley of this title!

Unearthing The Secret Garden: The Plants and Places That Inspired Frances Hodgson Burnett by Marta McDowell is a wonderful treasure trove of everything about, and behind the book, The Secret Garden. Unearthing The Secret Garden, details Burnett’s life and background. It is full of beautiful illustrations from different versions of The Secret Garden, as well as images from Frances’s life. There are lists of the flowers she grew in her gardens and detailed illustrations of different sections of her garden. If you have read The Secret Garden and want to know more about the author’s life and her ideas for the book I would definitely recommend this book.

Magic. That. for me, is the best way to describe this book. As a lover of flower gardening and The Secret Garden this book was a dream come true. After finishing reading, I wanted to write a Thank You note to Marta McDowell for creating it! It was very easy to form the pictures in my mind like actually being on a walking tour of these gardens/settings. A copy of this will be on my list to buy for people at Christmas.~ Truly wonderfully done.

What an absolute gem of a book! I have grown up with the story of The Secret Garden and never until. now known much of its author. But what a fascinating life she had. This book is an inspiring story of Frances’s life and also includes some of her shorter works. A truly lovely book that should be read by any fan of The Secret Garden.

At risk of alienating myself from book lovers everywhere, I have only read The Secret Garden once and that was last year, and honestly, I didn’t think much of it. I absolutely adored the Maggie Smith film version from my childhood, but I didn’t find the book that special. But that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in the book’s history and how Frances Hodgson Burnett depicted such an absorbing garden.

In Martha’s book, she has provided some of the original illustrations from The Secret Garden which are just simply delightful and make me feel like a child again. Frances came to gardening relatively late and I think that’s why her descriptions of the garden and the imagery portrays a very warm, innocent, almost childlike view.

I know you run the risk of spoilers (can you really spoil a book that came out in 1911?) but I wonder if it would be more beneficial to read this book before reading The Secret Garden? I personally feel I have a more thorough understanding of Frances and her love of flowers that I might give the original text another go as I think I’ll get more out of it.

The way Marta describes France’s hometown of Rolvenden makes it sound like the most magical place and I even went property searching there as it sounded wonderful - we’ll ignore the fact that the house I fell in love with was over half a million pounds.

I love that Marta included some of Frances’ other, less known writings so we can see the woman behind The Secret Garden. She seemed like such a warm and loving woman.

One of the latter sections which documents every plant either mentioned or planted by Frances is absolutely amazing and a godsend for bibliophiles and gardeners. The time and effort that must have taken is commendable. You can really see Marta’s passion for the topic.

Also in her acknowledgments, she mentions that her mother’s grandfather was Vivien, Frances’ son, which makes Frances Marta’s great, great grandmother, so it’s not wonder she’s this passionate.

Unearthing The Secret Garden: The Plants and Places That Inspired Frances Hodgson Burnett by Marta McDowell

This sensitive, appreciative, and exquisitely illustrated book is a welcome gift to fans of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s beloved novel. It has guaranteed appeal for those who share the author’s passion for gardening—roses in particular—and many writers who find inspiration in the natural world. McDowell traces Burnett’s earliest gardening influences, from her floral-themed childhood alphabet book to an abandoned walled garden in Salford in the north of England, to the very different environment of Tennessee, to which her widowed mother emigrated.

Unexpectedly, Burnett did not actually become a gardener until the age of fifty, long after achieving her youthful success as a writer for the most popular journals of her day, and following marriage, motherhood, the creation of the iconic and influential novel Little Lord Fauntleroy, her tragic loss of a young son, and inevitable divorces. It was the fortuitous purchase of Maytham Hall in Kent, an unadorned canvas upon which she could paint in flowers of all kinds, but mostly roses, that provided her with an Arcadia to absorb a considerable amount of her substantial fortune. The combination of walled gardens, rose arbors, orchards, and a friendly robin did not immediately find their way into her fiction. Only after she was forced to abandon it, in order to join her surviving son in New York, did her memory and imagination produce The Secret Garden. Her depiction of contrary Mary Lennox’s rebirth and renewal within the brick walls of her Yorkshire oasis (Maytham transformed into the more massive Misselthwaite Manor well to the north) arose out of longing for a place lost to her creator. But Burnett did find solace in making new gardens—at her London Island mansion and later the Bermuda cottage to which she fled in avoidance of harsh American winters.

McDowell draws upon her subject’s memoir and many writings, but also family papers, and presents the reader with a wealth of photographs of Burnett within her gardens, and the gardens of Maytham as they exist in the present. In the final section, she includes a selection of Burnett’s gardening articles as well as a list of plants she grew. In the afterward, a great-great granddaughter briefly reflects on the familial connection to the classic novel. This book is a treasure, one for absorbing, reading and re-reading—and sharing with likeminded persons.

(Timber Press, hardcover/ebook/audio, 320 pp., 28 September, 2021)

I'm a big fan of the book "The Secret Garden" so I was interested in reading about the life of the author Frances Hodgson Burnett. She was born in Manchester, England in 1849. Her and her mother moved to Knoxville, Tennessee after the death of her father. Burnett began writing stories at the age of 19 and she published a dozen novels before her greatest successes - "Little Lord Fauntleroy" (1886) and "The Secret Garden" in 1911. During her time, she was one of the highest paid writers in the country. Burnett herself was a colorful figure, a world traveler, entertainer and friends with Henry James and Louisa May Alcott. She was almost 50 before she created her own garden at a country estate she purchased in Kent, England. Her experiences in that garden greatly influenced "The Secret Garden". In addition to the biographical details, the book also reprints several articles Burnett wrote including an account of the robin who plays a big part in "The Secret Garden". A list of the plants she grew in her gardens (she later lived in New York and Bermuda) is also included. The book is nicely illustrated with portraits of Burnett, her gardens and illustrations from editions of "The Secret Garden".

This is a lovely history book, in the guise of a gardener’s guide. The author/researcher charts the gardens that inspired Burnett’s writing, particularly “The Secret Garden.” So much of Burnett’s personal life went into the creation of her enchanting stories—I learned a lot about her and I’m grateful for that. I loved reading The Secret Garden when I was a little girl and the movie left a lasting mark. Did I pick up this book expecting it to be a how-to guide for creating my very own Secret Garden? Yes. But was it a fine read? Very much.

This book is really lovely. It straddles two worlds-- biography of Hodgson Burnett and exploration of her garden experiences-- which means neither is fully delved-into, but as long as you know that going in, this is a wonderful, easy to read book for lovers of Secret Gardens of all types.