Note on the Texts
This volume contains three children’s novels by Frances Hodgson Burnett—Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911)—as well as three other narratives that illuminate the author’s inspiration for each book.
LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY
In 1885, while living in Washington, D.C., Burnett began telling her sons a story about an American little boy who becomes an English lord. She decided to write it down and quickly finished it, writing to editor Mary Mapes Dodge of St. Nicholas, a prominent children’s magazine, in spring 1885, “I think I will send him to you. The one or two persons who have made his acquaintance so far seem to find him enchanting . . . Already he has filled about a hundred pages of manuscript & he has many things to do.” The novel was serialized in St. Nicholas (published by Charles Scribner’s Sons) from November 1885 to October 1886, for which Burnett was paid more than twice the usual rate, with illustrations by Reginald B. Birch, an English-American painter and illustrator. It was then published in 1886 in a text identical to the serialized novel by Scribner’s in New York, selling hundreds of thousands of copies and going through over thirty printings in the next two years. It was published in London later the same year with changes to bring about conformity with British conventions of spelling and usage (Burnett, who immigrated to the United States at age fifteen, normally used American spelling when she wrote), and with the addition of chapter titles, by Frederick Warne & Co. The present volume uses the first American edition as the source for its text.
A LITTLE PRINCESS
In winter 1885, Burnett wrote the short story “Sara Crewe, or What Happened at Miss Minchin’s,” which was serialized in St. Nicholas beginning in December 1887, and published as a book in 1888 by Scribner’s in New York and then in London by Frederick Warne & Co. the same year. In 1902, Burnett decided to expand the short story into a three-act play, A Little Unfairy Princess, with the addition of several schoolgirls and a speaking part for Ram Dass; it premiered in London at the Shaftesbury Theatre in December 1902. The title was shortened at the end of the year to A Little Princess, and it transferred to New York City at the Criterion Theatre in January 1903 as The Little Princess. Her editor at Scribner’s, Edward Burlingame, asked Burnett to expand the story with “the things and people that had been left out before,” and Burnett began writing the novel in 1904 while living at Maytham Hall, in Kent, England. It was published by Scribner’s in New York in September 1905 as A Little Princess: Being the Whole Story of Sara Crewe Now Being Told for the First Time with illustrations by Ethel Franklin Betts, an American illustrator of children’s books. It was published in London the same year by Warne using different plates (but without revisions by Burnett) and with illustrations by Harold Piffard. The present volume uses the first American edition as the source for its text.
THE SECRET GARDEN
Burnett began writing The Secret Garden in 1909 at her new house in Plandome, Long Island, under the title “Mistress Mary Quite Contrary.” It was finished by October 1910 and was serialized in The American Magazine starting the next month, the first children’s story this adult magazine had ever published. Burnett further revised the novel after its serial appearance, and it was published by Frederick A. Stokes Company in New York in August 1911 with illustrations by Maria Louise Kirk (M. L. Kirk), an American illustrator of children’s books. William Heinemann brought out a British edition (with illustrations by Charles Heath Robinson) in October of the same year, using different plates (but without revisions by Burnett). The present volume uses the first American edition as the source for its text.
OTHER WRITINGS
“How Fauntleroy Occurred, and a Very Real Boy Became an Ideal One” (1894), a memoir Burnett wrote about her son Vivian, who was the inspiration for Fauntleroy, was published in her story collection Piccino and Other Child Stories by Scribner’s in 1894, the source of the text used here.
“Sara Crewe, or What Happened at Miss Minchin’s” is the short story that was the basis for the stage play and novel A Little Princess. It was serialized in St. Nicholas Magazine beginning in December 1887 and published as a book in 1888 by Scribner’s. The Scribner’s book edition is the source of the text used here.
“My Robin” (1912), Burnett’s memoir of an English robin that became her pet and inspired the robin episodes of The Secret Garden, was published as a separate book, My Robin (illustrated by Alfred Brennan), by Frederick A. Stokes Company in New York in September 1912, the source of the text used here.
This volume presents the texts of the original printings chosen for inclusion here, but it does not attempt to reproduce features of their typographic design. The texts are presented without change, except for the correction of typographical errors. Spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are often expressive features, and they are not altered, even when inconsistent or irregular. The text of letters was presented with quotation marks placed at the beginning of each paragraph and at the end of the text; this volume omits the quotation marks. The following is a list of typographical errors corrected, cited by page and line number of the hardcover edition of this volume: 3.22, I’ll; 41.27, done,; 71.1, fauntleroy; 75.35, “Yes.”; 83.22, base.; 88.37, rector. ¶ “He; 89.24, bootblack; 112.18, over closely; 116.3, days,; 138.23, lawyer. She; 173.7–8, Lorredaile; 234.5, It; 365.35, thruths; 377.9, Was”; 438.26, to-morrow.; 461.16, quiet clean; 477.3, gardeners?”; 542.11, said; 558.36, myself.; 570.6, himself every; 620.8–9, them delightful; 649.15, small, dark; 652.8, asked The; 660.26, were fond; 671.4, thought ‘d; 684.18, and, hungry,.