Frances Hodgson Burnett

Growing up in a poor New York neighbourhood, Cedric Errol appears to be a normal American boy. However, as he discovers when he meets his grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, he is actually Lord Fauntleroy, and is expected to become an English gentleman. Whisked away from his mother and his friends, Cedric must find a way to convince his grandfather to send him home and show him that there is more to nobility than titles and wealth. First published in 1886, Little Lord Fauntleroy was Frances Hodgson Burnett's first children's novel, and was hugely popular in its day. It contains many of the themes that would recur in her masterpiece The Secret Garden, and remains a witty and charming tale of a transatlantic clash of cultures.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a magical tale of transformation that has enchanted both children and adults since its publication in 1911. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library, a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold-foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This beautiful edition of The Secret Garden features an afterword by publisher Anna South. When Mary Lennox is orphaned she is sent from her home in India to live with her uncle at Misselthwaite Manor on the Yorkshire Moors. She arrives as a sour-faced, sickly and ill-tempered little girl, bewildered by her surroundings and desperately lonely. One day she discovers a way in to a secret abandoned garden and, with the help of local lad Dickon and her poorly cousin Colin, they set about restoring the garden.

Around the turn of the 20th century, Mary Lennox is a troubled, sickly and unloved 10-year-old girl, who was born in India to selfish, wealthy British parents, who never wanted her. She is cared for mainly by servants, who pacify her as far as possible to keep her out of her parents' way. She grows into a spoiled and selfish girl. After a cholera epidemic which kills Mary's parents and all the servants, Mary is discovered alive but alone in the empty house. She briefly lives with an English clergyman and his family, and is then sent to Yorkshire, England, to live with Archibald Craven, an uncle she has never met, at his bleak, isolated house, Misselthwaite Manor. At first, Mary is her usual self: sour and rude. She dislikes her uncle's home, the people in it, and most of all, the vast stretch of moor on which it sits, which seems scrubby and grey after the winter. She is told that she must stay confined to her two rooms and keep herself amused without much attention. Martha Sowerby, a good-natured maid, tells Mary a story of the late Mrs Craven and how she would spend hours in a private walled garden growing roses. Mrs Craven died after a tree branch fell on her in the garden, and the devastated Lord Craven locked the garden and buried the key. Mary's interest is aroused by this story and her ill manners begin to soften. Soon she comes to enjoy the company of Martha, the gardener Ben Weatherstaff, and a friendly robin redbreast, to whom she assigns a human personality. Her health and attitude improve, and she grows stronger as she plays by herself on the moor. Martha's mother buys Mary a skipping rope to encourage this, and Mary takes to it immediately. Mary occupies her time wondering about both the secret garden and about cries she hears at night. The servants claim not to hear the cries. As Mary explores the periphery of the gardens, her robin draws her attention to an area of disturbed soil. Here Mary finds the key to the locked garden and eventually the door to the garden itself. She asks Martha for garden tools, which Martha sends with Dickon, her 12-year-old brother. 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 shared the secret of the garden with him

A Little Princess is a children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, first published as a book in 1905. It is an expanded version of the short story Sara Crewe: or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's, which was serialized in St. Nicholas Magazine from December 1887. According to Burnett, after she composed the 1902 play A Little Un-fairy Princess based on that story, her publisher asked that she expand the story as a novel with "the things and people that had been left out before". The novel was published by Charles Scribner's Sons (also publisher of St. Nicholas) with illustrations by Ethel Franklin Betts and the full title A Little Princess: Being the Whole Story of Sara Crewe Now Being Told for the First Time. Based on a 2007 online poll, the U. S. National Education Association named the book one of its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children". 5] In 2012 it was ranked number 56 among all-time children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal, a monthly with primarily U. S. audience. It was the second of two Burnett novels among the Top 100, with The Secret Garden number 15