Unearthing The Secret Garden: The Plants and Places That Inspired Frances Hodgson Burnett

321 Pages·2021·30.532 MB·English

by  McDowell, Marta

U N E A R T H I N G

• T H E •
S E C R E T
G A R D E N
2
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Title page from the first London edition of The Secret Garden.
•
U N E A R T H I N G

• T H E •
S E C R E T
G A R D E N
T H E P L A N T S A N D P L AC E S T H AT
I N S P I R E D F R A N C E S H O D G S O N B U R N E T T
M A R TA M C D O W E L L
TIMBER PRESS • PORTLAND, OREGON
Copyright © 2021 by Marta McDowell. All rights reserved.
Photo and illustration credits appear on page 306.
Published by Timber Press, Inc.
The Haseltine Building
133 S.W. Second Avenue, Suite 450
Portland, Oregon 97204-3527
timberpress.com
Printed in China
“An American Author’s English Ha-ha,” originally published in Country
Life in America, vol. 10, no. 3, copyright 1906 by Doubleday, Page &
Company, New York.
My Robin, copyright 1912 by Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York.
In the Garden, copyright 1924 by Curtis Publishing Company, Philadelphia,
and 1925, The Medici Society of America, Boston and New York.
Cover design by Dylan Mierzwinski
Text design by Stacy Wakefield Forte
ISBN 978-1-60469-990-6
Catalogue records for this book are available from
the Library of Congress and the British Library.
•
FOR EVERYONE
WHO HAS LOVED,
LOVES, OR WILL
LOVE THE SECRET
GARDEN.
•

It was a lovesome, mystic
place, shut in partly by old
red brick walls against which
fruit trees were trained and
partly by a laurel hedge with
a wood behind it. It was
my habit to sit and write
there under an aged writhen
tree, gray with lichen and
festooned with roses.
—From My Robin (1912),
describing the rose garden
at Maytham Hall

Frances Hodgson Burnett
posing with her sundial and
roses in the garden that inspired
The Secret Garden.
•
The three homes and gardens of Frances Hodgson Burnett.
C O N T E N T S
10 Preface
PART ONE before THE SECRET GARDEN
16 CHAPTER ONE The Locked Door: England & America (1849–1897)
46 CHAPTER TWO Finding the Key: Maytham Hall, Kent (1898–1908)
70 - - - - Spring at Maytham
82 - - - - Summer at Maytham
92 - - - - Autumn at Maytham
PART TWO inside THE SECRET GARDEN
108 CHAPTER THREE A Gardener’s Guide to The Secret Garden:
Misselthwaite Manor, Yorkshire
118 - - - - Spring at Misselthwaite
132 - - - - Summer at Misselthwaite
140 - - - - Autumn at Misselthwaite
PART THREE after THE SECRET GARDEN
150 CHAPTER FOUR Nest Building: Plandome Park, New York (1909–1920)
174 CHAPTER FIVE A New Bit of Earth: Clifton Heights, Bermuda (1912–1920)
198 CHAPTER SIX When the Sun Went Down: Clifton Heights &
Plandome Park (1921–1924)
PART FOUR outside THE SECRET GARDEN
218 CHAPTER SEVEN Further Garden Writings of Frances Hodgson Burnett
221 - - - - Frances Has the Last Laugh: “An American Author’s English Ha-ha” (1906)
232 - - - - Connecting with Nature: My Robin (1912)
254 - - - - Gardening for Everybody: In the Garden (1924)
268 CHAPTER EIGHT Frances’s Plants: An Annotated List
284 Afterword: Sowing Seeds by Keri Wilt
290 Sources and Citations
304 Acknowledgments
306 Photo and Illustration Credits
308 Index