The previous article about Frances Hodgson Burnett mentions the low return on investment in terms of the time and effort that I spent investigating her life and works and the small amount of article-inspiring material that I found.
Since then, I have followed up a few more leads and read a biography or two. I have found enough material for a few short articles, which just about makes the exercise worthwhile.
This article highlights some comments in Gretchen Gerzina's biography Frances Hodgson Burnett (2004) that remind me of material in the autobiography of a very different writer.
Frances Hodgson Burnett's sister Edith said something very significant about her:
“I always knew that my sister Frances was different, even when we were children, though, of course, at the time I could not have told you why...there was something about her that set her apart from other people.”
This applies to most of the other writes featured on here. Isaac Asimov for example said this in his autobiography In Memory Yet Green:
”I had begun to suspect that I was not as other children were even before I went to school. Once I was in school, there was no way in which I could avoid the knowledge.“
This is not the only element that Frances Hodgson Burnett had in common with Isaac Asimov.
Gretchen Gerzina gives an account of Frances Hodgson Burnett's fury when a new young editorial assistant wrote a list of suggested improvements for a manuscript that she had sent to her publisher.
Her friend Elizabeth Jordan described Frances's reaction when she saw the list:
“The result,” Elizabeth wrote, “was an explosion that shook the building which held the magazine and its employees.”
The young assistant lost his job!
“When Elizabeth later asked why Frances was so averse to criticism when she averred that stories came from outside herself, the answer was that “I am the custodian of a gift. It is for me to protect its dignity from the driveling of imbeciles!”"
This is exactly how many creative people feel: they see themselves as custodians of something valuable. They are not operating just for their own benefit; they become angry when criticised, impeded and thwarted because they sense that something far bigger than their personal interests is at stake.
Frances Hodgson Burnett was not being difficult just for the hell of it: she was just trying to protect and develop her gift. She did not suffer fools gladly: she became furious with the editorial assistant because he stood in her way and thought that he knew better than she did how her manuscript should be written.
Gretchen Gerzina's account of Frances Hodgson Burnett's reaction reminds me of how angry Isaac Asimov and Noel Streatfeild were when people blocked them by refusing to answer their questions – on subjects that they later wrote books about.
