![]() ![]() The seed of the tale of lonely Mary and Colin, upon whom nature and the gradual gathering of friends slowly work miracles, was sown at Great Maytham Hall but its full flowering took time. It is undoubtedly The Secret Garden that is Hodgson Burnett’s masterpiece. Together in the peaceful privacy of the garden they bring hope, Mary’s tender side and Colin’s legs back to life. And finally a proto-sexgod called Dickon, brother of the manor’s friendly maid Martha Sowerby, who knows all about gardening and how to roast eggs in a tree hollow. A SECRET GARDEN – the key to which Mary discovers as she begins to warm to and explore Misselthwaite Manor. A disabled boy – her cousin Colin, who has a non- specific spinal problem and is the source of the mournful cries that have been keeping Mary up at night and improving her temper not at all. A country house – Misselthwaite Manor, to which Mary is sent to live with her even more sour-faced uncle who is still mourning the death of his wife. An admirably sour- faced orphan – Mary Lennox, whose parents die when cholera sweeps through their home in India. It was The Secret Garden(1911), and it had absolutely everything you could possibly want in a story. As one of that happy, if pallid, breed I can confirm that she was absolutely right. The writer and critic Marghanita Laski once said that she had loved it because it was ‘a book for introspective town children’. My introduction to the Edwardian classics was an absolute belter. ![]()
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