The writer Frances Hodgson Burnett was born on this day, November 24th, in 1849.
She was briefly mentioned in the article that lists some more Sagittarian writers. I read her three most popular children's books when I was very young and quite liked The Secret Garden and The Little Princess, but I knew almost nothing about her. After learning that she was interested in metaphysical matters, I put an investigation of her life on my to-do list.
I have looked again at the children's books and trawled through some biographical material. I found a lot of fairly interesting information about Frances Hodgson Burnett's life, some of it unexpected and some of it depressing.
Where this blog is concerned, the results of the investigation to date are rather disappointing. Unlike fellow Sagittarian L. M. Montgomery, whose books, journals and letters are packed with article-inspiring material, Frances Hodgson Burnett provides very little that resonates or that I want to quote and comment on.
There is nothing new about her being different from the people around her as a child or being an avid reader and an inventor of exciting adventure stories from an early age. She was not the only writer to find books and the products of her imagination better than real life either.
Wanting to have something to show for my efforts, I selected enough material for a short article. It consists mainly of some elements that Frances Hodgson Burnett had in common with L. M. Montgomery.
Frances Hodgson Burnett has been described as a writing machine; L. M. Montgomery felt compelled to write and was also very prolific.
Both writers were profoundly influenced by works of the Brontës. There are some parallels to both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights in Frances Hodgson Burnett's Secret Garden for example.
Both writers had their first stories published when they were still teenagers.
Both writers became the main breadwinner in their families; in Frances Hodgson Burnett's case this started at the age of 18, when she began to make money from writing.
Both writers lost a parent at a very early age.
Both writers had a marriage that turned into a nightmare.
Both writers had two sons and no daughters.
Frances Hodgson Burnett loved gardens and the natural world; L. M. Montgomery wrote about gardens and was a great nature lover.
Frances Hodgson Burnett once described herself as a 'flower drunk'; L. M. Montgomery said, “I am simply a 'book drunkard.'”
Violets were Frances Hodgson Burnett's favourite flower. She often wore bunches of them in her clothes; L. M. Montgomery wrote a poem about a fallen, dying violet called The Violet's Spell.
Frances Hodgson Burnett had reddish hair and gave red hair to many of the characters in her books, including the boy Dickon in The Secret Garden; L. M. Montgomery's heroine Anne Shirley has red hair.
Both writers were interested in metaphysical matters such as spiritualism and both wrote ghost stories.
Frances Hodgson Burnett attended séances; she was interested in theosophy and mental healing; she believed that the mind is a very powerful force for both good and evil.
"One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts--just mere thoughts--are as powerful as electric batteries--as good for one as sunlight is or as bad for one as poison."
This sounds like psychological white and black magic! There is even a mention of black and white magic towards the end of the story.
I still have a few 'promising' leads to follow up and some of Frances Hodgson Burnett's stories for adults to investigate. If I find anything else of interest, there will eventually be another article.
Frances Hodgson Burnett and one of her best-known books:
