Question #30
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Ben Weatherstaff

Dickon

Garden

Letter

Martha

Mrs Medlock

Robin

Skipping-Rope The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett, p86-p102

Question #23

Frances Hodgson Burnett:

Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett was an American-English novelist and playwright. She is most well-known for the three children's novels Little Lord Fauntleroy (1885-1886), A Little Princess (1905) and  The Secret Garden (1911). Frances was born in Cheetham, Manchester in England on the 24 of November 1849 and died on the 29 of October 1924 in New York U.S., aged 74. After her father died in 1852, her family fell on straitened circumstances and Frances and her family had to immigrate to the United States in 1865. They settled near Knoxville, Tennessee. At that stage Frances started publishing stories (aged 19) in magazines to help earn money for the family. Her mother then died in 1870 and Frances married Swan Burnett in 1872 who became a medical doctor. The Burnetts lived in Paris for two years, where their two sons were born, before returning to the United States to live in Washington D.C. When Frances returned, she began writing novels. The first was 'That Lass o'Lowrie's'. That novel was published to good reviews. Little Lord Fauntleroy was published in 1886 and made her a popular writer of children's fiction although her romantic adult novels written in the 1890s were also very popular. She wrote and helped to produce stage versions of Little Lord Fauntleroy and A Little Princess. In the beginning of the 1880s she began to travel to England frequently and in the 1890s she bought a house there where she wrote The Secret Garden. Her oldest son Lionel died of tuberculosis in 1890 which caused a relapse of the depression she had struggled with much of her life. She divorced Swan Burnett in 1898 and married Stephen Townsend in 1900 and divorced Stephen in 1902. A couple of years later Frances settled in Nassau County, Long Island, where she died and is buried in Roslyn Cemetery.


Frances Hodgson Burnett, Biography

Question #20

The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Whole Book

Question #28

This story takes place in two scenes and the main character (Mary) moves to live with her uncle and discovers the Secret Garden.

Mary was sent to Misslelhwaite Manor to live her uncle. When Mary saw her room she thought it was curious and gloomy as no one really lived there. The walls were covered with tapestry with a forest scene embroidered on it. There were fantastically dressed people under the trees and in the distance there was a glimpse of the turrets of a castle. There were hunters and horses and dogs and ladies. Out of a deep window Mary could see a great climbing stretch of land which seemed to have no trees on it and to look rather like an endless, dull, purplish sea. The endless, dull, purplish sea turned out to be a moor. Mary's housemaid (Martha) described the moor to Mary as she had never seen it before. It is not bare. It is covered with growing things that smell sweet. It is lovely in the spring  and summer when the flowers blossom. It smells of honey and there is a lot of fresh air, and the sky looks so high. And the bees make such a nice humming noise, like they are singing.

The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett, p.26-p.27.

Question #30

After reading the text, try answering the questions below:

Mary had looked at her mother from a distance, and had always thought her very pretty, but as she knew very little of her, she could scarcely have been expected to love her or to miss her very much when she was gone. She did not miss her at all, in fact, and as she was a self-absorbed child she gave her entire thought to herself, as she had always done. If she had been older she would no doubt have been very anxious at being left alone in the world, but she was very young, and as she had always been taken care of, she supposed she always would be. What she thought was that she would like to know if she was going to nice people, who would always be polite to her and give her her own way as her Ayah and the other native servants had done.

She knew that she was not going to stay at the English clergyman's house where she was taken at first. She did not want to stay. The English clergyman was poor and he had five children all nearly the same age and they wore shabby clothes and were always quarrelling and snatching toys from each other. Mary hated their untidy bungalow and was so disagreeable to them that after the first day or two nobody would play with her. On the second day they had given her a nickname which made her furious.

Questions:

1. Mary is probably selfish and bossy because...

• She was born that way
• She has not been brought up well
• She lives with the servants

2. Did Mary miss her mother when she was gone?

3. Describe the English clergyman.

4. Why did Mary presume she would be taken care of in the future?

5. What did Mary think of her mother?

The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett, p9-p.10

Question #15

Name:

The Secret Garden

Complete the crossword below

										1
							2
												3
						4
					5
6

Created on TheTeachersCorner.net Crossword Maker

Alone Ayah Native Servants Forgotten Cholera Misslethwaite Manor

• Down
• 1. Having no one around, on your own.
• 2. The person that is looking after her.
• 3. They are from the local country and work around the house.

• Across
• 4. A sickness that is changing her life.
• 5. Nobody has remembered.
• 6. The place where her uncle lives, and where she will be moving to.

The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Chapter 1.

Question  #22

At the beginning of the book, a little girl named Mary Lennox was living in a large house owned by her mother and her father. Everybody said that she was the most disagreeable looking child ever seen. Mary had a little chin and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow and her face is yellow as she was born in India and had always been sick, one way or another. Her parents were always so busy doing work that they barely had enough time to even think about their daughter, Mary. Her father had held a position under the English Government and had always been ill himself. Mary's mother had been a great beauty who only cared to go parties and amuse herself with gay people. She never even wanted a little girl, and when Mary was born she handed Mary over to her Ayah. So Mary spent most of her time with her Ayah. Her Ayah looked after her all the time and tried to keep Mary out of sight from her parents because she was a sickly fretful toddling thing. Her parents had a large house which was filled with native servants that worked in every room. They lived in India. One day, when Mary was about nine years old, she woke up, feeling very cross and she got crosser when she saw that she was not looking up to her Ayah, but instead she was looking at a strange woman.

The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett, p.1-p.2