Frances Hodgson Burnett
Born: November 24, 1849 – Cheetham, Manchester, England
Frances Hodgson Burnett was an Anglo-American novelist and playwright best known for children’s classics exploring resilience, imagination, and class, including The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, and Little Lord Fauntleroy. Her books became international bestsellers and have been translated widely, with enduring influence through frequent stage, film, and television adaptations.
Biography & Author's Journey
Frances Hodgson Burnett was born Frances Eliza Hodgson in Manchester, England, on November 24, 1849, and came of age under the pressure of family loss and financial insecurity. After her father’s death, the family’s circumstances declined, and in 1865 her mother moved the household to Tennessee. That migration proved decisive. In rural America, Burnett encountered hardship directly and began writing not as a hobby but as a practical means of support. She sold stories to magazines while still very young, helping to sustain her family and discovering, in the process, the blend of narrative pace, emotional clarity, and social observation that would define her career. Her early education was irregular, but she was a voracious reader, and much of her literary formation came through self-education, close observation, and disciplined work for periodical markets.
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Community Voices
"Frances Hodgson Burnett was an American playwright and author who wrote the popular novel Little Lord Fauntleroy"
— Britannica
"Frances Hodgson Burnett enjoyed parallel celebrity in her day, though not equal riches"
— The Independent
"A.S. Byatt once referred to Frances Hodgson Burnett as "Perhaps the first truly transatlantic writer."
— A.S. Byatt
"Yet for Frances Hodgson Burnett, the wild popularity of her prolific literary output made such a home her reality for nearly a decade"
— The Paris Review
"When she began to write The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett was fifty-nine and nearing the end of a long and brilliant literary career"
— The New Yorker
"Frances Hodgson Burnett, whose books are set in English gardens at tea time, was born in England but wrote most of her books in Washington"
— The Washington Post