As Mary is exploring her uncle's gardens, a robin draws her attention to an area of turned-over soil. Mary finds the key to a locked garden, and begins an adventure that will change her life forever.
Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (24 November 1849 - 29 October 1924) was an English-American novelist and playwright. She is best known for the three children's novels Little Lord Fauntleroy (published in 1885-1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911). She was born in Cheetham, England. After her father died in 1852, the family fell on straitened circumstances and in 1865 immigrated to the United States, settling near Knoxville, Tennessee. There Frances began writing to help earn money for the family, publishing stories in magazines from the age of 19. Burnett enjoyed socializing and lived a lavish lifestyle. Beginning in the 1880s, she began to travel to England frequently and in the 1890s bought a home there where she wrote The Secret Garden. She settled in Nassau County, Long Island, where she died in 1924.
