I found a copy of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett when sorting out some old books recently and flicked through it again – hence this post. I suspect you probably have read it yourself, read it to children, or seen one of the film or TV versions. But what did you think of the story?
It always strikes me as a bit of a Marmite book. Seen by many as a children’s classic, full of charm which tells of redemption and the ultimate “niceness” of people. But it can also be read as saccharine, sentimental even mawkish, or even, alternatively, as one critic put it, as “a story about neglect, remiss parenting and mental illness; a book that, for all its light, is underpinned by darkness”.
There’s no doubting its popularity though, so I wondered where Burnett found the idea for the story? Her son said she was workaholic who “wanted to be in the land of make-believe as often and as long as possible” , but did she just make it all up or was there really a Secret Garden with “ beautiful old walls ” which ‘bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles”
No – I know it’s not Saturday but….I’m going to break my own rules just for once because I want to invite you to join me for a free on-line “open evening” next Tuesday, 25th June at 6.30 to discover more about garden history research, and in particular about the only research degree in the subject in the country which I help to run.
Last week I felt as if I had stepped back into the 18th century when I visited a garden where the basic original layout from the 1740s has been slowly restored over the past fifty years. Perhaps nothing unusual about that, but over the last 20 or 30 of those years the owners have also significantly enhanced the gardens with additional features which 
The Garden History Blog 
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