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