The Secret Garden
'The Secret Garden' Summary
At the turn of the 20th century, Mary Lennox is a neglected and unloved 10-year-old girl, born in British India to wealthy British parents who never wanted her and made an effort to ignore the girl. She is cared for primarily by native servants, who allow her to become spoiled, demanding, and self-centered. After a cholera epidemic kills Mary's parents, the few surviving servants flee the house without Mary.
She is discovered by British soldiers who place her in the temporary care of an English clergyman, whose children taunt her by calling her "Mistress Mary, quite contrary". She is soon sent to England to live with her uncle, Archibald Craven, whom her father's sister Lilias married. He lives on the Yorkshire Moors in a large English country house, Misselthwaite Manor. When escorted to Misselthwaite by the housekeeper Mrs Medlock, she discovers Lilias Craven is dead and that Mr Craven is a hunchback.
At first, Mary is as sour and rude as ever. She dislikes her new home, the people living in it, and most of all, the bleak moor on which it sits. Over time, she befriends her maid Martha Sowerby, who tells Mary about Lilias, who would spend hours in a private walled garden growing roses. Lilias Craven died after an accident in the garden ten years prior, and the devastated Archibald locked the garden and buried the key.
Mary becomes interested in finding the secret garden herself, and her ill manners begin to soften as a result. Soon she comes to enjoy the company of Martha, the gardener Ben Weatherstaff, and a friendly robin redbreast. Her health and attitude improve with the bracing Yorkshire air, and she grows stronger as she explores the estate gardens. Mary wonders about the secret garden and about mysterious cries that echo through the house at night.
As Mary explores the gardens, the robin draws her attention to an area of disturbed soil. Here Mary finds the key to the locked garden, and eventually she discovers the door to the garden. She asks Martha for garden tools, which Martha sends with Dickon, her 12-year-old brother, who spends most of his time out on the moors. Mary and Dickon take a liking to each other, as Dickon has a kind way with animals and a good nature. Eager to absorb his gardening knowledge, Mary tells him about the secret garden.
One night, Mary hears the cries once more and decides to follow them through the house. She is startled to find a boy of her age named Colin, who lives in a hidden bedroom. She soon discovers that they are cousins, Colin being the son of Archibald, and that he suffers from an unspecified spinal problem which precludes him from walking and causes him to spend all of his time in bed. He, like Mary, has grown spoiled, demanding, and self-centered, with servants obeying his every whim in order to prevent the frightening hysterical tantrums Colin occasionally flies into. Mary visits him every day that week, distracting him from his troubles with stories of the moor, Dickon and his animals, and the secret garden. Mary finally confides that she has access to the secret garden, and Colin asks to see it. Colin is put into his wheelchair and brought outside into the secret garden. It is the first time he has been outdoors for several years.
While in the garden, the children look up to see Ben Weatherstaff looking over the wall on a ladder. Startled to find the children in the secret garden, he admits that he believed Colin to be “a cripple”. Angry at being called “crippled”, Colin stands up from his chair and finds that his legs are fine, though weak from long disuse. Colin and Mary soon spend almost every day in the garden, sometimes with Dickon as company. The children and Ben conspire to keep Colin's recovering health a secret from the other staff, so as to surprise his father, who is travelling abroad.
As Colin's health improves, his father experiences a coinciding increase in spirits, culminating in a dream where his late wife calls to him from inside the garden. When he receives a letter from Mrs Sowerby, he takes the opportunity finally to return home. He walks the outer garden wall in his wife's memory, but hears voices inside, finds the door unlocked, and is shocked to see the garden in full bloom, and his son healthy, having just won a race against Mary Lennox. The children tell him the story, and the servants watch, stunned, as Archibald and Colin walk back to the manor together.
Book Details
Language
EnglishOriginal Language
EnglishPublished In
1911Author
Frances Hodgson Burnett
England, United States
Frances Eliza Hodgson was born in Cheetham, Manchester, England. After her father died in 1853, when Frances was 3 years old, the family fell on straitened circumstances and in 1865 emigrated to the U...
More on Frances Hodgson BurnettDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books
The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain
A poor young boy from the slums of London watches a royal procession pass, with the youthful Prince of Wales riding at its head. He ventures too close...
The Children's Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit
This children's book retells twelve of Shakespeare's most popular plays as stories for children. Each of the plays are rewritten as short stories or f...
Glengarry School Days: A Story of Early Days in Glengarry by Ralph Connor
With international book sales in the millions, Ralph Connor was the best-known Canadian novelist of the first two decades of the Twentieth Century. Gl...
English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs
Jack the Giant-Killer, Tom Thumb, Goldilocks and The Three Bears, Henny Penny, Dick Whittington, The Three Little Pigs, Red Riding Hood and a host of...
The Algonquin Legends of New England by Charles G. Leland
This work, then, contains a collection of the myths, legends, and folk-lore of the principal Wabanaki, or Northeastern Algonquin, Indians; that is to...
The Golden Road by Lucy Maud Montgomery
The Golden Road is a 1913 novel by Canadian author L. M. Montgomery. In the sequel to The Story Girl Sara Stanley returns to join the King children in...
Fairy Tales Collection of Hans Christian Andersen by Hans Christian Andersen
A collection of something for everyone - the very popular stories, the less well-known stories and favorites, that both children and grownups can enj...
The Five Jars by M.R. James
A short story in a book form that’s more like a fantasy about a man who finds five jars in the woods and finds out how using the contents makes him aw...
Mrs. Peter Rabbit by Thornton Burgess
A wonderful book in which we meet the lucky little bunny who becomes Mrs. Peter Rabbit! This is one of many delightful animal books written by Thornto...
Fuzzy Wuzz - A Little Brown Bear of the Sierras by Allen Chaffee
In the breathtaking expanse of the Sierra Mountains, a captivating tale unfolds - "Fuzzy Wuzz - A Little Brown Bear of the Sierras" by Allen Chaffee....
Reviews for The Secret Garden
No reviews posted or approved, yet...