Mary Lennox is a sickly, sour-faced little girl born in India to wealthy British parents who have very little interest in her, leaving her in the care of a nanny from birth. Orphaned by an outbreak of cholera, she is sent back to England to the legal guardianship of her only remaining relative, her father’s brother-in-law, Archibald Craven, a reclusive widower. Mary has all kinds of adventures with strange sounds at night, funny accents and a locked garden.
The Secret Garden is a perennial favorite among children’s theaters because of its themes. The author, Frances Hodgson Burnett, was a practitioner of Christian Science due to the premature death of her son as well as personal illness. As a result, The Secret Garden espouses the concepts of New Thought and theosophy as well as ideas about the healing powers of the mind, concepts very new at the time, but well accepted in medical science of today. Great Maytham Hall Garden, Kent, England, provided the inspiration for The Secret Garden
The garden is the book’s central symbol. The secret garden at Misselthwaite Manor is the site of both the near-destruction and the subsequent regeneration of a family. Using the garden motif, Burnett explores the healing power inherent in living things.
