The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is one of the most beloved children’s novels ever written — the story of a spoiled, disagreeable child named Mary Lennox who, sent to live on a Yorkshire moor after her parents’ death, discovers a locked, neglected garden and, through its restoration, discovers herself. Burnett’s novel is about the healing power of nature, the importance of purpose and attention, and the way that caring for something outside ourselves can transform us. Its portrait of three children — the sour Mary, the sickly Colin, and the warm-hearted Dickon — is drawn with extraordinary vividness, and the garden itself is one of literature’s great symbols: secret, enclosed, full of potential waiting to be unlocked. Published in a beautiful new edition, this is a novel that has made children want to dig in soil for over a hundred years.